A toast to the departed.

Next Hillary said “Jeeze, this is like a media lynching.”

I don’t feel like answering his questions.

I thought the idea was to hang in there until Obama or someone else on his campaign said or did something so stupid as to kill Obama’s candidacy. In lolcat parlance, “thay did it rong”. Epic fail.

We can post Wonkette’s take, norbiz.

Ok, yeah, but:

What you say doesn’t just materialize in your mouth. You have to think it first. If nothing else, the comment says that she has thought about the fact that one of her potential paths to the nomination is by the death of her opponent, and that’s just damn ghoulish. I’ll cut her slack on having thought it, because you really can’t control what pops into the ol’ noggin. And, given the high-stakes nature of a presidential contest, I wouldn’t be surprised if a candidate looks at all angles, even the icky ones. But for God’s sake, you don’t say it out loud. Is it such a compelling thought, taboo or otherwise, that you can’t help yourself? You know, like when someone tells you, “don’t look, but this guy has hair plugs” and then you can’t stop yourself from staring at his hairline? If so, it’s a crippling lack of self-control for someone seeking the presidency, and if not, it’s worse.

This is, by my count, at least the third time Hillary or a member of her campaign has obliquely brought up assassination. There was the Time interview, there was McAuliffe bringing up the “what if something happens to the frontrunner before the convention” on one of the cable talking heads shows. That makes it not a slip of the tongue but a talking point. And irresponsible for all the reasons stated in my post on the previous thread.

The difference is we’ve now seen evdience that she is in fact the demon descendant Charybdis.

I’m glad Peej didn’t call her a hydra. that would have been sexist

I’d like to know, Brad, why you weren’t already drinking?

It’s friday night, it’s gotta be around eight when you posted this, sure, going out, got that, but to eschew cocktails until your arrival at some designated watering hole just is too strongly indicative of pretty sound mental health and some pretty effective demon management, which, if true, most of us don’t need to hear about, and if a lie, is a sad, sad thing and you need to get into group therapy or group sex ASAP…

mikey

make that “evidence” and descendant of …

More gin, please.
Wordpress is the Hillary Clinton of blogging software.

This is some debate limiting bullshit. If you’re super worried that Obama is gonna get assassinated that’s your problem, and doesn’t mean the rest of us should be banned from reflecting on recent history. The obvious point being that Bobby Kennedy’s California victory in JUNE (after May.. which is now) turned around that year’s primary… he was losing, and his victory there changed that. If you, as a good democrat, can’t be bothered to remember that fact while shouting that Hillary shouldn’t drag this primary on too long, then perhaps the fact that one of our better leaders got frickin shot in the process will help you bring it to mind.

that being said: Hillary should get the hell out and Obama should be allowed to concentrate on McCain, because unlike Hillary, Bobby Kennedy actually still had a chance to win in June.

Also, the California primary this year was on Feb. 5.

It stunk before but it stinks even more now because of the context of the comments. She is in an unwinnable position and has been for some time, and in all historical contexts people who have reached that point bow out gracefully and throw their support behind the nominee. She said she couldn’t understand that, she couldn’t understand why people were trying to “push her out”, and she’s went on to cite the June assassination of RFK as a reason she should continue her campaign.

It’s a mind-boggling WTF moment. It’s just such a concentrated dose of teh stupid. It’s not just that June was mid-campaign in 1968, it’s not just that Bill Clinton wrapped up his 1992 nomination well before California, and it’s not just that almost all candidates lose, and almost all do so gracefully, and it’s a reasonable expectation that she will do so. It that it’s never part of a campaign rationale that your opponent might die late in the race. It goes without saying that if any candidate dies from any cause at any time before any election, someone else will be taking over their role. Obviously!

That is, it goes without saying, unless you’re in the Hillary campaign.

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June
It is as if Clinton is competing with McCain, not only in terms of who has “crossed the C-i-C threshold”, but for who is wrinkliest. “He remembers Pearl Harbour? So? I remember Kennedy’s assassination!”
They’ll both do anything to capture the youth vote.

They have a decent point, SC.

If Obama isn’t one of the candidates, our youts won’t be voting. Which would be excellent news for republicans, by the way.

It’s drill.

She can’t be, won’t be and ain’t gonna be the nominee.

She’s continuing to operate on desperation and bad advice.

The problem is that it’s another taboo. The press won’t say she’s done ’cause it’s financially GOOD for them to keep her candidacy artificially alive. But it’s time to start talking about reality. It’s time to recognize that just like the republicans, who have not yet officially nominated McCain, the democrats have a “presumptive nominee”. His name is Barack Obama, and the only debate left in the can is how many ford trucks can we sell the rubes before they demand hybrids too…

mikey

Also, the California primary this year was on Feb. 5.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. Were they gonna do a Mulligan?

“I know that Hillary isn’t saying she’s holding out for an Obama assassination”

How do you know that? What else would she be holding out for? What other thing would give her the nomination? If Obama had a stroke? If Obama fell off a building? If Obama professed his love for an underage boy? Sure, all of these things would also make her the likely candidate. However, all of these things are less likely than an assassination.
In fact, can you give a reason for her to stay in the race that is more plausible than the fact that she is hoping Obama gets offed? Wake up! Stop making excuses for her. She is an awful person with little more than blind ambition motivating her. That is where Occam’s Razor should take you. Anything else is just denial at this point.

Also, maybe if your point is to establish that it’s “nothing particularly unusual” and nothing really bad for nomination fights to continue on into June, maybe you shouldn’t use as your repeat reference the year of 1968, one of the single most freakish and harmful of all nomination fights, the year in which the incumbent LBJ is driven by Vietnam War outrage to decline to run for re-election, when not one but two anti-war candidates (RFK and McCarthy) emerge to challenge the Vice-President, Humphrey, who otherwise isn’t preparing to run, and then one of the anti-war candidates (RFK) is killed after winning the California primary and then is possibly positioned to upset the calculations of winner, there is a police riot at the convention in which supporters of the remaining anti-war candidates are attacked & beaten on TV, Humphrey takes the nomination without having entered a single primary, and then the Democrats go on to lose the general election to Richard Nixon.

So, really, yeah, if you’re point is that June nomination fights happen all the time, pshaw, they’re no problem, you may want to find a better reference year to cite over and over and over.

And another thing… If she got out of the race, and Obama was assassinated, she would be in the same position. It doesn’t help her to stay in the race even if he is assassinated.

To say that the 1968 Democratic campaign was still up in the air after the California primary in June is technically correct. RFK had huge momentum, but still needed to convince the party big-wigs to back him, a process that might have taken until the convention in August (the primaries did not allocate all the delegates to the convention back then).

But the fact that he was murdered mere moments after claiming victory obliterates any attempt to use it as historical precedent. The only thing most people remember is that RFK was assasinated late in the campaign that he was about to win. If you mention it as a reason to continue a campaign, the only think people are going to think is that you are hoping that lightning will literally strike the front-runner.

If you wanted a safer example, why not the Ford-Reagan battle of 1976, which went all the way to the convention in Kansas City.

…that should have read “the only thing people are going to think…”

Hillary didn’t say ‘sorry-if-I-offended you.’ She said ‘sorry-if-I-offended-THE-KENNEDY’S’

And her office’s explanation was condescending and offensive by itself.

Now I think Keith Olbermann was really harsh, kicking Hillary while she’s down, over a gaffe that was not meant to mean that she is hanging around in case Obama quits or dies….

…but Keith did explain it best. Her remarks in March were a swerve with skid marks, and tonight her comment on the same topic came-off cold and brutal.

And do we really want a Democratic candidate to mention June 1968 in that context? This is something even the wingnuts are careful not to talk about.

She thought about these statements a lot. She’d said similar things before. So it’s not a gaffe. It’s pre-meditated, and it’s just . . . enough. She needs to exit the race. Tomorrow if not sooner. Dr. Dean, please end this idiocy. Hillary can’t win, won’t win, and frankly would be a catastrophe for the party in November. Far from being “vetted,” she is in fact generating metric tons of luggage every day she stays in the race.

Me? I’m with Stemler (for whatever whoever I am is worth).

As odious as Clinton is being right now, I don’t thing she’s saying ‘assasination’ with a wink and a nudge. She is trying to hornswaggle the American Public by claiming she still has a legit path to the nomination. She’s doing this with championing Michigan and Florida, and her surrogates are doing this every time they go on the t.v. (c.f. Terry MacAullif (sp?)). She’s moving every goalpost she can get to make it look like she’s not out. I’m pretty sure the reason she invoked Bobby Kennedy is because he was turning the nomination tide in June.

However, come to think of it, she could have invoked this easily by just saying ‘and Bobby Kennedy was just turning the nomination momentum his way at the late date of June of 1968,’ without bringing up assasination.

So, yeah, it’s weird that a polished politician who watches every word for most of her life wouldn’t have come up with a better phrasing. But I really have a hard time believing that it was meant as a “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” moment.

Beyond the obvious, the problem with using the 1968 primary campaign as an example is that it’s not an honest analogy.

In 1968, the first state to vote, New Hampshire, held their primary on March 12 – that’s over 3 months later than when the campaign began this year (Iowa, Jan. 3). Kennedy didn’t enter the race until March 16. Johnson announced he wouldn’t run for re-election on March 31. Soon after that, Humphrey announced he was in the race.

Only 13 states had voted by the time Kennedy was assissinated; that was out of a total of 14 states that held primaries in 1968. Only the New York primary remained to be held. Humphrey didn’t actively campaign in them and instead concentrated on winning the other states where party insiders controlled the process. He campaigned via surrogates in a few states, and won a couple of states in this way, and eventually won a whole bunch of states via the party insiders. At the time of RFK’s death, the delegate totals were as follows:

Humphrey 561
Kennedy 393
McCarthy 258

Only 1212 delegates out of a total 2607 – less than half – had been allocated (Johnson had a few from his New Hampshire win but those would have gone to Humphrey).

The race, in June 1968, was still theoretically wide open, though it’s likely Humphrey would have been the nominee even if Kennedy had not been killed, thanks to his overwhelming advantage among party poo-bahs who controlled the delegates from the majority of states.

Unlike the race in June, 2008. Which has been over since sometime in February.

There’s no analogy between the two situations.

We`re talking about this now for the same reason Obama had to talk about Wright FAST, why it took 3 months for McCain to drop Hagee, and for the same reason George Allen isn`t the Republican nominee.

Video.

If you could see the printed word, Hillary could have very easily walked it back, you can`t walk youtube back.

As it is now, if Hill somehow gets the nomination, my Nader bumper sticker is coming back out.

This is some debate limiting bullshit. If you’re super worried that Obama is gonna get assassinated that’s your problem, and doesn’t mean the rest of us should be banned from reflecting on recent history.

Please do go on about Bobby Kennedy as much as you like. I sure the “rest of us” will also add much to the discussion. His hat size? I dunno! Educate me!

El Cid “you may want to find a better reference year to cite over and over and over.”

Yes. Other long-running nomination battles Clinton could cite have been suggested:

-1976 Ford v Reagan (in which the winner lost the GE)
-1980 Kennedy v Carter (in which the winner lost the GE)
-1984 Mondale v Hart (in which winner lost the GE)

Notably in 1968, the nominee was didn’t win the primaries but was appointed by superdelegates. Before going on to lose the GE.

As I said in the earlier thread, 1968 is particularly painful for people of Hillary Clinton’s generation. McCain remembers Pearl Harbor as a kid; Obama presumably was old enough to remember RFK and MLK’s deaths, in the same way I remember John Lennon’s, but Hillary’s boomer peers were at the right age for 1968 to hit hard.

Point is, that was 40 years ago. It’s twenty-odd years since Hinkley shot at Reagan, and he was a crazy person. There’s a sense that all those fucking assassinations could be confined to the past, even though Obama’s campaign is a hold-your-breath thing in that regard. So no-one wants to jinx it, and Hillary’s comments today came close to jinxing.

The Superdelagates need to have a big conference call next week, grow some balls, and all switch to Obama. Let the Puerto Ricans and Nebraskans cry about missing their chance to vote for The Hill.

Whatever. I’m angrier the more I think about this. Hill has to suspend her campaign. Democrats don’t do this to each other. I am embarrassed for my party, and no, it’s not Obama’s fault this time!

Now if you excuse me, I have a Grande Two Percent Vanilla Latte to order…..elitist fuck that I am.

Let’s all take a deep breath. All Zellary is asking is that we acknowledge the possibility of a flying monkey attack.

Please do go on about Bobby Kennedy as much as you like. I sure the “rest of us” will also add much to the discussion. His hat size? I dunno! Educate me!

penis.

Gaffe? GAFFE??!?! I think not

Throughout the 1970s, when that 3 am phone call came, Hillary was too busy to answer, having snorted Vivarin and then becoming thoroughly engrossed in another Hitchcock episode. While everyone else had gone to the disco to do their frivolous ‘Bump’ to KC & the Sunshine Band, Hillary’s imagination was running wild, plotting for the day that she could break the barrier and become the first Drama Queen In Chief.

Well, anyway, that’s it for any possibility of Hillary getting the VP slot. One of the guys at GNB already had said that if she got to be VP and Obama was assassinated, she would instantly be at the center of the worst tinfoil-hat conspiracy shitstorm in American history, even if she were blameless.

But with this, it would start the day after the announcement of her appointment, even with Sen. Obama perfectly healthy. Can you imagine the TV jokes?

** The Secret Service just installed a special feature in the West Wing hallway between Vice President Clinton’s office and the Oval Office: a metal detector.

** President Obama is continuing the tradition of a weekly private high level policy lunch for the president and the vice-president: just him, Mrs. Clinton, his food taster, and his three-man armed bodyguard detail.

I’m no joke writer, but things like this are just too obvious. They write themselves, as the saying goes. I can’t imagine Obama and the Dem party being willing to endure them even for the campaign, less four to eight years.

But maybe Hillary. Which is the sad, sad point.

*** Vice President Clinton has been moved into special quarters in the basement of the White House – a special plexiglass-fronted cell. When she is needed in the West Wing, she will be fitted with a special face mask and restraining jacket to prevent injury to the President.

MPS says: “I don’t even have words for this.
Posted by Tengrain
May 23rd, 2008
Go read Morse’s Media Needle.
I have a lot of respect for some of my blogging friends who support Hillary Clinton, but I think after this, if you still support her it must be a character defect. She is a monster. There is nothing she won’t say, nothing she won’t do, and try to pass it off afterwards as some sort of misstatement?
From the beginning she was my least-favorite candidate (and Obama was close behind – hence the Dressing-on-the-Side to her Iceberg Lettuce), but I have no tolerance for anyone suggesting assassination to get ahead. And if this makes me a sexist, so be it: it’s time to call it quits, Hill. Oh, and Hill? Fuck You.”
I agree fuck her, she is done everyone has been saying don’t say anything be cool. Sometimes it is what it is and this should finish the job she started with “I am the white working classes messiah” as in if you are brown you are lazy and don’t work as hard as white people do. She will not take no for answer she will take it all the way to Aug and then still not win. What will she pull a Joe Lieberman? Break from the party and just turn into a huge asshhole well more of one like Joe Cockbag? Just look what is going on with good old Joe he is backing McCain!! Way to go Joe he knows how to make his dip-shit voters so proud!

Maybe Hillary knows something the rest of us don’t?

“What is different now than then?”

The difference is Obama now appears to have won, and thus in this formulation would be the one getting assasinated. Except Hillary doesn’t see it that way. She honestly believes the race is still wide open. To her the observation is just as benign as it was in March or whenever her handlers put it in her talking points.

Hillery’s self-delusion is sad, as is the Obamanation’s determination to find outrage in a poorly thought out line of rhetoric.

As someone who works for the Obama campaign, I’ve had to cover my increasing revulsion for her campaign with the “proper” public face. I will continue to do so for the benefit of what I am working so hard to accomplish. I will say that these sorts of things REALLY make it difficult to maintain a dispassionate mien when debating the qualities of the two Democratic candidates.

I hope the Democratic powers that be will alleviate my position.

Jennifer,
When was the general election in 1968? When is the election this year?
When was the convention held in 1968 and when will it be held this year?
Clinton is arguing she should continue because when the race is over there will still be almost three months until the convention and five months until the general. She is arguing against the idea that by not dropping out she is diminishing Obama’s chance to win. Using your logic no other Democratic primary would be analogous since the calendar is different every four years.

Obama may be very close but he can not lock up the nomination until the supers vote at the convention. The race has been in the hands of the superdelegates since March. Similar to 1968 when the nominee was decided at the convention by party insiders.

faulty: The Democrats lost in 1968. So it’s difficult to use 1968 as an example of why nomination fights which continue on into June are “nothing particularly unusual” and not harmful.

This is central to our point.

…and Gary Ruppert has found a home at No Quarter….

We DO need more posts about this. Let’s not have a holiday weekend take Clinton off the hook. The senator from New York needs to suspend her campaign, pronto. When you raise the specter of assassination, you need to take your own ass OUT. Not literally, just out of the campaign. Fuck Puerto Rico. Sorry, colonials….you lose your chance to vote for Hillary. Not your fault. Lo siento, amigos.

I’m still outraged. More so. 12 hours of sleep had no positive effect.

i can’t believe you (the apologetic author) can think that that shit was not on her mind. and then have the NERVE to COMPARE IT TO AN OBAMA GAFFE ON BITTERNESS?!¡?¿¿ that’s really sick stuff. I’m guessing at the least she must be crossing her fingers for someone to do it. I didn’t think so until i read this (together with her other mention, THAT’S TWO TIMES!). They’ve killed plenty of them already, just as they were on the rise. You don’t think that was all that long ago do you? those people are still around, and in power.

I HAVE HEARD PLENTY OF THIS DEATH TALK ALREADY. i can remember 3 distinct assass. jokes about Obama ON TV!

wake up….

faulty – the issue isn’t how much time remained on the calendar until the convention or general in 1968; the issue is that in June, 1968 the nomination was far from being “sewn up” though for the reason I mentioned, it probably would have gone to Humphrey anyway. To answer your question, in 1968 the convention was in August and the election was on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, like it always is.

It’s not unusual for candidates to remain in the race when it’s wide open and it’s not unusual for a candidate who has stopped campaigning midway through the primaries to not formally concede until the convention. What is unusual is for a candidate to continue actively contesting the nomination when so few delegates remain to be allocated that it’s virtually impossible, mathematically, for that candidate to win. June 2008 would only be analogous to June 1968 if thus far only 2000 delegates had been allocated (Democratic nominating conventions have almost twice the number of delegates today as they had in 1968). Instead, in late May 2008 we have a situation where one candidate has 1969 of the 2026 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination – he’s got 95% of the total needed to win – and 3755 of the 4050 delegates at stake, or over 90%, have been allocated. In ’68 at the time of Kennedy’s assissination, less than half had been allocated and the ultimate winner of the nomination had less than half of the delegates he needed to win. So the shifting primary calendar has nothing to do with this; as usual, it’s the math that’s the issue.

I understand that it’s Hillary’s argument that she has the right to stay in the race until the convention. But at this point, there’s only two reasons why any candidate, especially one deeply in debt, would do so: 1) to hold onto some power to use for platform or other concessions at the convention or 2) in case the winning candidate has a spectacular meltdown, dies or is otherwise no longer able to carry the party’s standard in November. In case the first, she could have stopped campaigning a month ago and held onto the clout needed for concessions. And since case the second has now been openly alluded to at least 3 times, in public, by Hillary or members of her campaign…well, you figure it out.

The bottom line remains that the use of 1968 as an example was a fallacious one for a number of reasons; the fact that the RFK assassination has been alluded to either openly or obliquely at least 3 times by the candidate or campaign insiders indicates that it is, in fact, the reason why 1968 keeps being used as an example. A particularly tasteless one.

Also, Ted.

Fucking wordpress.

Actually, people are upset about this now because of misogyny. It’s because we’re all sexist jerks. You might think that this has nothing to be with sexism, but you’re wrong because umm err, uh, and thus for all women – mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, female beings of pure energy that materialized from the ether and therefore have no relatives, for all of them and more, um, er. This is misogyny!!!!

I agree. A gaffe from candidates who are on the record 18 hours a day.

But then, considering Hillary went immediately to the worst possible interpretation of the “bitter” comment and then rode the “he’s an elitist” horse for all it was worth, which in that case was at least 5 of her 9 point win in Pennsylvania, I think she has no right to expect that she should be give the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Actually, I think the the Obama campaign should be praised for not exploiting this like they could. May the graciousness spread.

also,

Harry Cheddar, let me teach you a lesson. won’t take long. When you mention the death of your competitor (TWICE) in a close race, that is not rhetoric, not by a long shot. i hope you learned. also, your term of ‘Obamanation’ and the inference of only ‘them’ taking offense at these words is highly stupid. i can’t help you there, sorry (not really).

Specialist, you just made my day with this one:

Let’s all take a deep breath. All Zellary is asking is that we acknowledge the possibility of a flying monkey attack.

That said, the TV pundits on this one are really getting hilarious.

When you mention the death of your competitor (TWICE)

That would be pretty damning. Except for the whole part about mentioning the death of her competitor. Which never happened.

That would be pretty damning. Except for the whole part about mentioning the death of her competitor. Which never happened.

Gosh, this is just like Rush Limbaugh’s perfectly innocent cracks about Michael J. Fox, or his racist innuendos, or any one of a million other horribly offensive things that he said that most people immediately understood the direct meaning of.

Hillary is stating the following, not very obliquely at all: “I’m staying in the race because some nutjob might kill my opponent soon.”

What she also told me yesterday was: “I’m monstrously vain and narcissistic and think that this whole process revolves around me and I’m just waiting for things to go my way . . . which they will if I just bully people around long enough.”

And what I’d like her to hear me saying is: “Get out of the race now you horrid wretch before you destroy everything your party and country stand for.”

You’re complaining about things that no one actually said; you’re complaining about your own imagination. You’re going out of your way to interpret them as sufficiently awful… to justify your opinion of their sufficient awfulness. It must be fun to build strawmen in your own head so that you can assign them to Hillary Clinton and then light them up, effigy-style.

“Get out of the race now you horrid wretch before you destroy everything your party and country stand for.”

Who’s supposed to be the “bully,” again?

Get out of the race, Clinton, before the Democratic party bleeds to death. The patient is hemorrhaging, Dr. Dean and Nurse Pelosi. We need to stop the bleeding, STAT.

And fuck all you Clinton defenders. Get the fuck out of my party.

Go Red Sox

Dude, Clinton supporters = millions and millions of people. Don’t you think it’s rather unwise to kick every one of them out of the treehouse?

El Cid

Humphrey lost by 1% of the popular vote in 1968. The disarray at the convention and the south going for Nixon or Wallace were much more significant than a competitive Dem race continuing into June. 1968 is a better choice than the blowout loss of 1980 that Kennedy is partly blamed for.

Jennifer

1968 race goes to the convention
1972 contested primaries in June, McGovern hits magic number with CA
1976 contested primaries in June, Carter is close but does not have magic number of delegates. Remaining opponents drop out.
1980 contested primaries in June. Carter wins majority of delegates but Kennedy takes race to the convention anyway.
1984 contested primaries in June, Mondale is 40 votes short of magic number. He wins the nomination at the convention
1988 All but one competitor withdraws within weeks of Super Tuesday,
1992 contested primary in June, Clinton hits magic number by winning CA
1996 uncontested
2000 Bradley withdraws March 9
2004 Kerry clinches nomination on March 11

Of the past ten Democratic nomination contests we have two races that go to the convention and four more that have contested primaries in June.
If you remove the 1996 uncontested race, 67% of the Democratic contests over the past 40 years have been contested into at least June. Clinton’s campaign is hardly unusual.

I’ll support whoever gets nominated by the Democratic party. But there are those who would not, who feel the need to demonize the ‘other’. Usually you find such people at LGF or Hot Air. But some apparently have not found their way to there yet.

Who’s supposed to be the “bully,” again?

If you think that’s bullying you evidently don’t have much experience with bullies. That’s standing up to bullying. Do you need me to call for a waaambulance for you?

From the greatest post of all time:

You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN

Seriously though, greatest post of all time – if only for this line:
I am not spotting him eight hundred million Hindus. I call shenanigans.

faulty – have tried to respond several times earlier, but WordPress sucks balls. Here I go again: comparing 2008 to 1968 is like comparing apples to oranges, and the same goes for pretty much all the contests of 30 and 40 years ago. For one thing, these contests going late have become more and more unusual as more states have turned to primaries and the calendar has been moved earlier and earlier. Futhermore, you can’t exclude 1996 and arrive at an honest calculation of how usual or unusual it is to have a nomination contest going into the convention. Including it, you have 60% going late over the past 40 years. But more significantly, in the past 20 years since we’ve had earlier primary calendars and more primary states, you only have one going late out of five contests, or 20%. And in that case, you had a very crowded field through Super Tuesday, with several candidates each picking up wins; by the time June rolled around, Brown was merely running a spoiler campaign. A California blowout win by Brown would have only denied Clinton his delegate majority; it wouldn’t have put Brown back into contention. Clinton had already secured the endorsements of rivals who had quit the race and would pick up their delegates at the convention.

So, I still assert that it’s unusual for the contest to be going on this late…particularly given that Obama will be going into June much closer to securing the nomination (if it’s not a done deal by the end of this month) than even Bill Clinton was in 92 – a relic of early voting in California this year vs. late voting in 92.

Promising to drive people out of organizations in which they have felt welcome… um, yeah, that’s a kind of bullying. Fuck off. That’s a kind of resistance to bullying.

I am sorry if you found the wheels of my SUV painful to your neck and spine area. It’s regretable that you have such a sensitive neck and spine, and I am sorry that you suffer from this sensitivity. I did not intend to offend your neck and/or spine in such a way as to cause paralysis and/or lack of functioning. Perhaps in the future you could exhibit the alertness required to dodge an SUV driven by a sleep-deprived person so this kind of sensitivity-based injury would not occur.

Hey guys, let’s be fair now. Hillary’s apologized already, I think sell-out Wonkette’s got the best take on it.

Also, the point about the ’68 primary only having been two months long at that point is very valid. To make up for it, we should redo all primaries that occured more than two months ago.

Ooops, forgot to change my name to Iris for that one.

Stemler:
“Obama should get the hell out and Clinton should be allowed to concentrate on McCain, because unlike Obama, Bobby Kennedy actually still had a chance to win in June.”

There, fixed that for you.

Oh, and Dhalgren? By your comments it’s rather obvious that it was never your party.