Cut the $#!#: Clinton's Staff Knows She Can't Win

From Politico: "One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives. In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe." So, basically, the Clintons must have a masochistic love of self-destruction because the overwhelmingly likely outcome of the Democratic primary will be what it has going to have been since Iowa 2+ months ago: Obama will be the nominee. So, two questions: 1. Why keep fighting? As easy as it would be to simply chalk it all up to the legendary Clinton hubris and stubborn arrogance, not to mention sense of entitlement, (all of which are most certainly at play) I think the real motivation is, sadly, more sinister. She's taking the Mitt Romney route and setting herself up for another presidential run in 2012. Romney had to drop out when it was clear he couldn't win because he couldn't be seen to hurt the party's nominee. That wasn't so bad for Romney because, frankly, McCain probably won't win and a salt-the-earth-for-McCain-even-though-I-can't-win-the-nomination campaign would have soured Republicans on Romney in a way they wouldn't have forgotten in four years. Since the momentum in the country right now is fiercely anti-Republican, Clinton doesn't have the same luxury. If Obama wins the Dem nomination, he'll probably win the Presidency and then, unless she wants to give him a primary challenge in 2012 (unlikely, but see above hubris, etc. comment), she's going to have to wait until 2016 to make another run. By then she'll probably have to compete with Obama's VP (cause it ain't gonna be her - Go Jim Webb!) and a whole crop of names that we probably don't even know right now - most of whom, if all goes well, will probably be trying to emulate Obama, something Clinton can't do even with 8 years of practice. (She would have to add more to her public persona than being able to pretend to cry.) So, the answer to this question is, quite simply, Clinton wants Obama to either have a spectacular collapse before the convention so she can be the nominee, or have a spectacular collapse after the convention so McCain will win and she can run again in 2012 with Obama so stained by his loss in 2008 that he won't be able to run again and she'll be able to say, "See? You should have listened to me last time. Now shut up and get in line, peasants!" (Alright, she probably wouldn't say "peasants".) 2. Why the hell is the media pretending Clinton can still win the nomination? Answer: The Horse race. The Horse race gets ratings. The Horse race sells papers (if people still bought newspapers). I touched on this last month when I commented that less than 7,500 votes and a healthy dose of the media in love with the trite, hackneyed "Comeback Kid" storyline (the kind of story they love because they have a Word doc with 75% of the story already written saved on their laptop) kept this crap alive. The Politico story actually does a good job of pointing this out. (Kudos Politico!) In summation, the Democratic nomination process is over. Don't give me this crap about letting everybody vote; when the hell has that ever happened in a primary? The fact that it actually went past South Carolina (although it shouldn't have) is noteworthy in primary history. So, listen up Clinton, I've said it before, I hope I don't need to say it too many more times: cut the $#!#. Seriously. You are not more important than America. You are not entitled to be either the Democratic nominee or the President of the United States. Ever. Stop embodying the stereotypical selfishness of the Worstest GenerationTM and get out before you do irreparable damage to your party and its nominee, Barack Obama.