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Thursday 8 May 2008

FULL SPEED TO THE WHITE HOUSE? YEAH, RIGHT!

Will Hillary Clinton have (FINALLY! FINALLY!) dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination by the time I finish typing and publishing this blog? The signs look good, with Sky News currently reporting that the party’s former presidential nominee George McGovern has urged the former First Lady to pull out and the Clinton camp admitting that their candidate has had to lend herself (!) $6.4 million over the past month simply in order to stay in the race.

Let’s face the facts: she had to win Indiana by a big margin if she was to have any chance of convincing super-delegates that she is the more ‘electable’ candidate. She failed, and failed miserably. Obama cut her earlier twenty-point lead to just two percent, despite all his troubles over his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Meanwhile over in North Carolina, where Hillary had acknowledged she had to either win or narrow the gap, the junior senator from Illinois managed to give the junior senator from New York a massive 14 percentage point whipping – 56% to 42%.

Yet the Hillary-Bill campaining combo (Billary?) have so far refused to give up and seem to be campaigning in a self-deluded, heads-in-the-sand, parallel universe. Despite being behind in the delegate count, behind in the popular vote and behind in the number of states won, this is what Senator Clinton had to say at her ‘victory’ rally in the Indiana state capital, Indianapolis, last night:

"Well, tonight we've come from behind. We've broken the tie, and thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House.”

Full speed? Yeah, right! Maybe if her definition of full speed is 5 miles an hour. She is down and out but she doesn’t want to admit it to herself – and nor do her equally delusional friends and family members. As pointed out by Guardian America’s Michael Tomasky yesterday morning:

“She - and Bill, and Chelsea, and most of the people around them - surely can't believe that she's about to lose the Democratic nomination. There was supposed to be no question about her winning it. There's reason to think they won't stop until the door is closed and triple-locked and boarded and sealed shut around the edges with rubber cement.”

Hillary’s supporters cling to the idea that she is the ‘electable’ candidate by repeatedly pointing out that their candidate wins more white, working-class votes than Obama does. They keep asking the question: ‘Why is it that Obama can’t win the white vote?’ Of course, the reality is that he has won plenty of white votes in plenty of white states (Iowa anybody?) and so I personally would turn the question on its head: ‘Why is it that Hillary can’t win the black vote?’ After all, come the general election in November, the Democrats won’t be expected to win the white, working-class vote (just ask John Kerry and Al Gore!) but, on the other hand, they simply can’t win – and never have won! – without the all-important black vote. But Hillary (with Bill’s help) has alienated black Democrats on a hitherto unprecedented level – and do I need to ask what the effect would be on black Democratic voters if a white candidate, behind in elected delegates and behind in the popular vote, effectively stole the nomination from a black front-runner by twisting the arms of unelected (and largely white) ‘super delegates’?

In fact, the party’s most senior black Congressman had this ominous warning for the Clintons, and the Democratic Party high command, only a week ago:

“We’ll be playing with fire if we interfere with the voters’ choice,” James Clyburn, the party’s chief whip in the House of Representatives, told The Sunday Times. “African-Americans will feel cheated.”

That’s the understatement of the century.

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