annamayknot’s blog

Rats don’t swim toward sinking ships, and pols don’t back no losers, and this is why Hillary Clinton is in such trouble. In a relatively short amount of time, Clinton has gone from being the inevitable winner to being the underdog to being a dead woman walking. She needs superdelegates to win the nomination, but what is her argument to superdelegates? Can she promise them she will win a majority of the pledged delegates that voters have chosen in primaries and caucuses? No. Can she promise them she can take the lead in the popular vote? No. Can she promise them she can win a majority of the primary and caucus states? No. But can she get the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, slap African-Americans and young voters in the face and shatter the party? Well, yeah, she can try for that Death Star option. Why would superdelegates want to go along with her? Because she would be a much stronger candidate than Barack Obama in November? The results so far don’t suggest that. Look at what Obama accomplished Tuesday night with his overwhelming win in the 10th-largest state in the nation, North Carolina, and his narrow loss in Indiana: Obama spent weeks with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright hanging around his neck, and Obama still did well.

From NBC/NJ's Matthew E. Berger At a time when Sen. Hillary Clinton is increasingly relying on superdelegates to vault her to the Democratic Party's nomination, a handful of undecided and pledged superdelegates are coming forward to say her campaign's tactics in recent weeks are doing more harm than good. The Democratic Party insiders say they believe Clinton's direct attacks against Sen. Barack Obama in recent days are hurting the party and its chances in November, and also say it is showing a calculated, desperate-to-win side of Clinton that they dislike. "In looking at the manner in which the candidates are campaigning, I think it would be best they focused their attention on the presumptive nominee and showed our party which one is better in campaigning against McCain," said Garry Shay, a California superdelegate, who announced his support for Clinton. Unlike some in the party, these superdelegates said they do not believe Clinton should drop out of the race. They said they are committed to the democratic process, and want to allow the states still remaining to cast their ballots. But they acknowledged Obama is the likely nominee and suggested the personal attacks were only hurting the party and its viability. The Clinton campaign has been actively wooing these delegates, believing a plurality represents the strongest, and increasingly the only, way for her to win the nomination. But one undeclared delegate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the recent tactics are turning her and other superdelegates off. "I don't think anybody's saying 'step aside,' but 'stop with the garbage' is what people want to say," the delegate said. "Just chill a little bit." As activists committed to the party, they said, they have been impressed by Obama's ability to bring new Democrats into the fold, and they worry that Clinton is threatening that. "We like the fact that there is a candidate that has won so many states overwhelmingly," the delegate said. "We're feeling...

The Canadian Press has learned.Ironically, the day before the story hit American TV, Brodie, told reporters questioning him on trade that "someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . .That someone called us and told us not to worry." But that never made the headlines and no one raised it in the campaign. And as far as I've seen, only Keith Olbermann is seriously raising it since.

Suppose someone in the North Korean government released a false story that shifted a key American election. If Bush were negatively affected, we might be bombing Pyongyang by now. But this just happened with what Hillary Clinton called "NAFTAgate" Without it, she might never have won Ohio, or her margin would have been minuscule. But as a Canadian Broadcasting Company story reveals, practically the entire story was a lie, one that played so central a role in Clinton's Ohio victory as to thoroughly taint any claim she raises about a swing state mandate.

WASHINGTON - Surrounded by military leaders in a Cabinet-style setting, Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has "crossed the threshold" of foreign policy experience to serve as commander in chief. Supporters of rival Barack Obama fired back immediately, arguing that the former first lady's trips abroad hardly constituted a practice run for managing global crises. "She was never asked to do the heavy lifting" when meeting with foreign leaders, said Susan Rice, who was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and is now advising Obama. "She wasn't asked to move the mountain or deliver a harsh message or a veiled threat. It was all gentle prodding or constructive reinforcement. And it would not have been appropriate for her to do the heavy lifting."