What Does She Want??
A normal, decent person, faced with the situation Hillary Clinton faced yesterday evening, would have conceded defeat. Hillary seems to think she has other options, prompting CNN's Jeffrey Toobin to call her refusal to concede "deranged narcissism." Perhaps. Lots of others speculate that she's bargaining for the Vice Presidency, but the chances of Obama picking her as a running mate are about the same that John McCain will. Negligible. Nor does she ensure a seat at the table on her signature issues — if she won't close Democratic ranks, why include her in much of anything, anymore? Assuming she's not deranged that leaves an intriguing possibility: she's contemplating running as an independent. Nobody that I've seen has speculated along these lines, but it's worth taking a moment to consider what might happen.
She may well see the regulus at the bottom of her cauldron as something other than slag. With "eighteen million" people having voted for her perhaps she thinks if she could more than double that in the general election she could have a chance. Which might be true if it had all been about her. But it wasn't and she doesn't own those votes. Indeed, her draw from the ranks of poor, uneducated, white Republican women — and let's be honest, unreconstructed racists — would probably far exceed whatever damage she does to Democrats. And she could well prompt disaffected moderate Republicans to switch their affiliation. All in all, if an independent run is what she's thinking, I'm all for it. And it would neatly exorcise the Clintons from the Democratic Party which, however much desirable, otherwise might not be possible.
Posted by George Kenney on June 4, 2008 12:50 PM 
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Comments
Interesting theory. I'm not so sure she would hurt Repubs more than Dems. Anyway, I'm scared to death Obama WILL pick her as veep. My worry about Obama is that he tries to please too many people. He may foolishly think he will win by scooping up Hillary's voters. Such a lame move would lose my vote. On the other hand, I read today that he pulled Lieberman aside in the senate for an off-line chat, and Lieberman seemed a bit 'intimidated'. I hope so!
Posted by: benjamin777
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June 5, 2008 6:13 PM
Who cares what she wants? Slam the door on her face. Now.
Posted by: Marty | June 5, 2008 8:23 PM
I can't see where she would find the money. I'll go with "deranged narcissism".
Posted by: 8isis8
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June 6, 2008 9:41 AM