Obama has 1,491 pledged delegates. Clinton has 1,332 pledged delegates. There remain 408 delegates to be pledged, plus 19 that have been pledged to Edwards. Clinton would need to win by a gap of 39 percent to catch up to Obama - not the "huge win" of 9 percent that she had in Pennsylvania.
These numbers are based on leaving out Florida and Michigan, which are being left out.
These numbers do not include Super Delegates.
But these are the indisputable numbers of delegates assigned to candidates by actual voters and caucus-goers.
Clinton cannot win. Period. She can only hope for an anti-democratic coup by Super Delegates that would destroy the Democratic Party.
So, why did we see "Clinton Wins" headlines all over the nation following her pick-up of 20 delegates in Pennsylvania?
When has any other candidate been kept on life-support by media corporations in this way? Hasn't the standard for dropping out always been - for every other candidate - the impossibility of winning, not actually having lost?
What can Clinton hope to gain from staying in other than hurting Obama's chances in order to avoid his running as an incumbent in 4 years?
And why is it so difficult for people to think for themselves and let the media and the Super Delegates and the Democratic Party know that WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH?
Don't believe me? Don't know how to do addition? Don't own a calculator? Here's a video of Chris Matthews admitting the media's role in this farce:
http://www.davidswanson.org
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
Because the whole election process has been hijacked by the media, with its own questionable agenda...what is that? I have my opinion but it is biased, so ask Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann or Rush or Jack Cafferty or Ken Rudin (all Hillary detractors extraordinaire). Put a fair and balanced query before these gentlemen chat meisters:
"Why are you using the people's airwaves to distort the elective process?"
In a fair fight, Hillary wins going away. It is a matter of fact, not ginned up controversy that mircomanages public opinion. (Or slightly tainted partisanship from the Obama campaign tracking merrily across the country.)
Here is another example of punditry gone awry--this time a lady who thinks herself expert enough to join the chorus demanding Hillary exit, stage right.
Ms. Saritha Prabhu of Clarksville, TN writing a column for the newspaper in the state, "The Tennessean," is exercising her First Amendment rights to jerk state voters around with a few well-coined phrases:
Read her article and continue to follow below it for voters' rebuttals to her unschooled, condescending take on national politics. Good read! Let We The People speak for a change.
by
Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 191 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 4:53:38 PM
From what I can see, the reasonable theory to explain the observations is that Hillary can't quit. She's on the hook for obligations that her posse has roped her into, and now she must fulfill. The promises were easy to make when she was the eight hundred pound gorilla in the Democratic zoo, and her ascendancy seemed like it was automatic.
For instance, with her documented, as opposed to her claimed, history with NAFTA, are we truly expected to believe that she stands against the Columbian Trade Deal while her chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn was lobbying on behalf of the Columbian government in favor of that very deal? This after her husband recieved $800,000.00 in "speaking fees" for speeches delivered in Columbia. Are we really to believe that the Columbian corporate class just wanted him to impart his homespun wisdom through an interpreter? They could buy his book for a lot less, although perhaps without nearly the return on investment.
One other thing I'd like to know is how their daughter, Chelsea, secured a six digit salary managing hedge funds right out of school. There are damned few graduates who manage that coup, without regard to their stellar accomplishments as students.
My point is that Hillary has hung the shingle and sold out the shop without ever having stocked the shelves. That's why she is verging on desperation to overturn her gross mismanagement of a candidacy that everyone used to believe was a lock on the Oval Office. It's time for her to make good on investments and she not only doesn't have the goods, but it looks like they are receding further from her grasp with each passing moment. Her solution is to bluff, lie, threaten and bluster to try to make up the deficit.
The superdelegates should tell her to repack her carpet bag and fall off the stage. She has made herself into what she claims to be able to save us from. We've already suffered more than one president from the criminal class, we don't need Hillary to reprise the effort.
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John Sanchez Jr. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 886 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 6:16:11 PM
The plain and simple fact is that the Clintons are FOR $ALE, and they had a pretty fierce pre-election sale by all accounts.
For people who don't think that matters much (all politicans do it y'know), and recognize Hillary's self-proclaimed Presidential Prophecy of some years standing, I pander to your somewhat jaundiced and compromised values and offer this rationale for Obama:
Geez, shouldn't some fresh leech get a chance at the trough?
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Randje Mitchell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 9:05:42 PM
I suspect I'm like most of the rest of the country, except the candidates, their "sponsors" and the media pundits.....I'm so sick of all the useless election BS that is filling our public airways everyday....
that I could puke!
by
im4unity (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 38 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 8:23:54 PM
John Sanchez Jr., great post. Hillary is a superior politician and campaigner, flat out. She manufactured the 'bitter' debate for us, and Obama's pastor fell in her lap! The result is we all missed the 4/25 meeting in CA where a judge set out the dates for the Clinton campaign fraud trial. We also missed how she spoke, or misspoke at a Valparaiso IN rally and blamed Bush for a plant shut down. It was Bill Clinton that could have saved the 200 jobs. A few local IN papers ran some articles about not having that short a memeory...but CNN was running sound bites about the pastor. That makes three speeches in the past two months were Team Hillary does not check their facts.....1. the Bosnia deal was just funny, but they could have checked her comments and adjusted her story closer to the truth! 2. the hospital story where she preyed on the poor womans death without fully investigating the issues. 3. Valpo IN. Blaming Bush for a Clinton problem. Can any of us get away with being that ill-prepared for work? Could any of us lie or twist facts in presentations at work and not expect to get caught or at least questioned on it? How long would we last? If you are making a presentation....you get prepared! You know your material and are ready to back it up because there are consequences. Lie to your boss or co-workers and they will eventually weed you out. Hillary fears nothing because nothing has ever happened to her. Keep telling tales, and work out of it later, usually taking the opportunity to undermine your opponent in the process.
Why is she still taken so seriously?
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T R (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 9:55:59 PM
Why isn't it ever reported that the Clinton's had Reverend Wright as their spiritual advisor during their marital problems - brought about by Willie's transgressions??? Also, why don't the Clinton's pay their debts? You'd think with $130 million in their bank, they could pay their bills. And what is really cute, is that of the 10 million dollars they claimed on their income tax report, as having been given to charity, actually only 4 million ended up there, the other 6 million was "donated" to their favorite charity - their own Clinton Foundation. Clever, huh...
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lucydavis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 5:51:17 PM
