TOAST! That’s the headline The New York Post is running under a big picture of Hillary’s head.
Is it really over? Senator Clinton came out of Indiana and North Carolina with no Mo and no money. Not to mention not enough delegates.
That’s a hard reality to spin, even for Clinton.
Crikey has glued together a scrap book of the media clippings that they’re sifting through at the Clinton campaign headquarters right now, and the kind of commentary that the Obama camp is revelling in.
CLINTON CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS sent out this email this morning:
But this is the kind of coverage that they’re sticking in their clippings file:
A “willing suspension of disbelief”: Since Super Tuesday, Obama has picked up 100 superdelegates at a pace of 5 to 1 over Clinton. To win now, Clinton would have to reverse that dynamic. She’d have to take 70 percent of the remaining superdelegates and then ask them to reverse the will of the elected delegates and deny an African-American the nomination. The picture was already grim for Hillary Clinton going into Tuesday. If she’d won in Indiana and North Carolina, it would have only minimally changed the daunting math, but victories would have given fresh evidence to present to undecided superdelegates that Obama had an irreparable flaw, that the good voters of Indiana and North Carolina recognized that and voted accordingly. She didn’t get that evidence. — John Dickerson, Slate
To the backroom! Obama has accumulated a lead in pledged delegates that is all but insurmountable – a point that Clinton campaign officials acknowledged Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. That pushes the campaign largely into political backrooms, as both candidates made plans to meet privately Wednesday and Thursday with uncommitted superdelegates in Washington. — Politico
Clintons in shock. 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. — Michael Tomasky, The Guardian
Pundits Declare the Race Over. Very early this morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate. The New York Post’s headline Wednesday morning was not kind to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. (“Hil Needs a Miracle,” declared The New York Daily News. The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC. — Jim Rutenberg, NY Times
Hillary deathwatch. Obama comes up big in North Carolina, and Clinton merely ekes out a win (as of 11 p.m. ET) in Indiana, the combination of which all but ends Clinton’s shot at the nomination. Her chances drop 8.4 points to 4.2 percent. For the past few weeks, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy has rested on two possibilities: 1) winning the popular vote and 2) convincing superdelegates that Obama cannot win certain types of voters. (The delegate count is out of reach; she would need at least 70 percent of the remaining delegates to surpass Obama.) Today, Obama exploded both arguments. — Hillary Deathwatch, Slate
McGovern urges Clinton to quit. Former senator and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern is urging New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to drop out of the Democratic race. The 1972 Democratic nominee decided to switch his support from Clinton to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, he announced Wednesday, after Obama carried North Carolina by 14 percentage points and came within 3 percentage points of Clinton’s victory in Indiana. — NPR
Here’s a news report just to rub it in:
And they’re bookmarking these blog entries:
Hillary losing The Gays? Aside from old ladies and Bitters, Hillary’s strongest constituency this election has been The Gays, who ironically are just the estranged children of old ladies and Bitters. But now Washington’s own gay Blade newspaper — which had already endorsed Hillary and is home to such famous local homosexual journalists as “Jeff Gannon” — is telling Hillz to leave. — Wonkette
If she quits now, she’ll win. She has ruled it out, but a prompt withdrawal from the contest for the Democratic nomination offers Sen. Hillary Clinton the prospect of major rewards. One of the most inviting is the near certainty that the Obama campaign would agree to pay back the $11.4 million she has loaned her own bid, along with an estimated $10 million to $15 million in unpaid campaign expenses. — Thomas B Edsall, Huffington Post
I give her a week, or less. She knows it. You could tell during her speech. As she slogged gamely through the new sound-bites somebody gave her, a final concession speech kept breaking through. She became animated when thanking family and volunteers, then robotic and hollow as she promised to fight on. But she knows the score now. Her money is gone and her debt is mounting. — Michael Goldfarb, Weekly Standard blog
Like a (sociopathic) dog with a bone. As her speech staggers on, after the gas tax holiday gambit, and a plea for Burma, she eventually turns to Florida and Michigan. You almost want to look away. But it’s fascinating in a way. She cannot concede; she cannot give an inch; she cannot acknowledge reality. Observing sociopaths in close detail as their world collapses around them and they cannot absorb the truth is always fascinating. — Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish
Read more at Crikey’s blogwatch.
THE OBAMA CAMP is sending out these kinds of emails to their supporters:
And here’s the coverage that they’re currently rolling around in:
It’s over. Barack Obama now wears the crown of inevitability. Unless he falls off a cliff, or the Rev. Jeremiah Wright pushes him, he is going to be the Democratic nominee. His blowout victory in North Carolina catapulted him over the last and largest hurdle in his path. As the first African-American to win a major party nomination for the presidency, Obama is about to make history. It will be his history, but not his alone. It’s America’s, too. — Michael Goodwin, New York Daily News
Obama can take punches. Barack Obama not only nearly clinched the Democratic nomination Tuesday night, he also answered a big question about the fall campaign. The glass jaw that Hillary Clinton and John McCain thought they saw turned out to be an illusion. In the jingle of the old Timex watch ads, he took a licking and kept on ticking. — Jonathan Alter, Newsweek
But can he beat McCain? The Democratic primary is over. Hillary Clinton might still run in West Virginia and Kentucky, which she’ll win handily, but by failing to win Indiana decisively and by losing North Carolina decisively, she lost the argument for her own candidacy. She can’t surpass Barack Obama’s delegate or popular vote count. The question is no longer who will be the Democratic nominee, but whether Obama can defeat Republican John McCain in November. And the answer to that is still unclear. — The New Republic
How Obama beat the line. Last night, Barack Obama beat expectations in both Indiana and North Carolina. Let’s look carefully at how he managed this feat. We’ll begin with Indiana. Let’s compare the results from Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio among select demographic groups:
As you can see, Clinton did about as well in Indiana as she did in Pennsylvania and Ohio with white men, white Protestants, and seniors. However, beyond this, she suffered a decline among her best groups. — Jay Cost, HorseRaceblog
Obamania is back! Barack Obama pocketed the support of at least four Democratic convention superdelegates on Wednesday, building on the momentum from a convincing North Carolina primary victory. Rival Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to remain in the race “until there’s a nominee.” — The Huffington Post
The speech:
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