Hillary, It's Time To Leave

by Steve Soto

Reuters photo

With most of the North Carolina vote in, Obama seems to be trouncing Hillary by over 200,000 votes in a state that may be in play this fall. Zogby’s last NC poll showed that Obama benefited from the state’s early voting in mid-April before the Jeremiah Wright sideshow, and from a late rush of support as well (we are assuming here that most of the late-registering Democrats will stay Democratic for the fall). This drubbing, coupled with a small victory, even potential loss in Indiana does not make a convincing argument for Clinton going forward. For Clinton, it all comes down to money and super delegates, and she'll be lacking both from this point on.

The Clinton campaign moved from the Bosnia sniper stupidity to the gas tax pander, in a year when voters are fed up with pandering politicians they cannot trust. Perhaps voters are ready for the truth about shared sacrifice, energy policies, universal health care’s benefits, tax fairness, and keeping good jobs here at home. They may even be ready for a real debate about an effective war on terrorism, and shining a light on those who would rather use fear to avoid that debate. And yet as late as several minutes ago in her speech, all Clinton could do was rehash the gas tax pander, and infer once again that Obama wasn’t ready to be commander in chief, after she voted for the 2002 AUMF and Kyl-Lieberman.

Although I have no illusions about what lies ahead, I’m clear on one thing after tonight: It’s time for Hillary to cash in.

As I have said many times, Obama is not my first choice but he has run the better campaign, with more discipline and frankly more smarts, two things in extremely short supply in Clinton’s campaign. I suspect she will continue the race out of Clintonian vanity and self-interest above party interest. However, he now has a clear path to the nomination at a time when we need to start destroying John McCain and the GOP every single day between now and November. It will be a challenge, as the party is about to test the proposition that his core voters can lead the party to a general election victory.

Nevertheless, the time for that experiment to begin is now, regardless of our feelings about how we got here. Again, no matter how you feel now, in the fall it will simply come down to Obama against a doddering, pandering, Bush ass-kissing sack of shit. If you vote for the sack of shit out of rage at how Obama won this thing over Clinton, we are all screwed. We cannot endure another four years of disaster capitalist elites running this country into the ground, aided by a Supreme Court full of corporatists. If you are a Clinton supporter, please leave your disappointment behind as you enter the voting booth in November. Your opponent is not Barack Obama, but rather the bastards across the aisle that got us here.