Onward From Here

by Steve Soto

A couple of follow up comments from last night:

I understand the disappointment from Hillary supporters about the state of the race and my comments last night. And I don’t expect a large number of her supporters to suddenly jump off the train and sign right up with Obama’s effort, because commitment to a candidate relative to their competitors can’t just be turned off like that. But Obama needs to begin the fall campaign now, free of defending himself from daily attacks by Clinton, and there are signs that his team will move away from the remainder of the primary schedule towards campaigning in general election battlegrounds, to build upon his gains from last night.

Hillary for her part has apparently been loaning herself survival money since last month, and that situation will not get any better now. There are some signs this morning that her team sees the handwriting on the wall, and they now admit what I’ve been saying for months: they lost this race in February with a crappy strategy and message. So it’s possible that we’ll see an unforeseen development here in the coming weeks. Her problem is that she has no cash to pursue her likely victories in Kentucky and West Virginia, should she decide to continue on until she has a face-saving exit lined up.

I have no idea whether Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” has had any real effect on the Democratic race. Since it was claimed that he and his listeners were heavily engaged in voting for Hillary in Indiana to prolong the Democratic race, she almost lost the state anyway. But if the GOP is so eager to run against Obama this fall, why is there a need for an “Operation Chaos” in the first place?

Question for the morning: If you are Obama's campaign team, and want to simultaneously shift to general election mode early and convince the Hillary base that you can win against McCain and govern effectively in January, do you start floating possible VP and cabinet choices now?