Earlier today DHinMI wrote this:
Now the question is, if Hillary and Bill Clinton didn't have anyone around would could tell them when they were wrong, who will tell them the campaign is over, and it's time to step aside and acknowledge Barack Obama will be our nominee?
Indeed, it has long been clear, even before March 4, that Hillary Clinton would require landslide victories in all of the remaining contests to take the lead in the pledged delegate race. What was not clear until this week was whether she could catch up in the popular vote race, for if new elections were held in Michigan and Florida, it was possible for her to take the lead in the popular vote race. And if she did that, Hillary would, at the very least, have a legitimate argument to make to the superdelegates. Perhaps not a convincing argument. Perhaps not a winning one, but at least it would be a legitimate argument.
But her taking the lead in the popular vote is now also a very high impossibility, given the fact that there will be no new primaries in Michigan or Florida. For her to take the lead in the popular vote, she would have to inspire massive turnout on her behalf, resulting in resounding 40 point victories in all of the remaining primaries, which is quite impossible while continuing a negative campaign that tends to depress turnout.
Indeed, the worst attack against Obama has taken place (i.e. the Wright controversy), and it can be argued that Obama turned it to a positive. He proved he has no glass jaw. He wrote and delivered the greatest American speech given by any person in my lifetime in response to the controversy. And he garnered a spectacular endorsement from Bill Richardson, a former Clinton Administration official, as a result.
The Clinton dream of winning the nomination requires superdelegates abandoning Obama as a result of the Wright controversy, rather than wholeheartedly embracing him as a "once-in-a-lifetime leader."
So our long and hard fought primary war is over.
Senator Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
We know it.
The media is starting to realize it.
It is all over but the shouting.
Look, I want to be kind and welcoming to fellow Democrats who are Clinton supporters, many of whom are friends and family. We are all Democrats. We all want to win the White House in November. We all have many common goals and dreams for country, from universal healthcare to ending the Iraq War to protecting our Constitutional rights to privacy to making the economy fairer for both the consumer and the worker.
But coming together after a tough primary requires a mutual effort. I recently wrote that the Clintons themselves were the worst narcissists I had ever seen, and everyday Hillary Clinton continues her campaign with no possible hope at winning the nomination only strengthens my argument, but I have to believe that her supporters are more realistic.
Surely her supporters do not share the same sense of entitlement as the candidate they support, right?
Well, I think I have come to realize that maybe they do.
I think many of Hillary's supporters have been admirers of hers for a long time. They became instant fans of our first working mother First Lady in 1992 and 1993. They were impressed by her intelligence and strength. Hillary was so substantial, even back in 1992, that the campaign was actually serious about the argument that we would be "buying one and getting two presidents." Once that argument was made, many started to envision Hillary as the first woman President. Hillary's election to the Senate in 2000 did nothing to dispel that notion.
Hillary's supporters have probably long assumed that she will be President. As soon as she was elected to the Senate, it was a foregone conclusion that one day she would run for the Presidency. A mere election was all that was needed to confirm that assumption.
And now that it is certain that that assumption will not come to pass this year, Hillary's supporters are angry and they are in denial. The Clintons believe they are entitled to return to the White House, and her supporters similarly believe they are entitled to see her as our President. It has been a dream long held, and damn it, who is Barack Obama to deny her, and them, that entitlement?
And that sense of entitlement has allowed Hillary Clinton to continue her campaign against all reality and all hope of winning. It remains unchecked. And I sense it remains unchecked among her supporters as well.
Healing the party will require a mutual effort. Supporters of Barack Obama will gladly welcome Hillary's to the cause, and we will gladly stand side by side with them in the fall against McCain and the Bush Republicans. We Obama supporters must put aside the animus that has developed toward Bill and Hillary Clinton during this campaign, and I am confident we will. Hillary's supporters must do the same, for I know that an animus has developed towards Obama among them.
Believing that your candidate is entitled to the Presidency, and blaming Obama the usurper does not aid in dealing with reality, it does not aid in coming to terms with Clinton's loss, and it does not aid in healing our party.
No one is entitled to the Presidency. No one is entitled to our votes. A candidate, any candidate, must earn them. A candidate, any candidate, must convince us, the voters, to turn over our most important possession in our democracy: our vote. Elections do not ratify long held dreams. Elections do not confirm long held assumptions.