Hillary thinks it's a damn fight

BuzzFlash's Last Chance Democracy Cafe

http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=1364

He doesn’t know it’s a damn show! He thinks it’s a damn fight!
(Apollo Creed’s trainer in Rocky (1976))

Trying to read Hillary Clinton’s mind — and that of her famous husband — has become the new favorite parlor game of American politics. Is she angling for the vice presidency? Or is she trying to sabotage Obama, to pave the way for her in 2012? Or, less Machiavellian in nature, is she simply waiting until after the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries, both of which she’s expected to win big, thereby allowing her to depart the campaign on a winning note?

For whatever it's worth, my guess is that the real answer is none of the above. No, Hillary is in this race to win.

In reality, of course, she has virtually no chance. The brutal mathematics of the delegate counts makes this obvious: and Hillary’s last Hail Mary shot of trying to win over superdelegates by branding Obama as a loser fell far short on May 6 — disappearing, most likely forever, into the dust of Obama’s North Carolina landslide.

But Hillary Clinton herself seems clearly not to see things that way. And why should she? Look at the enthusiastic crowds she still attracts. Look at the well-heeled special interests still willing to fork over the green (even if one of those "special interests" is her own husband), including AFSCME and EMILY'S List. Look at the willingness of her surrogates to continue trying to tear down Obama — the general election be damned. Look at Bill Clinton himself, traveling the back roads of West Virginia, still attacking Obama as being an elitist.

Never underestimate the infectious quality of the echo chamber within the cocoon that surrounds any serious presidential candidate. The people closest to Hillary still believe in her campaign (or at least claim to). So why shouldn't she?

But there's something more at play here, I think. To Hillary herself, soldiering on is also an expression of patriotism, of a sort — the natural response to the honestly held conviction that she is by far both the better candidate and the superior prospective president.

My guess is that Hillary Clinton does honestly believe — be it a belief fueled by self-interest — that an Obama candidacy will be doomed to defeat. In her mind, she isn't trying to tear down the Democratic Party: she's trying to save it from itself (while, conveniently enough, saving her own ambitions at the same time).

She's wrong, by the way — wrong about it all, in my judgment, and certainly wrong in believing she still has a fighting chance to win. But it's her opinion that matters.

The problem, of course, is that a righteously held delusion, while perhaps morally superior to overt destructive selfishness, is in the end every bit as dangerous — and perhaps more so.

Hillary still thinks this is a damn fight. And it may well take a knockout to convince her otherwise. Unfortunately, by then an awful lot of unnecessary damage will have been done — and not just to the Democratic Party, but to the legacy of the Clintons themselves.

BuzzFlash's Last Chance Democracy Cafe

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