Of course it's easier to run a clean campaign from the front. But a) all the more reason for Clinton not to carry on now that it's essentially impossible for her to win without destroying the party, and b) it's the way that most of her attacks on Obama have reinforced GOP narratives and bolstered McCain that has really put me off. She's playing it like a zero sum game when in fact it's negative sum.

See, I don't quite get that "destroy the party" narrative.

It's still quite possible for her to end up at the end of the primary season with more popular votes (if not delegates) than Obama. On that basis, she can say to the superdelegates - I'm as much the choice of the people as Obama is, choose between us based on our merits.

Why would that destroy the party? Couldn't the opposite case - that the party would be destroyed by nomintaing the person who won the pledged delegate count but not the popular vote - equally be made?

If after today's primary it becomes clear that she hasn't really a hope of catching him in the popular vote, I would agree with you. Until then, I think she's got a right to keep going. And while I agree with you that she has in some respects made McCain's job easier, I can't actually think of too many ways a challenger can campaign against a leader that would't do that anyway.

I guess we'll have to disagree about Bill's legacy. I thought he was someone who talked a much better game than he delivered on. I'm sure he would say that what the republicans would have done or wanted to do would have been worse, but I tenmd to judge progressives on how good they were, not on how much a cunt they weren't, and on that score, the Clinton years seem similarly full of the same fantasies and failing of Blair in the Uk; namely, the idea that pretty irreoncilable differenecs could be massaged away, that big tents can be built, that the rich getting richer is compatible with real afforts to end poverty, and so on.

It's more agitating for Michigan and Florida to be seated without a revote I'm thinking about when it comes to destroying the party. I've said in the past that Hillary has every moral right to stay in the race to the end, but that's predictated on running her campaign in a way that doesn't damage the chances of the eventual winner. She seems to be taking a win at all costs approach on a very slim chance of winning.

Nathan - if big tents are your problem, how does Obama fit the bill? I would have thought he was the worst possible candidate - all that "get everyone around a table and work together" fluff...

GY - completely agree on MI and FL.

Anyone have any predictions for tonight? Mine - and I've been hideously wrong before this season - is Clinton by 9%. High enough for her to keep running but not high enough to give her much momentum.

My prediction, which I may have mentioned somewhere upthread before the latest excellent set of posts, is Clinton by 12%.

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See, I don't quite get that "destroy the party" narrative.

I think it's more than just MI/FL. Since Super Tuesday, her campaign has spent a lot time attacking not just Obama, but his supporters (mindless cultists who don't understand politics or policy), the states that he won (small, meaningless, unnecessary to the Democrats), the African-American base (see both the Ferraro comments and the follow-up, as well as the attack on black churches that came with attacks on Rev. Wright), and the progressive base (see Clinton's recently revealed comments about MoveOn and the "activist base", including her Rovian bullshitting about their position on Afghanistan).

At best, these various comments will decrease the pool of votes available to her in November, at worst, they will depress turnout that would otherwise help the Democrat down-ticket candidates (it's not an accident that most superdelegates that are elected officials in swing states have come out for Obama).

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Why would that destroy the party? Couldn't the opposite case - that the party would be destroyed by nomintaing the person who won the pledged delegate count but not the popular vote - equally be made?

I think that case can be made, though it's a poor one. Six months ago, I would bet that no one in the leadership of the party thought that the popular vote was the relevant factor in selecting the nominee, primarily because the rules have been set up to make delegates, not the popular vote, the relevant metric for winning the nomination. If the popular vote was relevant (which it has not been in previous primaries), then the candidates would have campaigned differently and the popular vote totals would likely be different than they are today. Second, the popular vote tally mostly ignores the caucus states, and so is not a particularly useful metric to determine which percentage of voters in the primary support each candidate.

Further, the Clinton campaign had said, before Super Tuesday, that the only thing that mattered was the pledged delegate count. It was only when she fell behind on that score that anyone started to talk about the popular vote.

The MI/FL thing rankles most for me, partly because it is so short-sightedly self-interested and partly because that was definitely Clinton. A lot of the nasty stuff about Obama himself (though not all of it) is coming from Clinton supporters and subordinates. I've seen some nasty stuff about Clinton from Obama supporters, and I'm sure his campaign isn't playing nice either. You can hold candidates accountable for their campaigns to a large degree, but you can't pin every individual sin to the candidate. For that reason I'm sticking to the stuff that Clinton clearly endorses. For the most part, that boils down to MI/FL and belittling Obama to the benefit of Republicans (eg emphasising the experience thing, which surely implies McCain rather than Clinton).

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People on this thread seem to feel he's a wonderful guy, but I think that's largely a by-product of him not really having any kind of track record in office and him therefore being a blank slate onto which people can project whatever they want (as Nathan says, Obama "seems" to be better - but do we really know?).

I agree with this, and would take it a step further and say that his track record as a Senator is hard to put to much value on because he spent the entire time basically running for President, which always skews someone's voting record. I would also say, however, that a similar argument could be made against Clinton. Her record is very thin, and her positions have also been tailored to her goal to be President (it was clear when she was elected to the Senate that she was going to run for higher office). Amusingly, this is also true of McCain, even though he's been in office for much longer than Clinton and Obama combined. His political positions (except with respect to a general American-greatness-through-military idea) have changed quite dramatically several times. They changed after the Keating 5 scandal, when he became an ethics reformer; in the run-up to the 2000 election, when he tried to position himself as an outsider; prior to 2004, when he was flirting with the Dems; post-2004, when he was preparing to run in this election.

Fundamentally, then, they are all in many ways blank slates. Though with Hillary, you get someone who has caved into GOP pressure on foreign policy issues and been willing to attack/ignore the party base (see my prior post, as well as her husbands entire presidency), whereas Obama was at least able to stand apart on Iraq.

To echo Linus, I have no illusions that Obama is going to be the perfect progressive President, I don't think such a person exists in the US and could become President at this point in time.

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You can hold candidates accountable for their campaigns to a large degree, but you can't pin every individual sin to the candidate. For that reason I'm sticking to the stuff that Clinton clearly endorses.

I agree that you can't pin every statement by a surrogate on the candidate, but I think you can pin statements of campaign managers and campaign messages on the candidate. The fact that Maggie Williams put out a press release blaming Obama for playing the race card minutes after Ferraro had said she wasn't going to apologize and that people were being racist against her makes it look like coordination, as does the fact that it took the candidate herself three days to say anything critical of Ferraro's comments. The attack on MoveOn and the activist base came out of Clinton's mouth, so can also be pinned on her.

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For the most part, that boils down to MI/FL and belittling Obama to the benefit of Republicans (eg emphasising the experience thing, which surely implies McCain rather than Clinton).

It wasn't just the emphasis on the experience thing, she actually said that McCain was ready to be Commander-in-Chief while Obama wasn't.

Edited to add: By the way, I agree that MI/FL thing has bothered me the most, as it's ridiculous on its face and clearly rebutted by her stated position before Super Tuesday.

The fact that Clinton is making all these accusations about Obama now will help him if he is nominated.
There same accusation would have been made by the Republicans in a much nastyer fashion come Autumn so it is better all his skeletons are out of the closet now which means that the GOP will have to find new ones or spin them from another angle.

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

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See, I don't quite get that "destroy the party" narrative.

It's still quite possible for her to end up at the end of the primary season with more popular votes (if not delegates) than Obama.

Not according to Bloomberg News (assuming FL and MI ar enot included):

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Clinton would need a 25-point victory in Pennsylvania, plus 20-point wins in later contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Even that scenario assumes Clinton, 60, would break even in Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon -- a prospect that's not at all certain.

More than just big margins, Clinton would need record voter turnout too. In Pennsylvania, she would need a turnout of 2 million, about half the state's registered Democrats; in the 2004 primary, about 800,000 voted. She would also need turnout to almost double in other states where she leads, and reach some 1 million in Puerto Rico, which is about how many Democratic- leaning voters went to the polls in a 2004 gubernatorial election.

Inca, those Bloomberg percentage figures depend heavily on what you think turnout is going to be. If turnout is high, the percentage wins don't need to be as big. Jay Cost demonstrated this on his blog awhile back. He also included this handy calculator so that you could make your own predictions based on turnout and margin. It's quite interesting.

It is amazing that Puerto Rico, which doesn't have any electoral college votes in the general election, and which had a primary until a month ago, may end being somewhat decisive on the popular vote issue.

I haven't been keeping pace with this thread, or the performance of the Democratic hopefuls in general, so is this the sort of thing we can expect more of from Hilary if she gets into power?

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Mrs Clinton was asked how she would respond if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel. She replied that: "If I'm the president, we will attack Iran... we would be able to totally obliterate them.

"That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic," she told TV channel ABC