Probably doesn't matter anyway.  It looks like McCain's going to walk in after yet another Democratic Party implosion due to the "it's all about me" crowd.

This seems fairly stupid to me (I'm an Obama supporter).

Both candidates are way better candidates than they were at the beginning of this campaign---heck, than they were in January.  Better debaters (he's improved more and was the weaker of the two at the beginning).  Better fundraisers (both).  Better at giving speeches (she's improved more and was the weaker of the two at the beginning).  

Contested primaries lead to battle-ready candidates: Jim Webb, Jon Tester, etc.  And in this race, whoever wins cannot be described as never having been in a hard-fought close election.  

The only downside is that a McCain ad in which a leading Democratic contender describes the other as unready or not representing change is a tougher ad than one where McCain says the same thing.  But in a way that bridge has been crossed.

Excellent Diary. Here is a blog post by Earl Ofari Hutchinson at the Huffington Post telling the Hillary Haters to get a grip. Highly recommended. Click Here to Read

Well, I'm an Obama supporter and I don't have any problem with Senator Clinton pressing on.  She had a good (but not great) night last night, and has a legitimate argument for continuing her campaign.  

That being said, I still think it is very hard to see a viable path to the nomination for her.  It's possible, certainly, but it's still a very uphill climb.  Delegate math isn't the have all end all, but it also isn't insignificant.  Obama won more net delegates by taking Wisconsin and Hawaii than Senator Clinton gained last night.  That's pretty crazy if you stop and think about it.  It's also worth noting that she won texas by, at most, three points after having a greater than 20 point lead there 2 1/2 weeks ago.  

At all events, this race going on isn't going to tear the party apart.  The party will be fine, as long as this thing doesn't get significantly uglier than it already has.  And at the end, if Obama does win, nobody will be able to say he didn't earn it.    

I posted earlier:

The way the system works and the way the internet works we could see this sort of thing start to happen every 4 years.  Heck, Obama isn't that bad considering what could come down the chute in the future.

With college kids and liberal activists kicking in 30 million a month on the internet, with split votes, and with all the smaller and caucus states dominated by liberal activists and university hubs, we could see all sorts of godawful fringe left candidates rise to the top in the future at the expense of more mainstream, established candidates.

With the internet buzz, and more importantly, internet money all sorts of johnny come lately, new kid in town candidates could catch fire every 4 years, 1 year before the elections, and grab the election by winning one of two early states, and sweeping all the small, caucus states later.   It would be a nightmare.

The rank and file want the race to continue, elites don't.  Anyone should be very skeptical when Establishment Dems are telling us that "it's bad for the party." Usually the opposite is true.

And remember: the general election is a state by state race. Having a big election in Pennsylvania can only help Dems there. Look what happened in Florida: we didn't have a race there and now McCain is trouncing both O and C there.

Plus if Obama can't withstand attacks from Clinton on his experience and national security cred in a Democratic primary he'd get demolished McCain in a general.

Plus it's good for progressives: If Obama is going to beat Clinton in Pennsylvania, he'll have to move left on economic issues.

I see very little downside.

but... Take a look at this diary at Dkos. I totally agree with this persons look at things, even tho they seem to be an Obama supporter.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/5/1 44127/4035/94/468761

I love these Obama pundit surrogates like Miller and the Rachael Maddow who think we should just anoint Obama and all the Hillary supporters will just lie down and vote glowingly for Obama.

This dismissive "do as I say" tone because he is "the candidate of hope and unity" is so offensive and off-putting.

Ugh...

BRILLIANT.  Thank you for that, I couldn't have said it any better.

If I hear another person tell me that HRC should drop out, I may just vote Clinton in the fall in spite.  She needed these wins yesteday and whether or not she made a small bite into the delegate counts, had it been take all like the GOP is, Clinton would be our nominee.  She won the larger states and in all honesty, that is what counts IMO.  She can get to 270.  Obama can't.

What's bad for the party isn't the elections themselves.  What's bad is that the whole race ends up being about FL, MI and superdelegates, which ends up being a nasty fight about process that makes the nomination seem unfair and the eventual winner illegitimate no matter who wins.  The situation pisses me off.

You are a Clinton hack. You are desperate. The End.

Hillary Clinton would lose in November-a vote for Hillary is a vote for John McCain.

Hillary has blood on her hands from her 2003 vote and if she succeeds in losing this election for us her supporters will be as responsible for McCain's future failures as the Nader supporters are for Bush's.

Dunno.

I thought Sen.Obama was the candidate that was going to change to politics of distruction and win on a positive message of change. One that included  the citizens of all 50 states not just a few.

If you're going to be taken seriously, especially considering the uh "rough and tumbled" world of Washington politics. I think he and his supporters would welcome a chance to prove it in the general election. Looks like they would welcome a challenge to prove that they could when elected not just be another "compasionate (insert party here. TheRepublican's and Bush was the last one to do it. We know how that turned out.).

Well I just think they'd be tickled pink to have a chance to strut their stuff.

As an Obama supporter, I want the race to continue. I think it's been great for both candidates and for the party as a whole.

And, in spite of the dismissive comments on this thread by some Clinton supporters, I like Senator Clinton. I think she'd be a great president. The people around her (Penn, Wolfson, Ickes, etc.) make me sick. I think it may occur to her to go negative, but I think it is the only thing that trifecta is thinking about.

The continued primary will be good for the party only if it doesn't get too nasty. Raising the issue of who can best defend the country is an important question, and one that must be asked (especially considering who the republicans have nominated). However, putting out an ad that implies that a vote for Obama will lead to the deaths of your children is tacky. Even if it works.

I want the Democrats to win, whichever candidate is our standard bearer in the fall. I say here, here to a long, tough, clean campaign.

So, to Obama and Clinton supporters alike, can we stop slandering one another on these threads? Can Clinton supporters stop accusing Obama voters of being cult members? Can the Obama supporters stop accusing Clintonites of being enthralled to a demon in a pantsuit?

We need to win.

that it wouldn't hurt the party.  But she won't.  She'll continue to tear an excellent candidate down with cheap shots, fear-based ads, half-truths, etc.

Remember, her campaign chief (Mark Penn) is basically in charge of the same poison ad agency (Burson-Marteller) as McCain's chief guy (Charles Black).  Do you think they have the best interests of the Democratic party in mind, or their own?

You are right.  She should continue.  But I have a big problem with this:

"I have a lifetime of experience I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002."

This is the kind of stuff that makes people believe that Hillary will do anything to win.  Leave out the middle sentence -- fair enough.

 She should just stop using scorched-earth REPUG smear tactics to win the nomination.  I thought there was no way that this country could elect another Repug, but with Hillary doing their dirty work in the primaries, she is splitting up the party.

 I will still vote for Hillary, because any Democratic presidential candidate is better than the scum on the other side.  But other Democrats are not as biased as me, and a lot of Obama supporters will not support her now because of the crap she is pulling on Obama.  If Obama still wins, whatever scorched earth, racist rumor that hasn't been exploited yet, will be used, in addition to the crap that team Hillary has already used.  You don't think the Repugs now see that they can be more racist than they thought, after seeng what Hillary is getting away with, as a fellow Democrat.

 Hillary, stay in, but try to get back to the moral high ground, and quit using cesspool Repug tatics to win the nomination!

supporter and while I did vote for Obama in the MA primary I was certainly  what I would call "detached" about it and have remained so. I feel like an interested spectator and could and will happily vote for either Obama or Clinton should they get the nomination.

I actually think the long primary battle helps us because as the diariest pointed out if Hillary uses all the arguments that McCain would use against Obama I do believe that a weariness and something like a "immunization" shot is the effect - heard that, old stuff, move along, already considered it, it's old information to go along with "old John McCain".

McCain has nothing new to say about anything or anyone.

There's a slogan.

I think the pluses of her staying in out weigh the negatives.

As far as the "partsans" on both sides?

They should repeat like a mantra:

"I will suport whomever gets the nomination in Denver, I will support whomever gets the nomination in Denver"

If Obama was behind by about 100 delegates and with no chance of winning aside from trashing Hillary you would be asking him to get out. But it seems everyone on this site admires the cheesy and dishonest path that Hillary is on trying to bring Obama down. You will all say, well that's what Obama has to expect from the Republicans. Bullshit, I say. We are not supposed to be like the Republicans. It makes me sick to see this rationalization of sleazy unethical behavior from the Clintons.

Incidentally, I was not impressed by Hillary's Machiavellian answer, on 60 Minutes, to the question about whether Obama was a Muslim or a Christian. How can any of you be attracted to a candidate who is so cunning and self-serving, that she would play it like that? Yuck. It seems to me that many of you have spent too much time studying Carl Rove and your fear and loathing of him has turned to admiration? Maybe that is why Hillary was on Fox and Friends this morning chortling with Rove?

Are you people serious?

NEITHER Clinton or Obama will get the required 2,024 delegates to win the nomination without superdelegates, so why on Earth should she drop out? If it was your candidate, you would be pulling for him.

Why won't Clinton release her tax returns until just before or even after the Pennsylvania primary?

What does she have to hide?

It's not a negative in itself, though front page diaries warning that Obama has serious electability problems and that states should be written off unless they are big and reliably blue do nothing to help the debate, and merely polarize both groups of supporters.  Calls for her to quit are as much a result of this sort of shallow boosterism as anything.

What you're missing is that Clinton, at this point, isn't just running against Obama, she's running against the organizations, states and voters that didn't vote for her.

Kansas Democrats, her campaign is saying, shouldn't count, even though 40 times more voted this time than last, because the state is too red and runs a caucus.

It cannot help the Kansas Democratic party for one of the main candidates to say that the state and the Democrats who voted in it are meaningless and that they might as well become Republicans for as much say as they get in the nomination.

Unfortunately, this is her only path to victory. It has become almost mathematically impossible for her to win the pledged delegate count, so the only way for her to win the nomination is to convince the Super Delegates that the votes of those states that have given Obama the pledged delegate lead are unimportant or illegitimate.

Even if she doesn't win the nomination, she's sowed division within the party. Her opponent was selected by Republicans and small states and caucuses, not by Democrats who count.

None of this helps the party. Stay in, Hillary, and keep fighting the good fight. But fight Obama, not the party!

Well Todd, as I replied to a poster above, you're probably right on the money or totally wrong. And whether you're right or wrong will only be seen on election night. You'll either be completely vindicated and regarded as a genius or a supporter of the most costly election-related mistake in a generation.

If someone had a gun to my head and my life depended on winning the election and I had to choose between a nomination that goes all the way to the convention or a nominee we can unite behind and work for months before election day, take a guess which I'd choose?

If he really is the choice of the majority of Democratic primary voters then winning shouldn't be a problem.

Todd, you're ignoring the mathematics of it all.  It was noted by no less than Charlie Cook before yesterday's primary:

Charlie Cook via Chuck Todd:

   NBC political analyst Charlie Cook writes in his CongressDaily column, "[W]inning by slight percentages in Texas and Ohio aren't real wins for Clinton. A 'win' would be anything that significantly closes the gap in delegates. Symbolic victories mean nothing at this point, other than encouraging her to plow ahead in this campaign, amassing a greater campaign debt than already exists and delaying her ability to get on with the next phase of her life."

James Fallows has something to say about it as well.

By what logic, exactly, does a member of the Democratic party include the "Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience" part of that sentence? [...] I have reached the point of wanting to scream every time I hear about the primacy of "experience," knowing how skillfully the 46-year old Bill Clinton waved that argument away when it was used against him 16 years ago by a sitting President who simply dwarfed him in high-level experience.* But to pose it in a form that is poison for the party should Obama be the nominee??? To produce a clip that the McCain campaign could run unedited every single day of a campaign against Obama? That is something special. [...]That is why, as everyone is saying, the big victor today is John McCain, and not just in the obvious way.

And though he's not in the same plane as the above two writers, diarist PocketNines at dailykos has done the number crunching on what Hillary has to do to actually win the numbers game.  He's laid it out in a manner that even the math-allergic will find easy to understand.

Bottom line:  Hillary is damaging the party and she's doing it basically for her own ego because she cannot win it on the numbers.

The black and latte-sipping, Prius-driving coalition does not represent America. Ohio and Texas proved Clinton can win the general if we get out the women's and Latino vote. Women, the working-class and Latinos came out in droves for her.

Stephanie Miller is sometimes entertaining in small does. About like Jerry Springer. But she's not exactly the Oracle of Delphi so I'm guessing that there's a teensy, weensy possibility that her advise will be ignored.  

They WERE pyrrhic victories. Because to win, she had to go extraordinarily negative on a fellow Democrat, and she still did nothing to improve her chances of winning (they actually got worse).

She'll have likely gained a net of 4 delegates last night. 4.

Obama still leads by more than 150 delegates.

There are only 611 left.

Hillary needs 75% of the remaining delegates to overtake Obama.

There are only 2 paths to the nomination:

1) Supers overruling the people
2) Florida and Michigan seated

In case #1, it will fracture the Democratic party. I for one will never vote for a Democrat again if that happens. I'm not the only one who feels that way. There will be a lot of people staying home. Dean and the party will not let this happen. Yet it is the path Hillary wants to take.

In case #2, if Florida and Michigan go unpunished, wait until 2012. Every single state is going to laugh at the DNC when they tell them when they can and can't have their primary. It will be chaos. And also, this will piss off a lot of people in Michigan who stayed home because their candidate wasn't on the ballot, and also in Florida where people stayed home because they knew it didn't count.

So yes, for the good of the party, she should drop out.

FWIW my theory is she wants to damage Obama enough to where he loses in the GE and she can run in 4 years after a disastrous Mccain presidency on the premise of "You made a mistake by not voting for me last time." The Clintons are that power hungry.

This is in no way harming the party at all.

If anything, our eventual nominee will only be stronger and better as a result.

Turnout numbers are through the roof.

everyone needs to calm down and get a grip...

And Hillary needs to stop suggesting that McCain has more experience than Obama...no fratricide!

So lets assume that we have a Michigan and Florida redo and by convention time Obama has a 100+ delegate lead and Clinton has 200k+ popular vote lead (very possible). Why should either one drop out when they both will have valid claims. And how would this hurt the party? Either just before or during the convention some sort of deal will be worked out. Both candidates have a vested interest in preserving their power base. Hillary as Senate majority leader or Barak as VP are both valid outs at that point. A joint Clinton/Obama tour between the conventions at that point would achieve Beatlemania proportions.

the screw-up of Michigan politicians has in fact denied Michigan grass rooters the dry run to help build the infra-structure for November.

I hope the do re-run Florida and Michigan, not for any political reasons, but I think it would be in our interest to have a stronger ground game than Puerto Rico and Guam.

Just saying...

"She should just stop using scorched-earth REPUG smear tactics to"  

You have to be kidding me.  Who first said words like "Candidate of the Staus Quo".  That is sooo much more an insult then ANYTHING Hillary has ever done.  The status Quo is George Bush.  Remember the "Pile on" the first Debates.  Media constant attacks.  Obama's had a complete and utter cakewalk.  Clinton is covered in Scar tissue and still standing and winning.  Outspent 4 to 1.  Media attacks and still winning.  Sign her up for the General Please.  

with hillary getting out of the race ... it means i wont have a democratic candidate that i can vote for and feel good about. if i'm forced to vote for obama in the GE i will have to use one hand to hold my nose while i vote with the other one. sorry, oborgs ... obama is my very last choice ... very last. he hasnt convinced this blue collar democrat that he even cares about the real grass roots of our great party. i know one thing for sure ... his supporters sure dont care about the real base of the democratic party.  

1. Democratic Primaries only, no Caucuses.  Let the people vote.
   
2. All closed Primaries-Only registered Democrats vote in   Democratic Primaries.  We Democrats can select our candidate.
   
3. Each state gets same number of delegates as votes in the Electoral College or a factor of those EC votes.
   
4. Winner-take-all, state by state, just like the Electoral College.
   
5. No state can be stripped of delegates.
   

Well, I think I agree (mostly) with Chris Bowers on this...

Obviously, she shouldn't drop out after winning last night.

On the other hand, the reality is that she still made up very little ground in the delegate race, and it seems beyond unlikely that she'll be able to completely make it up in the weeks that follow.

The national polls are obviously tracking with the horrible beating that Obama has been taking in the press recently, so that's not unexpected.  On the other hand, national polls barely matter now anyway, as several votes have already taken place, just like CT voters can't take back their Lieberman votes in 2006 as much as they might want to.

So, I don't know whether it's "bad for the party" or not YET, but what seems to be the most likely outcome of this is that the primary fight might successfully destroy the likely winner of the nomination.  The way this would've been avoided is, essentially, a knock-out punch by one candidate or the other.  Well, basically, Obama with his lead as is right now, is the only one that can deal a knock-out punch, and he failed yesterday.  His next (and likely last) opportunity to do so will be in PA, by all counts, a rather difficult one for him.  If he fails to do it then, he fails to knock her out entirely, and he (likely) goes on to win the nomination, perhaps limping to victory, and in a much worse position for November.

So, this is as much Obama's fault as Hillary's.  He needed to knock her out and didn't, for whatever reason that was.  We can blame the substantially harsher tone, the Nafta "scandal", or Rezko, or whatever... the reality is that he had a chance to knock her out and he couldn't pull it off.  The math makes it extremely difficult for Hillary to pull off a win, but at the same time it makes it difficult for her to "drop out" when she's winning races.

Todd, another problem that your post fails to address is the "arrogance" of some Clinton supporters in dismissing wins in some states as opposed to others.  I think Jerome just today dismissed Wyoming because Bush got 70% there in the previous election.  You can't build a democratic infrastructure in a state while simultaneously saying that the opinions of its voters don't count, just like you can't take primary results and say that one candidate or the other will lose/carry that state in the general.  If there is some sort of cease-fire where each side drops these stupid arguments and lets the numbers speak for themselves, that is fine.  

Should we take a chill pill or be worried?  The main concern is that McCain gets better organinzed, and reintroduces himself to the general electorate.

And FWIW, the Democrats are under 60 the first time this year on Intrade to win the presidency.

    "And not just a phyrric victory as some said her victory would be, she won on every measure you possibly could: number of states, popular vote AND the delegate count, even after the Texas caucus is factored in."

    A Pyrrhic victory is one in which the battle is won at the cost of making the war unwinnable. That seems like a pretty good description of what happened with Senator Clinton yesterday.

    All figures cited are from the website http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/ superdelegate-list.html

    To win the nomination, she needed decisive victories which would make serious cuts in Senator Obama's lead of about 170 pledged delegates. Starting yesterday there were about 930 pledged delegates left to be chosen. Of those, 370, or nearly 40%, were chosen yesterday. Before yesterday's voting she needed to get about 59% of the 930 available delegates to overtake Obama's lead among pledged delegates. By the count at Daily Kos, she got 191 yesterday to Obama's 178, less than 52% of the delegates selected, on turf that was largely favorable to her.

    So to overcome his approximate 157-vote lead among pledged delegates now, she would need to get 359 of the 560 delegates to be chosen in the 12 remaining states and Puerto Rico, or 64%. If she does really, really well, better than she's done almost anywhere else, and gets 57% of those 560 delegates for a 319-241 split, he'll still have a pledged delegate lead of about 79.

    Her only path to victory at that point would be to convince a large majority of the currently uncommitted super-delegates to support her. There are currently 284 uncommitted super-delegates, and there were reports yesterday that 50 of them are prepared to endorse Obama. If that's true, then given her current lead of 240-197 among committed super-delegates, his overall lead among all delegates would be 86, with 234 remaining uncommitted, and she'd have to win 160 of those, or 68%, to pull even with him in delegates.

    So her task is either:
     A) Get 64% of the delegates to be selected from the remaining 12 states and Puerto Rico, or
     B) Get 57% of those delegates, and leverage that to get 68% of the uncommitted super-delegates.

    Anybody want to quote odds on the likelihood that any of those things will happen?

    If that doesn't meet the definition of a Pyrrhic victory, it's only because winning the war at the beginning of yesterday's battles was not possible. In that sense, it's more like the Confederate victory in the last battle of the Civil War. A meaningless victory which does nothing to change the final result.  

Hillary won big last night in more ways than one. It was a victorious night, plain and simple. It was a victory of substance over style. Hillary was victorious in casting her candidacy in a new light and in changing the tone of her media coverage.

Let the voters in the remaining states have a chance to determine our nominee. Let the delegates from MI and FL be seated. Let the best person win.

The party can take it.  We're stronger than that.

I hate to be so cynical, but by October, all this will be a distant memory as Obama and McCain mix it up.  If it's even a memory at all.  The American people tend to have a rather short attention span.

Even if there's an ugly convention floor fight, even if there's near violence, even if there are the most horrible of recriminations and name calling shouted from the highest rooftops, even if there are lawsuits regarding Michigan and Florida votes that go all the way up to the SCOTUS, it'll all be water under the bridge by the time Election Day finally brings this whole carnival to a staggering, thudding halt and Obama is elected.

Having said all that, if Huckabee dropped out, why shouldn't Clinton?  There is NO WAY for her to be the nominee, barring insanely huge wins for her in ALL of the remaining 12 primaries, or shenanigans with the Superdelegates, or shenanigans with Michigan and Florida.

So, yes, Hillary can stay in, and try to do all these cheats.  Yes, that's what they are.  Cheats.  Grabbing the nomination by nefarious means.  Unethical.  Unfair.  They might be within the rules, and they might be legal, but they are certainly unethical and unfair.

If that's the choice the Democratic Party voters want, between an ethical and an unethical candidate, then it's fine with me.  But the ethical candidate will win out.  The Superdelegates are not stupid.  And the party will emerge from this even stronger.

I urge Hillary supporters to get on the Obama bandwagon.  Whether you do it now, today, or have your arm twisted to do it later (figuratively speaking) is your choice.

That's fine. I will never ask Hillary to drop out. I think Obama won this contest a while ago when he created his 100 plus delegate lead. I don't think she can turn that around, and I don't think Super delegates will vote to change what the delegate count says. I think top Dems are shaking in their boots about what this means for the party, and hoping like hell we can all hold it together to defeat McCain. So I don't think they'd allow SDs to decide this for us.

I do like Hillary, but I don't like the way she's campaigned these past couple of days. I don't like her praising McCain while going after Barack. I don't like when questions of his religion are brought into the campaign. I think last night bums me out because it rewards this kind of campaigning. Sure it's an election and people have to be tough, but as someone put it in an earlier comment, there is a difference between tough and nasty. My stepmom said for the first time in her life, she doesn't like Hillary Clinton. I can't say I blame her.

Historical perspective on this primary campaign (the answer to the prayers of all of us who felt like previous coronations were too bland and too undemocratic):
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/t here-wont-be-blood-by-digby-for-those.ht ml

Also, McSameAsBush ain't looking too good against either of our candidates in the latest polling:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030502646. html  .  He is toast, and based on his campaigning, I am not sure he even minds being toast--it almost seems like he's campaigning out of duty rather than desire to win.  He's not gonna look any younger as the campaign goes on, either.  

Fair enough; I agree Hillary doesn't need to drop out. But that's IF she can stay in without giving McCain further ammunition to attack Obama on national security. IF she has to continue going negative on this particular issue to keep her campaign viable, then I think she's doing more than good.

What do you think, HRC supporters? Given that Obama still has  a better than 50/50 chance to win the nomination, is it fair to ask Clinton not to make arguments that will seriously undermine our ability to take the White House in November, in the (still likely) event that Obama wins the nomination?