The Frustration Continues

Last night I watched in disbelief as Hillary Clinton failed to concede to Barack Obama and hardly acknowledged that she had lost the Democratic nomination for President. This was her opportunity to begin healing all the wounds inflicted during the primary, but instead she chose to merely point them out again. You can read the full text of her speech but let me just summarize for you:

• Terry McAuliffe, her campaign manager, introduced her and said, “Are you ready for the next president of the United States?” (Here’s one of many sources reporting this.)
• Her congratulations to Barack Obama was perfunctory and did not congratulate him for winning.
• She touches again on the themes of electability and presidential readiness which she ridiculously used throughout her campaign to tarnish Obama. Her “experience” in politics is certainly debatable and former President Carter noted today that her electability argument is also questionable.
• She again claims 18 million votes without reference to the fact that Obama has, by most metrics, received about the same number. Of course, the popular vote doesn’t matter in a delegate system anyway and Clinton has been trailing by hundreds of delegates since February. While the media loudly trumpeted her victories, her only double-digit delegate wins were in Pennsylvania (12), Kentucky (23), West Virginia (12) and Puerto Rico (21). This is why people “unjustly” counted her out months ago – the mathematics made it virtually impossible for her to win elected delegates.
• She repeated another common argument they have used throughout their campaign: she won all the “swing states” during the primary which means that she is more likely to win them during the election. Keeping in mind that only registered Democrats vote in the Democratic primary, it’s not hard to see how this argument might be suspicious. In Pennsylvania, for example, Clinton won about 1.3 million votes out of 2.3 million. In the 2004 election, Pennsylvanians cast nearly 6 million votes. Clinton has only proven that she could win 1/6th of those votes. In other words, primary votes are not an indicator for general election votes.
• She reminds us of the importance of “counting every vote,” which is to remind us of the “unfair” treatment of Michigan and Florida, states that broke the party rules and were punished according to party rules. Many, if not most, Clinton supporters felt that it was unfair for Obama to receive any votes from Michigan (since he was not on the ballot) and even quibbled over 4 votes that he received in Florida.
• She talks about how the Republican administration has ignored the people for eight years and then tells us that she doesn’t want her 18 million supporters to be ignored anymore. “I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.” How about the rest of us? Can we be heard, too? And is she saying that if she’s not the nominee that those Americans will be not be?
• “This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight.” In her long years of public service, has she not observed that when one loses an election it is graceful to concede? Does she not know that in a primary election it is important to unite the party? This was the night. All eyes were on her on this night. Opportunity lost.
• Instead, she encourages her supporters to make their opinions known by logging into her website, where today they are greeted by a giant “Contribute” button.

In addition to the non-conciliatory speech, the campaign sent out an email to all it’s supporters essentially re-iterating that Clinton has not yet given up. Note the large “Contribute” button at the bottom of the email. This email was also posted to her official blog where many commenters are inexplicably urging her to run as an independent. I can’t think of a more selfish act but, given her behaviour throughout the campaign, I would not be surprised if she did so.

Michael Tomasky and others say that she is trying to force her way  into the Vice Presidency. I don’t see the Obama campaign doing that and I don’t think it would help them in any way. They’re already going to win New York (her home state) and she brings more liability than assets to the table. She is, quite simply, a divisive figure and this campaign has only re-enforced that view. If she wants to salvage her career and her image, she has to dispel the image of a sore loser.