It's the morning after, and Hillary Clinton has made her appearance on CNN to reiterate her position that she isn't going anywhere until the nomination is decided, and she can't see the nomination being decided until the issues of Michigan and Florida are resolved.
CNN's Frank Sesno --
-- made the point that while Clinton hammers on the idea that she doesn't want to see 2.3 million Michigan and Florida voters "disenfranchised" by having their delegations penalized at the convention, it's Clinton who would disenfranchise the 14.3 million-plus people who have voted for Obama with her superdelegate argument. In other words, she doesn't want Michiganders and Floridians disenfranchised, but apparently she doesn't mind it if Alabamians, Georgians, Mississippians, South Carolinians, Louisianans and residents of the 23 other state primaries and caucuses Obama has won are.SIDEBAR: Speaking of Frank, where has he been? I used to enjoy watching him, but he's been AWOL for a long time. He's a good reporter who always plays it straight. It was good to see him back. END SIDEBAR
Once again, another Clinton double standard ... and we're not even getting into the fact that Clinton's name was the only one that appeared on the ballot in Michigan ... kind of like Castro in Cuba. But I guess that's what a Clinton considers a free and fair election.
Two more good points for the road:
- CNN's Roland Martin reminded us that there will only be seven weeks between the end of the Republican convention, which wraps up Sept. 4, and the general election -- the point being that the longer the Democratic candidates fight with each other, the more time John McCain has to define himself before the Democratic nominee, whoever it turns out to be, has a chance to define him. That's more bad news -- read: reality -- that Democrats who have been swimming in the "this-drawn-out-process-has-been-so-good-for-the-party" Kool-Aid continue to ignore.
- And to wrap it up, longtime politico David Gergen made the statement, "There is a thing worse than losing the election," and that's damaging the party beyond repair. If Hillary Clinton manages to wrest the nomination away from Barack Obama, his lead in states won, delegates won and popular vote notwithstanding, the Democratic Party will alienate young voters and black voters in massive proportions, ultimately resulting in the complete collapse of the party itself. This is what pundits mean when they warn about a Phyrric victory: As the saying goes, "Another such victory, and we are undone."
On to Indiana, where a RealClearPolitics poll average showed a virtual dead heat, with Clinton ahead by just 2.2 percent as of April 16 (a week ago), and North Carolina, where the same average as of April 21 (Monday) shows Obama with a healthy 15.5 percent lead.
