“‘It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended,’ one superdelegate said.” From denial to anger? Bill Clinton goes off the rails at a superdelegate gathering in California, after a question about the Bill Richardson endorsement. “It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade. ‘Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that,’ a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.” Meanwhile, it comes out that, while trying to woo Gov. Richardson, Sen. Clinton repeatedly emphasized her view her view that Obama is a general-election loser: “He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win.” She didn’t say why she thought this, although one can presume.
Fortunately, more and more supers don’t share the Clintons’ dim view of the American electorate. Recent announcements of note: Montana super John Melcher, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, and, if you read between the lines, former president Jimmy Carter: ““My children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama. As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave you to make that guess.” Also, New Jersey Gov. John Corzine, like Cantwell before him, began laying the groundwork for a Clinton-to-Obama switch on CNBC this morning, although he retained some degree of plausible deniability [video.]
Update: The Clinton campaign attempts to elide her unelectable remark, now arguing that [a] Obama is in fact electable and [b] Richardson said it first.
This isn’t related to this post, but I saw you were reading World War Z and I felt a responsibilty to warn you about how incredibly bland it is. But maybe I made a mistake in hoping to be entertained. It fails as a novel and as a satire, and anything with zombies is usually a sure bet for me. Let me know if you think I’m way off base.
Not only is Richardson Judas — now he’s also Peter. You will deny Bill five times before dawn, Bill…
Who does Bill think he is, Boss Tweed? He appoints (the eminently qualified) Richardson to a couple of positions in his administration, and now Richardson is supposed to be eternally loyal, not just to Clinton but to his wife, and in an utterly lost cause at that? It’s not like the Clintons made Richardson or something, he’s a heavy hitter in his own right. This is when you start backing away slowly and hoping that The Crazy™ isn’t contagious.
Oh, also, an interesting analysis / projection from Chris Bowers that has the superdelegate race virtually tied. He’s an Obama partisan, so take it with a grain of salt, but still…
Hey David, thanks for posting. I’m behind on updating the sidebar — I finished a World War Z a few weeks ago. I actually liked it decently enough, although I’ll admit I enjoyed the Studs Terkel oral history conceit more than anything else. Kinda like all the academic footnotes in Susannah Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I’m a bit of a sucker for “fake-history” books.
Yeah, the Clintonian opprobium for Richardson is totally off the chain at this point. One has to wonder what makes his apostasy so much worse than that of every other Obama superdelegate. But perhaps they’re just trying to keep folks like Rahm Emanuel off the Obama bus, by showing the treament they’ll receive if they balk Tammany Hil.
The Bowers piece is good news. In fact, anything that hastens the end for the Clintons is sweet music to my ears at this point. I’ve got a pretty heavy dose of election fatigue at the moment.