More Clinton Derangement Syndrome

Clinton Campaign says they're not conceding even if tonight's primaries and superdelegate announcements, as expected, put Obama over the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for President.

The asshat who apparently is running campaign policy for the Clintons is Terry McAuliffe, probably the most incompetent and ineffectual DNC chairman of the past fifty years, the man whose machinations led to the nomination of John Kerry in 2004, probably the weakest Democratic candidate since Michael Dukakis, and the loss of Congress in 2002. This is an example of the kind of people who led to Clinton's loss -- long-time party insiders whose incompetence led to the loss of Democratic majorities in Congress and to 40 years of almost-uninterrupted Republican domination of the Presidency. The Clinton campaign apparently puts loyalty ahead of competence -- hmm, where have I seen that before?

The fact of the matter is that Clinton lost, and every survey and poll says that this is the will of the majority of Democrats -- more Democrats supported Obama than Clinton, regardless of any paranoid delusional silliness from the Clinton campaign about how Obama didn't really win the support of the majority of Democrats. The race was Clinton's to lose -- she was the frontrunner from the time she announced until the day after Super Tuesday -- and she lost it fair and square the old fashioned way, by running a campaign that was strikingly incompetent until these last two months, at which point she started fighting dirty by claiming that John McCain was more qualified than Obama to be President, America wouldn't vote for a black man for President (won her the Republican racist crossover vote in West Virginia and Kentucky, but those people are going to vote for McCain in the fall so that's not exactly a selling point for Clinton), etc. etc. etc. I must say that she is exceedingly good at running a dirty campaign pandering to the worst in everybody, and if she'd run that kind of campaign from day one, the outcome might -- or might not -- have been different. But she didn't.

Yet, just as a delusional John McCain and George W. Bush claim we're "really" winning in Afghanistan and Iraq despite all the years of evidence to the contract, Clinton continues to claim she's "really" winning even though, well, she isn't. And the sufferers of Clinton Derangement Syndrome start saying "well, even John McCain is better than Obama because Obama stole the candidacy." Yeah, he "stole" the candidacy by appealing to more Democrats than Hillary Clinton did , and by opening up a lead over John McCain (and Hillary Clinton) in the polls, a fact which is swaying the superdelegates to ignore Hillary's argument of "America won't vote for a nigger for President". The question is whether the sufferers of Clinton Derangement Syndrome will come to their senses and make sure the disaster that is John McCain is not elected to office, or whether they will elect John McCain. If the latter... well. I guess I need to start liquidating my many many possessions in preparation for the move overseas, because the collapse of the United States during a McCain presidency will not be pleasant.

In short, even though I'm not a big Obama partisan (see my criticism of his health care plan), I will vote for him in the fall. He's not a bad candidate by any means -- he has demonstrated that he is intelligent, cunning, and has an ability to take on the partisan slime machine that will be slung at him in the fall. He's also not an ideal candidate. But he has certainly demonstrated that he is a good candidate, and the perfect is the enemy of the good -- and if we wait for a "perfect" candidate, we'll never have another Democratic president ever. And right now, given the fact that Ghawar is about to stop producing and over 10% of the world's oil production is about to evaporate, another delusional Republican presidency is the last thing this country needs...

-- Badtux the Practical Penguin