More radioactive fallout from the Obama drubbing in Pennsylvania primary race—Politico.com reports that Barack Obama didn’t even do well with college students, his most hyped group of supporters.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Howard Dean has a big problem with Hillary’s growing strength and the fact that Michigan and Florida are still in limbo. Florida is the 4th largest state in terms of population and it voted. The candidates did meet the expected condition that they wouldn’t campaign there but the Dems made no move to stop the vote there. They knew there would be a gigantic problem if they tried to stop millions of Americans from voting so the best they could come up with was an agreement from the candidates that they would not campaign there.
Is it Hillary’s fault if the voters in Florida chose Hillary? Is it Hillary’s fault if counting the votes in Florida and Michigan give her a 100,000 vote edge in the popular vote? The “flog-Hillary” crowd makes no mention that Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich got themselves on the ballot in Michigan. Is that Hillary’s fault, too?
Howard Dean’s problem is that he must somehow manipulate a resolution without appearing to have intervened. There is much talk of the problem resolving itself, but that is a pipe dream. There has been tremendous pressure to annihilate Hillary Clinton and get her to voluntarily drop from the race. That’s condescending, as if they think the woman is stupid.
Howard Dean is under pressure from the Northeast Liberal Establishment to support Barack Obama. The stratagem involves getting people like Judas Richardson, Robert Reish and many others to go belly up. Alienating Obama means alienating a lot of traditional African-American support and party hacks fear that could be more invidious than “alienation.” They ignore the fact that Hillary Clinton retains a fair amount of loyalty from her traditional and clearer thinking base of African-Americans.
At the same time, Howard Dean knows that Obama can’t win in a general election. Right at this moment, Obama is in a dead heat with John McCain in Massachusetts while Clinton is ahead of McCain in that liberal state. Obama has outspent Clinton 4 to 1 in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania and has come up with losses in those states. Yet, the Great Ultra-Liberal Establishment is engaged in what Lanny Davis calls a “suicide pact” of the Democratic Party. They’re going to look good jumping off the cliff together, but I ain’t going there.
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