Last night was the beginning of the end. This isn't because we haven't been in the final stretch for a long time now, because we have, and I'd say the real beginning of the end was when Obama won 11 contests in a row, somewhere in the middle of that was the real beginning of the end, but last night something amazing happened, the media actually acknowledged that it was pretty much over for Hillary. FINALLY! For anyone who has passed 3rd grade math that fact has been obvious for quite some time, but now the impossibility of her winning is so blatantly obvious that even the media can't carry her anymore. But more on that later.
Last night I mentioned that North Carolina, which Bill predicted would be an upset victory for Hillary, that would change everything, that everyone would be watching, went overwhelmingly for Obama. His win there completely erased Hillary's popular vote gains from Pennsylvania. Basically it absolutely destroyed any chance of her being able to pull of claiming a popular vote win, even by counting unfair contests in Florida and Michigan and ignoring a bunch of caucus states that Obama won. It also crushed her already ridiculous "big state" argument, because North Carolina is a big state (and so is Indiana, which we will get to shortly). Basically Obama's big win in North Carolina was the second to last nail in Hillary's electoral coffin.
The final nail was Indiana, which she also lost. It's true, she lost it. Obama won, and Rush Limbaugh came in with a paltry 5% or so of the vote. Of course his 5% backed Hillary, in a continuation of his quest to keep Hillary in the race so she can continue to be the GOP attacking Obama from the inside. The final tallies from Indiana show Hillary winning by less than 2%, while the exit polls show that 7% of her supporters would vote for McCain over her in the general election. About 2% of Obama's voters said the same about him. While I'm not sure of the logic behind a Republican voting for Obama but not actually supporting him, for the sake of argument let's just cancel out an equal 2% of her support as the Limbaugh Effect. So 5% of her vote was thanks to Rush Limbaugh, so in reality, if the Republicans hadn't been tampering with the election, Obama won Indiana by more than 3%. Limbaugh is no doubt loving his influence, and loving that Democrats are still supporting Hillary even though the Right is openly relishing the fact that she is helping McCain. But even his influence and her superficial declared victory in Indiana couldn't save her. It didn't matter if she won Indiana, because she was supposed to win that by a large margin, and she couldn't do it, just like she couldn't catch up to Obama in North Carolina.
So the reaction from the media, which is probably the biggest story here. Tim Russert pretty much personifies the mood of the media here:
There you have it, the media finally acknowledging: "We now know who the Democratic candidate is going to be."
Or in the words of Thomas Edsall:
In the universe of political clichés, she is on life support, her oxygen choked off, her knees buckling, unable to stanch the bleeding, down for an eight count, on the ropes, praying for the bell to ring, desperate to get her wind back.That's about right. Perhaps realizing this Hillary canceled all of her events for today, including her appearances on the morning news shows. (Update: After the media took note of this last night she added a small event in West Virginia today, most likely to keep the media from questioning her clearing of her schedule.)
So going forward, what does it look like? Well Hillary is still broke, and there are reports that she had to loan herself more money again (Update: She did, $6.4 million last month!). With the media coverage now reflecting reality her funding is going to dry up, and her campaign will be slumping along, suffocating for lack of money, as everything slowly fades to black around it. She will also face more superdelegate gains from Obama (his first was a NC superdelegate last night), and possibly even some more defections from her camp. This kills any chance of her electoral coup by hijacking the vote via superdelegates. Another strategy thwarted. And lastly there will be a growing chorus of Democratic officials calling for her to resign, especially if she continues her ultra-negative scorched earth strategy of trying to destroy Obama and the Democratic Party. There were even reports that last night Wes Clark, a big Hillary supporter, called Hillary and told her it is over.
One thing that pissed me off though was Harold Ford Jr. who kept bringing up the idiotic "dream ticket" idea, saying that Obama "needed" Hillary to shore up his white vote, regardless of the fact there is no evidence that there is any problem aside from some small margin of white, blue collar Democratic voters, in a few states, who prefer Hillary over Obama in a Democratic primary. Limbaugh "Democrats" aside (which no doubt have been inflating the appearance of some sort of "white problem" for Obama, there is no indication that these Democrats are voting against Obama, and that he wouldn't be able to get their support in the general. Obama has won in very white states all across the country, and he has overwhelmingly won among blue collar workers. And despite two months of overwhelmingly negative media coverage of Obama he has continued to improve his numbers amongst demographics such as white women, Catholics, gun owners, households earning under $50,000 annually, voters prioritizing the economy, and voters without a college degree. This is a feat comparable to a fish swimming up a waterfall, but he has done it. In the end all the talk about Obama's "white problem" or "working class" problem is fiction, a creation of the Clintons and the media. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of voters believe that Obama is better able to beat McCain than Hillary. So there will be no "dream ticket", indeed it would be a nightmare ticket. There are a thousand reasons Hillary would make the WORST choice for VP, and here is an excellent blog post describing just some of the reasons. Give it a read!
Anyway, this thing is over. The only question now is whether Hillary will stop running a scorched earth strategy or if she'll continue stabbing the Party in the back and helping McCain.
Update: It turns out that Hillary did indeed loan herself money again, three times in the last month, according to ABC News:
On April 11, Sen. Clinton loaned her campaign $5M; on May 1, she loaned $1M; and on May 5, loaned $425,000.She is quickly turning into the next Mitt Romney. This means that now she is has loaned herself $11,425,000 of their own money. It must be nice having that much money laying around to dump into a dying campaign. Of course this again raises the question of where all of Bill's money came from, and what promises he made in exchange for the money, and what conflicts of interest now cloud his judgment.
Insiders says Clinton "will continue to" loan money to the campaign.
Update #2: McCain faced a bit of a no-confidence vote yesterday in North Carolina and Indiana, and the results weren't all that spectacular for McCain. A full 25%, one quarter of Republicans voted against him, the Republican nominee, for people who haven't been running for months, and Ron Paul. That's embarrassing.
Update #3: Hillary, never a fan of honesty, says she is happy with yesterday's results, even as everyone from top supporters to the media are busy writing the obituary for her presidential bid. Seriously, you can admit it sucked for you, no one will blame you, you don't have to lie, you can just try once to not lie, just give it a try, just once, cut the bullshit and stop lying when we all know you are full of crap. Oh, and she also defined "progress" and success for her campaign as racial polarization, racism, in North Carolina. Niiiccee.
Update #4: A nice diary from kos discussing ridiculous ideas such as Obama paying off Hillary's debt and Obama picking Hillary as VP. On the debt paying idea, speaking as a multiple-donator to Obama, I would be LIVID if he paid off her debt. By the end of this Hillary is going to owe herself over $11 million, money which she has used to smear Obama with every Republican attack in the book, even though it has been obvious that he will be our nominee since Super Tuesday. I donated to Obama to support Obama against Hillary and against McCain, NOT to have Obama give the Clintons $11 million as a "thank you" for trying to sabotage his candidacy. Although I don't believe Obama would entertain the idea of paying off her debt, he needs every penny to win the election in November. And on the VP prospects, right now I'm partial to Gov. Richardson.
