• In 1988, Jesse Jackson took his hopeless campaign against winner Michael Dukakis all the way to the convention, often to great media praise.

• In 1980, Ted Kennedy carried his run against Jimmy Carter all the way to the convention, even though it was clear he had been routed.

• In 1976, Ronald Reagan contested the “inevitability” of Gerald Ford all the way to the convention. Few, then or since, have ever thought to criticize Reagan’s failure to step aside and let Ford assume the mantle.

• Also in 1976, three candidates — Mo Udall, Jerry Brown, and Frank Church — ran against Jimmy Carter all the way through the final primaries, even though Carter seemed more than likely to be the eventual nominee.

• Even in 1960, Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson fought the “certain” nomination of John F. Kennedy all the way to the convention floor.

If she wants to stay in the race, I’m OK with it. I still believe the Democrats will win big in November. You seem to be upset mainly because a lot of people want her to give it up. It’s turning out that they were right: she’s not going to win. The way it looked in March is pretty much the way it looks now, only with a lot less time for her to catch up. The fact that this was predicted earlier doesn’t mean she should continue to ignore reality now that the predictions are coming true.

This campaign has been much longer than any previous one and the actual primary elections started two months earlier. June of ‘92 is analogous to April of ‘08. It’s now May, so I think you can say she and everyone else have had ample time to make their points and win support.

I’ve been saying for a year now that the Republicans will not be able to overcome the Bush Effect in the next election, and I still think I’m right about that. I did not, however, expect anything like this. It’s unnerving, and I’ll be really ticked if it tips things just enough so that McCain can win.

Look, I don’t want to get into a position of defending her to the nth degree, because I don’t support her that much. I still say that, in many ways, most particularly health insurance (which I think is one of the one or two biggest things facing this country in the coming few years), she’s got a better handle on it than Obama. And Obama made completely stupid remarks about Social Security way back when–basically once again giving the republicans an opportunity to try to end Social Security, even though it is a program that works, and keeps old people from starving to death. He was yammering about reaching out to republicans, there for awhile, which is stupid as well. They do not want reaching out, they want to win. Always and only. There are the occasional exceptions, but the far-right wing has eliminated all but a few of those exceptions. Rove and the Nixon-trained ratfuckers have eliminated any real hope of bipartisanship, and Obama is dense if he doesn’t realize that. But I don’t see the piling on to Obama–he’s the great hope, the one who’s going to Change Everything. Umm, no, no he won’t. And I’m okay with that, so long as he doesn’t appoint any more Scalias to the Supreme Court, and so long as he doesn’t actually allow the assholes to end Social Security, and so long as he ends this fucking war.

And, really, the article you linked made my point as well: she pointed out that people have been trying to get her to drop out since Iowa. Why should she listen now, given the victories she has amassed along the way? Now, I could tell you why she should listen/drop out now, and so could you, but I can understand why someone would be skeptical about hearing that message when they’ve been hearing it for so long. The wolf is really there this time? The sky really is falling this time? How can you tell?

And trust me, I will be every bit as annoyed as you if she burns the house down. I have no idea whether she will–I haven’t followed this at all–but I also think it’s wrong to preemptively trash her for it. I do not think staying in the race = burning down the house. You could argue, probably successfully, that a bitter, ugly floor fight = burning down the house, but she hasn’t done that yet.

Senator Clinton could still theoretically capture the nomination even today, but it has been a long time since there was a reasonable chance for her to do so. I’m not one who’s been suggesting that she drop out, and she was right to ignore premature partisan calls for her departure, but even though the curve has gone up and down, the trend has been bad for her since February 5, and it’s not true that we only know that in retrospect. The time is ripe now, in my opinion, for her to figure out a way to join the team that must rebuild the nation after the failed Bush Administration. If she thinks the way to do that is to continue her campaign for the nomination, then I hope she will drop her various proposals to change the rules and her disputes with the DNC Rules Committee and her public implications that McCain is a better choice than Obama and run a straight-ahead “My policies are better than Obama’s” campaign until someone gets 2,010 delegates.

[Re: Carter and Bill Clinton: You make my point. They did poorly in the very early going, but long before the convention they were the presumptive nominees, and they both won in November.]

Also, Carter did not win the Iowa caucuses: “uncommitted” did, according to something I read this morning. And Bill Clinton didn’t exactly wow anyone with early wins.

It’s easy to look back now, today, and interpret what has happened as BO rolling to victory, but it could have gone the other way–again, up until very, very recently. Do I think Hil’s chances have lessened gradually? Yes. But has it been obvious that that’s what was going to happen? No–not at all obvious, and the chances have lessened gradually, not in big jumps, and she continued to pick up delegates and wins.

Thus, I think part of the dynamic is a certain boy-who-cried-wolf thing. People have been telling her she “ought to” quit for long before that was true, so anyone who wants to make the argument NOW has to overcome the fact that she’s been hearing it for a long time before it was finally true. And, even now, Obama has months to make his case, so blaming a loss on her is disingenuous at best at this point.

The way we’ve been playing the game for the past hundred years or so, the lesser candidate quits at some point when they still have some slender mathematical chance to win, so that their supporters can get used to the eventual winning candidate, and so that candidate has time to address their concerns publicly, resulting in the party having a better chance in the general.

A win in November: that’s what I want. I don’t want her to fuck it up. I don’t care about gender issues or a history-making candidacy. I want all the potential Democratic voters to have someone to rally around and get ready to vote for.

Now would be a good time for that to begin.