Will Hillary Go Nuclear? How Far Will Clinton Push?

Posted on June 2, 2008
Filed Under Journalism, News, commentary |

The question on the minds of many Democratic party bigwigs is: Will Hillary Clinton exercise the nuclear option and carry her fight to win the nomination all the way to the floor of the Democratic convention in Denver in August?

She certainly has been sending out signals that she is prepared to do that–or her surrogates are, anyway.

Does she mean it?

She got screwed

There’s no doubt she got screwed this weekend when a party committee decided to seat the delegations from Michigan and Florida but give them half a vote…putting the nomination even farther out of reach for Clinton.

More damaging was the decision to award delegates to Barack Obama from Michigan even though his name was not on the ballot. That is the decision that has angered the Clinton people the most.

She had an impressive win this weekend in Puerto Rico, again raising doubts about whether Obama can make real inroads into the Latino vote in the U.S.?

By her count, she will end up with more of the popular vote than Obama; by his count, he will have more.

How’s that?

In large measure because he is counting the caucus states, where the popular vote was not actually tallied, while she is not.

Shock and awe

Clinton supporters, reports the New York Times, are shocked and baffled that more superdelegates, who will end up deciding this contest, are not flocking to Clinton after some impressive primary wins.

It seems as if the decision has all but been made by party leaders that Obama is the candidate.

Why the rush?

There has been a very unseemly rush on the part of Obama’s people to declare victory and get on with it, even before many people had a chance to vote. They say they need to quickly unify the party if it is to win against the Republicans in the fall.

But it is not exactly as if John McCain is some dynamo…his campaign is somewhat lackluster and he hasn’t been able to raise nearly as much money as he should have.

So, why not take the time to get it right? the Democrats should be asked.

All of which leads us back to whether Clinton will fight all the way to the convention?

My best guess is she will not…a deal, some deal, any deal, will be worked out before this nuclear option is put into play.

But this has been, without doubt, the most unpredictable and strangest presidential election in U.S. history, so the bets are off as to what will actually happen.

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