US News
ANALYSIS: Hillary Clinton showed fighting spirit
Jun 4, 2008, 7:36 GMT
U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton embraces husband former president Bill Clinton as daughter Chelsea waves to supporters during the final primary night of the 2008 presidential campaign in New York, New York, USA, on 03 June 2008. EPA/JEFF ZELEVANSKY
Washington - She was knocked down over and over.
But one thing Senator Hillary Clinton proved during her failed 18-month bid for the centre-left Democratic presidential nomination was she always got up again.
She fought to the very end as her advisors mounted an all-out effort to convince undecided super delegates to overturn Obama's lead in the state-by-state contest.
Even after Obama secured the nomination Tuesday, by reaching the crucial 2,118 delegates needed, Clinton was not yet ready to call it quits.
'This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight,' Clinton said, drawing loud cheers from a defiant crowd of supporters in New York.
Clinton's persistence and toughness both inspired and annoyed those around her.
Legions of female voters mobilized over the historic possibility of a woman president. Rivals were frustrated over her refusal to defer to Obama, who became the first African-American candidate to lead a major party in November elections.
Clinton had name recognition like few other candidates heading into the race to succeed President George W Bush, whose popularity has been undone by the war in Iraq and a weakened US economy.
As first lady, Clinton took an unusually active role in shaping policy, mainly through her high profile yet unsuccessful effort to push a universal health care plan through Congress.
But she may have been hurt by the scandals that rocked the Clinton administration, including Bill Clinton's infidelity, which led to the former president's impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
After overcoming concerns that her 2000 election as New York senator after her husband's presidency was merely a launching pad to the White House, she became immensely popular with New Yorkers, winning reelection by 67 per cent of the votes in 2006.
When Clinton declared her presidential candidacy in early 2007, she was lengths ahead of more than half a dozen male rivals. But by January, Obama, whose charm, outsider status and youth outshone her stiff and policy-wonkish image, had bumped her down to third place in the first nominating test in Iowa.
Obama, 46, campaigned by stressing the need for change, a strategy that caught on with voters who feared she would continue the political partisanship and bickering of the Clinton and Bush years.
The pattern of defeat and comeback begun in Iowa demanded a series of strategy adjustments. As a woman running for commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful country, Clinton had to project an iron will and toughness on foreign relations that earned her bad marks for being harsh and unfeeling.
Yet when she got teary-eyed over her love of country and won New Hampshire after the Iowa defeat, critics charged she had both manipulated emotions and was too weak-willed as a woman to become president.
Clinton's prospects dimmed during 11 straight state losses in February, then brightened with strong wins in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania - giant stakeholders in the November elections. And so it went, with Clinton usually trailing slightly in the delegate count behind Obama.
Although Clinton and Obama agreed on most issues, such as the need for a speedy exit from Iraq and a stronger emphasis on diplomacy, the issues of sex and race were never far from the surface.
Both candidates were forced to disengage from supporters who made remarks construed as racist, most prominently as Obama distanced himself from his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr.
Obama's camp charged racism when Clinton claimed she had more appeal to the white workers who have voted Republican in the past - and thus could better beat Republican John McCain.
Clinton's female supporters also complained of sexism in the media.
In the end, various factors stood in Clinton's way. The spectre of a two-family two-step, passing the White House between the Bushes and the Clintons for more than 20 years, was seen as a stumbling block for the general electorate.
Democratic voters chose the fresh face of Obama, a first-term senator who touted Clinton as part of the old guard before crowds of up to 50,000.
In the wake of her loss, there has been talk of a vice- presidential candidacy, but it remains unclear how desirable such a union would be both for Obama and for Clinton. Clinton could also choose to take up the liberal banner in the Senate carried for nearly five decades by Ted Kennedy, 76, who is suffering brain cancer.
She urged her supporters on Tuesday to weigh in on her website, and those who did urged her to keep going, expressing reluctance to support Obama or be satisfied with a possible spot for her as vice president on the Democratic ticket.
COMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
It ain't very presidential (or vice-presidential) to lie about snipers in Bosnia, either.
In case you haven't noticed, there's no single tally for the popular vote. Some ways you add up the popular vote Obama has more, and some ways you add up the popular vote (mostly by excluding a few states and voters from the tally) Hillary has more.
The popular vote tallies were not kept by many states because, quite simply, the nominating process does not WORK by popular vote. Pretending it does, and then retroactively trying to guess how many voters there were for each candidate in each contest, is just silly.
She went out kicking and screaming, stomping her feet like a spoiled child.Even now she won't concede--What a power hungery loser--they both are--he just has more manners
She lost, plain and simple. Now she just has to admit it.
They never know when they have lost....just ask Gore.
'She went out kicking and screaming....like a spoiled child' Who posted this, Father Pleger? It is exactly this kind of ranting, biased and untrue perspective that has infuriated a lot of people. She ran a strong, fair campaign. Why was she constantly being hounded to drop out before the numbers were there and accused of being a power hungry monster because she continued on while only trailing by a small percentage of the voters? People needed to constantly ask themselves, if these were two white males, what would you say, how would you react? Ted Kennedy fought Carter all the way to the convention trailing, as I understand it, by something like 1000 delegates.
Obama has barely eked out a win here and only because the DNC decided to get behind him with the Florida/Michigan decision and the pile on of super delegates out of a frantic desire to just end the race. The person who posted the above comment would be well served with a fraction of the grace and dignity that Clinton possesses.
..I think it's over for her, unless she takes it to the convention and that does not look likely...
or a bitter gun clinger... typical..
Please give me a break.They both signed off that the votes wou;d not count in the 2 states.Then it became obivous there was no way she could win without trying to change the rules midstream.
Grace and dignity my ass, and now that it's all over she still won't concede--trying another power grabbing lawyer trick. With the likely exception of their daughter,the whole family has no morals or ethics.
it depends on which side of the fence you are on as to how you feel about her fighting spirit, and then there's Bush's right hand man, SP. She's a Democrat - fighting words for him!
Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, 52, showed no emotion as the jury delivered a mixed verdict that found him guilty of scheming with the government's star witness to get kickbacks out of money management firms wanting state business, but acquitted him of charges that included attempted extortion.
The jury delivered its guilty verdict on 16 of 24 counts after a nine-week trial.
Rezko has known Obama since he entered politics and was involved in a 2005 real estate deal with the Democratic presidential candidate, although testimony barely touched on their relationship. Most of the focus was on shakedowns prosecutors said Rezko arranged when he was a top adviser to Blagojevich.
Neither Blagojevich nor Obama has been accused of wrongdoing.
Rezko's defense attorneys maintained that the government had little evidence tying him to corruption and that the star witness, admitted political fixer Stuart P. Levine, was not credible because years of drug use had damaged his memory.
sp4 - boy..you guys can really pick em!
This is not the win to celebrate. November is the one to win. I have backed two men in the last two elections. They lost and we paid dearly. This time I backed Sen. Clinton. I sincerely think that she would win in November. Least we forget, that's the important victory and I think it is slipping through our fingers again...
Vote for the HONEST leftist. Vote Obama.
suddenly all racist has awoken and is spilling garbage about other people capabilities, characters who do you people think you are? Do you all know Obama personally? Your opinion hurts, but who cares he is a black man who speaks well, you people gloss over the fact that he is highly intelligent who can give Hilary and McCain a run for their money, Obama needs is a chance to prove himself,like you would of given the same chance to a white person, but NO you can't do that.
You know, what Pfleger says has some truth in it, but white America do not want it to be thrown in their faces, they muich rather bury their heads in the sand, and call it dealt with.
looser.... I will not support a Obama/Clinton ticket, she marred the line, she attacked first...
'Obama needs is a chance to prove himself,like you would of given the same chance to a white person,'
Like Bush?
'You know, what Pfleger says has some truth in it,'
Poor thing... always being held back by someone else, eh?
page: 1
Steve RealJun 4th, 2008 - 10:10:41
It ain't very democratic to lead by a quarter million votes and still lose is it?
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