Hillary Clinton

The AP just reported that Hillary Clinton loaned her campaign $6.4 million last month.

It's not shock that she is willing to go against the rules:

With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party's 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could -- when the committee meets at the end of this month -- try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives. The Obama campaign has declined to give an estimate.

Using the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force the seating of two pro-Hillary delegations would provoke a massive outcry from Obama forces. Such a strategy would, additionally, face at least two other major hurdles, and could only be attempted, according to sources in the Clinton camp, under specific circumstances:

Without the Obama supporters, Hillary has no way to win the general. That's the same as without Clinton supporters, Obama can't win. This is the exact reason why any decisions on Florida and Michigan must be done in such a way to cause minimal damage to the party.

In a WaPo article this morning, they talk about growing concerns of Clinton trying to destroy the entire Democratic party for her own political  ambitions:

The protracted and increasingly acrimonious fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is unnerving core constituencies -- African Americans and wealthy liberals -- who are becoming convinced that the party could suffer irreversible harm if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her sharp line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton's solid win in the Pennsylvania primary exposed a quandary for the party. Her backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination -- handed to her by superdelegates -- would result in a disastrous breach with black voters.

This is also starting to cost her in donors. Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon, ambassador to Chile under Clinton, was considered one of Hillary's top fundraisers (a "hillraiser"), bringing her in more than $500,000. Now he has defected over to Obama because of this. Smaller donors are also following suit, as explained in the WaPo article:

"I think she is destroying the Democratic Party," said New York lawyer Daniel Berger, who had backed Clinton with the maximum allowable donation of $2,300. "That there's no way for her to win this election except by destroying [Obama], I just don't like it. So in my own little way, I'm trying to send her a message."

The message came in the form of a $2,300 contribution to Obama.

You would think this would be a sure sign to Clinton to get out for the good of the entire party, but she won't. Even Clinton backer George McGovern is starting to worry about it, and seeing the same pattern emerge that cost him the White House in 1972.

It's sad to say, but if this does continue we can just go ahead and inaugurate John McCain. When we are in the middle of a war with Iran we can then blame the Clintons.

Especially when things like this are being said:

The third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives and one of the country’s most influential African-American leaders sharply criticized former President Bill Clinton this afternoon for what he called Mr. Clinton’s “bizarre” conduct during the Democratic primary campaign.

Representative James E. Clyburn, an undeclared superdelegate from South Carolina who is the Democratic whip in the House, said that “black people are incensed over all of this,” referring to statements that Mr. Clinton had made in the course of the heated race between his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Senator Barack Obama.

Good way to destroy a legacy Bill.

That is what this sounds like:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

That from the New York Times, who endorsed Clinton.

That is something that George Bush has to be reminded about time and time again. So you think the Democrats would get it - right? Not if you are Hillary Clinton. Last week she said she would nuke Iran if they attacked Israel, or a number of other Middle East countries. Last night she again stated this position on Keith Olbermann.

Sorry Senator Clinton, but you first need Congress to declare war against Iran, , even if they did attack Israel (and nuking them would be a declaration of war). This isn't like NATO - we don't have treaties with these nations (and that also requires the approval of Congress). Do you really think sounding like George Bush will help your chances of beating Obama?

Her campaign is massive debt:

Barack Obama began the month of April with a 5-1 cash advantage over a debt-saddled Hillary Rodham Clinton, setting the stage for his lopsided spending in the crucial primary state of Pennsylvania.

Financial reports filed Sunday by the Democratic presidential candidates with the Federal Election Commission show Clinton had $10.3 million in debts at the start of the month and only about $9 million cash on hand for the primaries. Obama reported having $42 million for the primary.

(emphasis added)

So how viable will she be against John McCain in the general if she is already this far in the red? Obama has proven his ability to raise record amounts of money. Going against the right wing noise machine, it takes money to be louder. Obama can afford to be the loudest candidate in the general.

Bill has really lost it. Now he is trying to repeat the lies Hillary told about her Bosnia trip:

Former President Clinton has added to the falsehoods surrounding his wife's tale of her trip to Bosnia 12 years ago.

In Indiana on Thursday, Bill Clinton defended his wife's mistake in claiming that she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia, accusing the media of treating her like "she'd robbed a bank" for confusing the facts.

The AP article even lists the facts he got wrong:

Bill Clinton has many of the facts wrong.

His wife didn't make the sniper fire claim "one time late at night when she was exhausted." She actually told the story several times, including during prepared remarks on foreign policy delivered the morning of March 17.

It's also not true that she "immediately apologized for it." Clinton has never apologized for the comments and only acknowledged that she "misspoke" a week after the March 17 speech when video of her peaceful tarmac reception emerged.

It's also not true that she was the "first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone" - a claim that Hillary Clinton has also made when talking about the trip. Pat Nixon traveled to Saigon during the Vietnam war and Barbara Bush went to Saudi Arabia two months before the launching of Desert Storm.

The trip also was not in 1995, but 1996.

Bill just harmed Hillary's chances. The media was letting this story die out, but now he has reignited it. Maybe Hillary should send Bill off with Penn.

Mark Penn has asked to step down as chief strategist for Clinton's campaign. Sounds like too little, too late.

And that is firing the joke that is Mark Penn.

April Fool's:

Senator Hillary Clinton's lead in the Pennsylvania Primary is shrinking.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania shows Clinton leading Barack Obama by just five percentage points, 47% to 42%. For Clinton, that five-point edge is down from a ten-point lead a week ago, a thirteen-point lead in mid-March and a fifteen-point advantage in early March.

Her lead is down to only 5 points now. This has been typical this entire cycle. Clinton leads in a state for months and then once their primary date gets closer, and Obama gets out there and starts campaigning he ends up eating away at that lead, or even beating her. I want to hear the pundits talk it away if Obama ends up winning Pa.

Gov. Ed Rendell tells FOX news they are the most "fair and balanced":

Yeah right! The other stations never say anything bad about Obama. Rev. Who? Oh yeah - MSNBC devoted tons of time last week to the Wright controversy.

Hillary can't even pay the bills:

Hillary Rodham Clinton's cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months - freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.

A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community - and anyone else who will listen - to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.

Maybe that's why her big supporters are threatening to withhold money from Democratic organizations; they think they might have to bail her out. If anything though, it's just another reason she needs to leave the race.

Reuters nails it on the head:

Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won.

It's good to see the media no longer buying the "they pick on me" meme Hillary was trying to put out there. If Hillary wants to come out of this looking good, then she must drop out. It is not about her, it's about the Democratic Party. Her continued path of "me me me" sure isn't portraying that though.

Everyone thought the Rev. Wright situation would really hurt Obama. Well it didn't. Instead Hillary's lying has hurt her:

As expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think. Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

We have been through almost eight years of a President who constantly feeds us lies. I don't think the American people want four more of that. Perhaps it's time Hillary bow out and try to save any face she might have, but I doubt that will happen. Instead she will stay in, destroying the party, because everything is about her.