Hillary pulls the plug

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton brought an end to her campaign for the White House on Saturday with a rousing farewell to thousands of supporters here and an emotional and unequivocal call for her voters to get behind Senator Barack Obama, the man who defeated her for the Democratic nomination.

For 28 minutes, standing alone on a stage in the historic National Building Museum, Mrs. Clinton spoke not only about the importance of electing Mr. Obama, but also the extent to which her campaign was a milestone for women seeking to become president. She urged women who had followed her campaign — who had turned out at her headquarters, flocked to her rallies and poured into the polls to vote for her — not to take the wrong lesson from her loss.

“You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States,” she said. “To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.”

At that point the cheers, mostly from women, swelled so loud that Mrs. Clinton’s remaining words could not be heard.

Mrs. Clinton first mentioned Mr. Obama seven minutes into her speech. But when she did, she swept away any doubt — created by her speech on Tuesday night, after he won the nomination — that she had any hesitancy about endorsing him or about his qualifications to be president.

“The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said, her voice echoing across the stone walls of the building. “Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him.”

Would all of the people who swore up and down that they knew Hillary Clinton and that she would never withdraw from the race and endorse Obama now please admit that they did not, do not and probably never will know what they were talking about. Furthermore would they please acknowledge their culpability in saddling the Republican party with John McCain as our nominee.

It was the craven, cringing, cowardly wing of the Republican party which stood transfixed before Hillary Clinton like a rabbit in front of a rattlesnake then ran to the polls on their state's primary day to vote for John McCain because they thought he was the only one who could slay the Hillary monster.

Well she doesn't look so damn tough now does she?

What we are running against instead is a naive neophyte of mediocre intelligence and absolutely no significant accomplishment who, despite his young age, has managed to accumulate an enormous amount of negative baggage due to his propensity to associate with the most extreme radicals the political left has to offer (and let's not forget the shady financial dealings too).

This should be an easy contest for Republicans to win except for the fact that our candidate holds far too many positions which are in substantial agreement with his left-wing opponent. On deeply important issues like global warming, immigration, campaign finance reform, closing Guantanamo Bay and the Second Amendment there is little meaningful difference between them.

Iraq, the one issue on which McCain can legitimately claim to hold a different and superior view than the Democrats, becomes less urgent every day as the US and Iraqi forces continue to make important gains against both al Qaeda and Iranian-backed insurgents. This plus the progress being made by the Iraqi government creates a likelihood that by election day the war will be so nearly won that it will be a non-issue to the electorate.

In every other area in which McCain is attempting to draw a distinction between himself and Obama his record actually undercuts his current position, as with judicial appointments where he was the one who sabotaged the Republican plan which would have guaranteed an up or down vote on all presidential appointments and taxes where he actually voted against Bush's tax cuts.

Add to this the fact that McCain's fractured psyche is compelling him to run what he terms a "respectful campaign", which means not launching anything that could be considered an "attack" on his opponent, and you have a campign which seems almost designed to fail.