Clinton Campaign’s Dying Light
We’ve seen the rage.
She should now go gentle into the political night.
L.A. Times
By Jonathan Chait
Do not go gentle into that good night. …
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
When Dylan Thomas wrote those lines in 1951, he did not intend them as political advice. But if he were alive today, he’d surely admire Hillary Clinton’s campaigning style. (And probably vote for her: At 93, he’d be right inside her demographic sweet spot.) As the end approaches, she has not gone gentle into that good night.
Clinton has almost no chance of winning the nomination. Going into today’s big votes in Texas and Ohio, she trails by more than 150 pledged delegates.
If she has an unexpectedly great day, she might gain by a couple dozen, but her best chances to gain ground will all be behind her. She could, in theory, win the nomination with superdelegates if she could narrow the gap, but that’s not going to happen. Barack Obama will bring a triple-digit delegate lead to the convention, and party elites won’t dare overturn that.
Clinton and her supporters rage on anyway because, for so long, they had no inkling she might lose. For Obama to take what is rightfully hers must be unfair. The Clintonites rage against the media (though they didn’t mind when reporters parroted her claims of inevitability a year ago), the unrepresentative caucus system (though they have expressed no objection to totally undemocratic superdelegates) or sexism (while ignoring the benefits of white racial bias and female gender solidarity). The real reason Clinton will lose is more prosaic: Obama is a far better politician.
