Why Clinton Must Stay In The Race - John K. Wilson (HuffPo)

[AZBlue]

There is now no chance for Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. Even if she wins every remaining primary by a substantial margin, she will still lose the pledged delegate contest, and it is impossible to imagine that a supermajority of the superdelegates would destroy their own party in order to nominate her.

Nevertheless, it is absolutely essential for Hillary Clinton to remain in this presidential race until she loses a major primary. This means that she should not withdraw from the race unless she loses in Pennsylvania, Indiana, or North Carolina.

However, Hillary Clinton does have a choice about how she chooses to run her campaign. Much as Mike Huckabee ran a token but honorable race against John McCain, formally staying in the race but refusing to go negative, Clinton can compete with Barack Obama without trying to undermine the next Democratic nominee for president.

In addition, Hillary Clinton can put her campaign on the line by declaring that she will withdraw if she loses one of these three primaries. This way, no one can suspect any kind of backroom pressure on Clinton to end her campaign. And the talk of having her withdraw will subside as attention is put on these three states.

Ironically, the unity of the Democratic Party requires that Clinton must remain in the race for another month, until she loses and the inevitable becomes apparent to her strongest supporters. Clinton's supporters will feel strong resentment against Obama if they feel that his supporters pressured Clinton to end her campaign early. By contrast, that resentment will disappear if Obama can prove his decisive victory by winning again.

It's not just the feelings of Clinton supporters that we should worry about. The worst thing for Obama right now would be to win by default. A win by forfeit only weakens the winner in the realm of politics. By contrast, Obama's victory over Clinton would establish momentum showing his ability to defeat a powerful political machine.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-k-wilson/why-clinton-must-stay-in_b_95495.html

Interesting points. I don't think anyone expected her to withdraw until at least April 23rd, so it's not too startling an idea - but it does have merit.

[pocoloco]

1. Helps getting all those new voters registered also!!

Need to keep the interest up!!

[Zachstar]

2. What about congress?

[AZBlue]

5. When she drops out after PA, there's still time for Congress.

And it MUST be a focus for us!

[Cha]

3. Yeah, good ol' hilary is incapable of running

an honorable race but, yeah, let her stay..Obama is stronger than hilary lies.

The only one hilary is annililating is herself.

[Life Long Dem]

4. Yeah, let her stay in.

She is shedding some light on the "war on the middle class".

[Yael]

6. I agree, but the key to it is that she has to stop going negative

without that, the whole argument just falls apart.

[AZBlue]

7. Very true! This is the most important sentence in the whole article:

However, Hillary Clinton does have a choice about how she chooses to run her campaign.

[kwenu]

8. Bullshit. Hillary doesn't care about the impact on the party.

She fully intends to go to the convention floor not wait for an appropriate time to depart before the convention. It is inevitable that we are going to have to show her the damn door. Yes, it's going to end ugly so we should get it out of the way as soon as possible after the primaries end.

[AZBlue]

9. If she were to take this to the convention, she'd be completely and totally ruined.

She would never be POTUS, sit on SCOTUS, be Governor, Ambassador or even Senator for much longer. She would be done.

She'd be hard-pressed to be elected Hall Monitor or Crossing Guard.

[kwenu]

10. Agreed. She will settle for nothing less. We need to prepare for what is to come.

Because unlike this author, I actually believe that when Hillary says she's going all the way to the convention, she's telling the TRUTH!

[AZBlue]

13. She may but she will be very sorry if she does.

Not only will she have alienated and pissed off her fellow Dems in government, she will face the wrath of thousands and thousands, no I'm sure millions, of Democratic voters like she can not even imagine. She will long for the days of Ken Starr again.

I know I'm not the only person who feels this strongly about it - I've heard many others here on DU and in talking to my friends and associates express the same feelings. We saw the GOP steal one, probably two, elections from us in the last eight years. And, we wound up with Bush as a result, to add insult to injury.

The people of this country have finally woken up about a lot of things: Iraq, the economy, the environment, and so on. We simply aren't the same people that took it laying down in 2000 and 2004. We wouldn't take that again even from the GOP and we CERTAINLY won't take it from a member of our own party.

I'd advise Sen. Clinton to think very long and very hard about attempting anything like that - she's already lost quite a bit of support and fallen far in many people's eyes, but she's not completely done. Not yet. That, however, will finish her off.

[loveangelc]

11. well hopefully she'll get out after losing NC

[rniel]

12. She's holdin

for Puerto Rico