The Clinton juggernaut coughs and splutters to a halt ::: Remember "Let the Conversation Begin"?

[jefferson_dem]

June 4, 2008

The Clinton juggernaut coughs and splutters to a halt



Seventeen months after she sat regally in her New York living room and calmly declared: “I'm in and I'm in to win,” Hillary Clinton stands on a stage in a stifling hot shed in South Dakota, coughing and spluttering, as her daughter, Chelsea, grabs the microphone from her hand to take over the show.

“A long campaign,” the former First Lady chokes out between sips of water. Her husband, red-faced and exhausted - and having just apologised for another angry outburst in front of reporters - looks on wistfully at the final rally of his wife's presidential bid, an endeavour that has been transformed from an inevitable juggernaut into a costly train wreck.

It was an extraordinary moment, exactly five months after the first contest in Iowa, to see the former First Family in the dying moments of the longest primary campaign in history, a gruelling journey across America that was meant to end in a Clinton restoration and has instead bought a very different inevitability: defeat at the hands of Barack Obama.

Earlier in the day in the South Dakotan town of Milbank, Mr Clinton all but threw in the towel, even as his wife was insisting at an event nearby that she was still the best candidate to defeat the Republican John McCain in November.

“This may the last day that I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind,” Mr Clinton said, a man who for weeks has been holding seven or eight events a day in an increasingly desperate bid to rescue his wife's candidacy and his own legacy. “It has been one of the greatest honours of my life to be able to go around and campaign for her for president.”

When his wife declared her candidacy in January 2007, she was the formidable front-runner already hoovering up money and endorsements, and Mr Clinton was still the Democratic party's rock star. Today he has to endure the painful reality that many African-Americans have turned their backs on him, and allegations that his tirades and behaviour contributed to his wife's demise. Having raised a staggering $214million (£107 million), her campaign is near defeat and $30 million in debt.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4061201.ece

FLASHBACK ::: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvyRN9ka5Fw

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Awfully sour & bitter & angry about winning aren't you?

[jefferson_dem]

2. Are you celebrating this remarkable, historic victory with us?

:toast:

[ronnykmarshall]

5. ..

self delete

[VolcanoJen]

3. jefferson didn't write that headline.

It's splashed all over Hillary's former BFF Drudge, though.

[JNelson6563]

4. It is a sad spectacle to see.

Re-watching that "conversation starter", how very confident Team Clinton was! To see her now compared to that clip, wow!

I'm just sad things have gone as they have. I used to think so highly of both Clintons.

Julie

[Hart2008]

6. The only conversation she was having was about sending money and getting votes.

The issues were off the table with her.

What issues did she ever really discuss?

Remember how well she apologized for the IWR vote?