Don’t let Hillary Clinton’s optimism following her West Virginia win fool you: she knows it’s over.
But do her supporters? If you’re riding for HRC, what you’re essentially hoping for is that the Democratic party elite install her as the nominee even though she trails by every conceivable metric. It’s a move that would be so unpopular — even among fair-minded Clinton supporters — that it would fracture the party and guarantee she gets molly-whopped come November.
Is this what those folks are after?
I think the answer lies somewhere between naivete and cynicism. I don’t believe that HRC’s supporters want her to be the nominee despite the fact that she was soundly defeated by her opponent just so she can get routed this November. I sometimes have to remind myself of this but her supporters are actually Democrats. As such, their goal should be to capture the White House rather than ruining any chance of that happening because their girl lost.
I don’t think this is what her campaign is after at all. She’s miilions of dollars in debt and really on the outs with Obama since she’s turned nasty against him the last few months. I think this is just a jostling for a share in the power structure for what they all think will be a huge Democratic victory this election cycle. Either that or she just wants Obama to pay off all that debt.
I think Clinton went a long way toward forfeiting her share in any Democratic power structure with her divisive, nuanced rhetoric about working class whites. Her husband, who either can’t stay on message or simply refuses to, didn’t help matters.