OverClinton.com

In the continuing mess that is the Clinton campaign, on Tuesday Hillary simultaneously refused to concede that Obama had won the primary, and let it be known that she wanted to be offered the vice presidency. While the rest of the world watched the first African-American in western politics win the nomination to be a major party candidate for head of government, Hillary and what Andrew Sullivan called her "Lifetime demographic" hid like Dick Cheney in a concrete bunker, devoid of televisions, cut off from Internet or cellphone signals that might carry news of Obama's triumphant appearance in St. Paul before a crowd of more than 30,000.

Emblematic of the graceless fumbling that characterized the evening, cheerleader-in-chief Terry McAuliffe introduced Clinton as "the next President of the United States," and with equal bad taste (or delusion) Clinton thanked South Dakota for the "last word" in the primary, even though Montana polls remained open for nearly a half hour longer.

Well, it may be that time. Thomas Edsall at HuffingtonPost.com reports that:

Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama.

David Corn has a couple articles about Clinton's pandering to Florida and Michigan in the final days of her campaign, pretending to champion voters' rights. The reality, says Corn is far from that:

... those states violated Democratic Party rules--rules that at one time Clinton supported. Now she's saying that Dems in those naughty states ought to decide what happens to their delegations. That's just wrong. And it's also wrong for her to vow--as she did--a convention fight over these delegations, if the party does not work something out before then.

Writing in the Telegraph (UK) media scholar Camille Paglia calls Hillary's posture as a victim of sexism a "saccharine melodrama" that undermines "the central goals of feminism."

As her presidential hopes have begun to evaporate, Hillary has upped the ante in the crusading feminist department. Her surrogates are beating the grievance drums, trying to scare every angry female out of the bush....

These days it's hard to tell which is more of a mess: the Clinton campaign or Hillary Clinton herself. First she compares her efforts to seat Florida and Michigan delegations to the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the struggle against a despot in Zimbabwe, and the Democrats' failed efforts to recount votes in Florida in 2000.

Then, she invokes the assassination of Robert Kennedy as a reason that she should continue her campaign. Does she know something we don't know?

As Obama prepares to celebrate winning a majority of pledged delegates, Hillary and her campaign continue promoting the fable of her impending victory. Pundits and columnists have suggested various rationalizations for her staying in the race: she's keeping her supporters involved so that they're more likely to support the eventual nominee (Obama); she doesn't want to embarrass Obama by winning a primary after she's withdrawn, etc.

Her campaign's new excuse for its poor performance is "slanted press coverage." But as Michelle Cottle's article in The New Republic details, Hillary's campaign first wasted too much time anticipating her coronation, and then was beset with infighting, inability to craft a consistent message, and underestimating her opponent. And the conclusion is inescapable that the mismanagement began at the top.

On May 8, 2008 Hillary Clinton told USA Today that white voters "were supporting me," and claimed to have "a broader base to build a winning coalition on." Clinton referred without citation to an Associated Press report that she said showed Obama's support from white voters shrinking. Clinton's remarks received considerable coverage on cable news and in the blogosphere, with some commentators questioning the racial overtones of her assertions.

Clinton was apparently referring to a May 3 article by Alan Fram that examined AP/Yahoo News polls from November and April, as well as primary exit polls including those from Pennsylvania. The polling showed that white primary voters without college degrees favored Clinton by 20 percent or more. In Pennsylvania, 20 percent of those voters said that race had played a role in their choice of candidate, and of those, 80 percent voted for Hillary.

Speaking to the Washington Post Emory University's Andra Gillespie observed that an election with the first black candidate having a "legitimate shot at the nomination ... was going to reveal these cleavages."

In an interview for National Journal On Air, congressional Marjority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina disputed the validity of Clinton's claim:

I don't think that carries any more weight than anyone who will argue that the fact that she only got 8 percent of the African-American vote in North Carolina indicates that she cannot get African-American votes in the general election. It's one thing for us to measure these two Democratic candidates against each other. It is totally something else again for us to measure a Democratic candidate against a Republican candidate. Those are two different things -- apples and oranges -- and I do believe it is a stretch for us to consider otherwise. If we buy into that, and we buy into the conventional wisdom that no Democrat wins the presidency getting only 8 percent of the African-American vote, then what does that to say for her prospects in the fall?