Painful Things Hillary Clinton Should Know

HALPERIN’S TAKE: Painful Things Hillary Clinton Knows — Or Should Know

1. She can’t win the nomination without overturning the will of the
elected delegates, which will alienate many Democrats.

2. She can’t win the nomination without a bloody convention battle —
after which, even if she won, history and many Democrats would cast
her as a villain.

3. Catching up in the popular vote is not out of the question — but
without re-votes in Florida and Michigan it will be almost as
impossible as catching up in elected delegates.

4. Nancy Pelosi and other leading members of Congress don’t think she
can win and want her to give up. Same with superdelegate-to-the-stars
Donna Brazile.

5. Obama’s skilled, close-knit staff can do things like silently kill
re-votes in Florida and Michigan and not pay a political price.

6. Many of her supporters — and even some of her staffers — would be
relieved (and even delighted) if she quit the race; none of his
supporters or staff feel that way. Some think she just might throw in
the towel in June if it appears efforts to fight on would hurt Obama’s
general election chances.

7. The Rev. Wright story notwithstanding, the media still wants Obama
to be the nominee — and that has an impact every day.

8. Obama might not be able to talk that well about the new global
economy, but she (and McCain) can’t either.

9. Many of the remaining prominent superdelegates want to be for Obama
and she (and Harold Ickes) are just barely keeping them from making
public commitments to him.

10. She can’t publicly say more than 2% of all the things she would
like to say about race, electability, beating McCain and experience.

11. If she somehow found a way to win the nomination, she would have
to offer Obama the veep slot, and she doesn’t want to do that.

12. This is a change election, and Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton can never
truly be change.

13. Obama is having fun most days, and she isn’t.

14. Even though her campaign staff is having more fun than it has for
a long time, there’s hardly anyone there who, given half a chance,
wouldn’t slit Mark Penn’s throat — and such internal dissension won’t
help her in the home stretch.