Far from dropping out, Hillary Clinton hit the campaign trial in West Virginia today:
SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.V. — They say it’s all over but the shouting. Fortunately, Hillary Clinton does that part very well.
“Next Tuesday will be one of the most important elections in this entire process!” she told a rally here, the day after her loss in North Carolina and her narrow win in Indiana all but sealed the Democratic nomination for Barack Obama.
“I personally believe that West Virginia is one of those so-called swing states Democrats need to win in the fall!” proclaimed the candidate who has been all-but eliminated.
“I want to start by winning it in the spring to lay the groundwork for a victory in November!” said the woman whose candidacy has been pronounced dead on national television by, among others, George Stephanopoulos and Tim Russert.
“I hope next Tuesday you will give me a chance to be your president!” she told the crowd of several hundred at the old city hall building downtown here.
Apparently, though, Hillary may have been the only one in Shepardstown who didn’t see today’s rally for what it really was:
“It’s pretty obvious,” said Ken Martin, waving Clinton posters and wearing brown overalls. “She fought a good fight.” Martin said he’s hoping Obama will make Clinton his vice presidential runningmate. “We’re gonna fight it out in the state for her, get a good win for her,” he said, but the race is over - “unless there’s some kind of unforeseen event.”
And her choice of historical metaphors was, it would seem, entirely appropriate given the circumstances
Clinton sure knows how to pick her locations. For her hastily scheduled appearance in West Virginia - her bid to how her resilience and defiance - she chose a spot made famous as a hospital for the severely wounded.
Shepherd University’s white brick McMurran Hall was under construction as Shepherdstown’s town hall in 1862, when the battle of Antietam overwhelmed the city with thousands of wounded; with no place left to go, the bloody and the maimed occupied the still unfinished building — a bit of history now celebrated in plaques on the front lawn, where supporters listened to Clinton’s speech.
A better choice for Clinton might have been Harper’s Ferry, just a few miles from here and a monument to brave but futile struggles. It was there, in 1859, that the anti-slavery rebel John Brown captured the federal armory — only to be captured, tried and executed.
The signs of a last-minute event were everywhere. Security was minimal, and problems with the sound system gave the Clinton staff fits; it didn’t help that one of the men working the sound system wore an Obama T-shirt.
“I’m not turning it inside out,” he said, when Clinton supporters protested. In the back of the crowd, a camera riser collapsed with a huge crash, sending bodies, coffee and cameras flying. “Metaphor?” a reporter asked as he picked himself off the ground? “Metaphor,” confirmed another.
Once the gallows humor starts, you know the campaign is over. It’s just a matter of convincing the candidate at this point.
