Former President Clinton says that there’s a conspiracy against his wife:
(CNN) — Former President Bill Clinton said that Democrats were more likely to lose in November if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee, and suggested some were trying to “push and pressure and bully” superdelegates to make up their minds prematurely.
“I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out,” Clinton said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News.
Clinton also suggested some were trying to “cover up” Sen. Clinton’s chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election.
” ‘Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.’ ”
Clinton did not expound on who he was accusing.
That, I suspect, is because there really isn’t any one single person saying what Bill Clinton is talking about. Yes, there are plenty of media pundits and bloggers, including yours truly, who are pointing out that Hillary Clinton has no realistic chance to win the nomination and wondering just why she’s bothering to stay in. I’m not aware, however, of any concerted effort to force her out at this point. If she wants to continue tilting at windmills and spending Bill’s speaking fee money to finance her campaign, then let her.
But I don’t think it matters to Bill. The problem the Clintons are facing is that they are, in fact, losing and they’re looking for someone to blame. That, however, would involve a long, uncomfortable look in the mirror.
[...] One of the still unanswered questions of Campaign 2008 is why Bill Clinton behaved the way that he did. When the campaign started in January, there was the stuff in South Carolina and the testiness when cornered about the campaign’s efforts to lower voter turnout in the Nevada Caucus. Then, amazingly, Clinton continued to play his own game even when it became clear that he was hurting his wife’s campaign. In April, just when the kerfuffle over Hillary’s Bosnia Lie had died down, Bill resurrected it. Then, just as the campaign in Pennsylvania was winding down, Slick Willie railed about the unfairness of a primary process that had pretty much been designed before the election on the assumption that Hillary would win, and then played the race card again and denied doing it. Even in May, when any chance of winning was pretty much slipping away, Bill was heckling the hecklers and pretty much making an ass of himself. Then finally, he started claiming that there were vast left wing conspiracies against his wife. [...]