Straight-forward question. If Obama sweeps the primaries tomorrow like he did over the weekend, should Hillary concede the race to him for the good of the party? Would that even be good for the party if she did? With the Republican in-fighting still going on, I'm not convinced that a protracted primary race hurts the Dems as much as the media claims, but I suppose it might.

I don't think she will, but should she?

what happens if obama loses? or is that something that looks like an improbability?

Not likely he'll get swept. But even if he does, he still won this past weekend and her victory would only pull her even. So the question is about Hillary suffering two sweeps in a row. Should she then back out?

Polls are all strongly in his favor, but that could prove to be nothing more than polls.

Btw, the primaries are:

Virginia
Maryland
D.C.

No. She should drop out if she gets wiped on March 4th.

I don't think she should easily let Obama get to the magic delegate number. Her best strategy is to force a broker convention now, where the odds are 60-40 in her favor of winning.

I don't think she will, but maybe she should.

There needs to be a point of self-realization for both candidates. If you are losing, it's best to bow out with grace and humility instead of dragging it (and your party) through the mud. If the voters have made it clear to you that you are not their number one choice, why would you even want to carry on?

A slight and sudden lead by Obama hardly means that "voters have made it clear" that she's not the main candidate. This race is not over.

I wasn't talking about just Hillary. That's why I said both candidates. Whenever it's clear who is going to win (like it is with the Republican now), it needs to be handled well.

She should and will stay at least through March 4th, just to push Obama to show his grassroot strategy could translate to a win in a big state. If Obama capture both Ohio and Texas, then she should definitely bow out; if they split, she should think hard, especially if she had lost Wisconsin going in; if she wins both, she has a chance of winning the pledged delegates outright, so there will be no reason to drop out.

Texas is going to be an interesting battleground, being a demographically pro-Clinton state with an open primary/caucus combination. Is this the only state with both a primary and a caucus, on the same day?

I wish she would but of course she won't.

Why won't she drop out?

She has three big primaries to look forward to down the road even with Obama bashing her face in the ground. Plus, she has super delegates who are presumably still in her pocket.

clinton is by no means out of this race, even if she is swept on tomorrow.

The fact that she is niow LOSING the race after all this time tells you something is wrong.

if its anything worse than a delegate split on march 4th, she needs to drop out for the sake of her own party, but i dont think she will.

Well, dropping out now doesn't really show Obama to be the best candidate. I am not taking anything away from his campaign which has been strong, but he hasn't faced much criticism. He needs to show he can win big states with primary voters. He hasn't really shown it, yet.

The problem is that he is winning these red states in caucuses, mostly. He will most likely not win many if any of them in the general. Even with the record turnouts, only about 20% or less are voting in some of these states. Utah for example, Obama got 70,000 votes in the Primary, but Bush got 660,000 in the GE in 2004. I just have a hard time believing he will be competive let alone win in some of these states, which many Obama supporters are arguing if not outright guaranteeing. Not so much on this board, but on many others.

Clinton may not be able to get out of this spiral, the media is not her friend. Any criticism of Obama is framed as some sort of racially code unfair attack. Without the media it is very difficult to change the dynamics, and debate perfomances don't seem to alter it much either, unless someone makes a serious gaffe which is unlikely. Look at McCain in 2000 he was able to challenge Bush quite credibly until South Carolina, even though he is not well liked by most activist or primary voting Republicans. The weird thing about McCain is he has hard time with hardcore Republicans, but is much more popular with the rank and file Republican voters, which will make him much more dangerous in the GE. I always had a hard time envisioning McCain winning the Republican nomination, but if he got it he would be formidable in the GE.

If she loses either Texas or Ohio, it's time to at least start considering withdrawing.

If she loses both, yeah, I agree. For the sake of the party, she'll need to end it. She won't, but she'll need to.

If she wins both, *sigh*. This thing will never end.

Did anybody see 60 Minutes on Sunday?

It was an Obama/Clinton edition.

Katie Couric kept prodding Hillary on the "what will you do if you're not the nominee?" question. And it was really interesting, because other than her emotional New Hampshire moment, it was one of the only public moments I've seen of her where it was undeniably clear how she cannot even fathom not being the Democratic nominee - and how hard she's going to fight for it.

As for the original question, no, she won't consider dropping out after tonight's results. And, in my opinion, she shouldn't. She still has a lot of fighting to do.

Why don't you think she would drop after that? She's made it quite clear that she is taking the fourth very seriously and knows its a make-or-break day. I thought you were above the random "She'll ruin the party" b.s. other people have been throwing around?

Wait and see. If she loses both, she'll drop out. She's not as bad as some people make her out to be. She knows these two states are major indicators. March 4th is going to reveal if Obama can penetrate the bigger states. If he can - and does - and consequently gains even more momentum from it, she'll drop.

Funny thing is, if he can't, its not like he's gonna drop. Lets be even here on what it means to lose Texas and Ohio. A better survey question (Beeble was leading everyone on, as usual) would have been, "Are Ohio and Texas that important? If only one candidate wins both Ohio and Texas, should the other consider dropping out? Why or why not?"

To which anyone could respond, "No they are not, because it is too late in the game and is ruining morale. The candidate should be decided by now." Or "Yes, they are important to Hillary because she didn't win a state after Super Tuesday, but they are not important to Obama, who has." Or "Yes, they are important to both for different reasons. Hillary to stop momentum and Obama to prove his mettle in a big state."

To other parts of that question one could answer "Yes, if either of them loses both states the other should drop." Or "The winner of Ohio should take the nom because we need Ohio as the swing state in the general election." Or "Well, Obama can survive without either of them because he's done so well this month, but if Hillary loses them she should drop out."

My Two Cents, but I'm going to train myself not to enter threads I can already tell are baits, because I don't want to start a flame-war my one month back!

Well, I guess I could certainly be wrong!

It just seemed to me that, considering how far she's gotten and how much she's thrown into this campaign, it'd almost seem like March 4 would be too early for her to concede. I know it wouldn't be, but with all this talk of it all possibly extending into June, March 4 seems early to me. Especially if, say (for example), Obama won TX and OH but by slim margins, like 51-49 or something. I just can't see her throwing in the towel after that.

But you're right. There was a Times article today that said her campaign officials - and she - know that if TX and OH fall, so does her campaign. So I guess it's possible.

I actually addressed this very point. Obama already swept this weekend. So even if Hillary sweeps tomorrow (which is unlikely), she's only drawn even and there's no reason for Obama to drop out. So the question of dropping out is only relevant if Hillary gets beaten tomorrow.

The new Hillary spin, of course, is that Ohio and Texas are now the only states that matter; and any state that Obama wins doesn't count because __________ fill-in-the-blank. But why Ohio and Texas when the delegate count from this weekend and Tuesday both total more than Ohio and Texas? Because those are states Hillary actually has some chance in.

And if by some chance she loses Ohio and Texas? They won't count either because _____________fill-in-the-blank; and it's on to the next supposed make-or-break states.

If that happens, her superdelegates will switch to Obama and then it's all but over.



Let's hope so. And like you, I hope I'm wrong about her.

That sounds eerily reminiscent of the Giuliani strategy though. If that indeed happens, then we will be able to feel defeat in the air. Ohio may be an uphill battle for her, with its negligible number of Latino voters.

I don't know if you do it on purpose or not but you seem to be taking every opportunity to somehow undermine any of Clinton's victories whether it is with the "well that was expected" responses to Clinton's wins vs "that was completely unexpected" in response to Obama's wins or now making it seem as if the only reason Clinton has been winning is Hispanic voters. Massachusetts and New Hampshire, for example, aren't exactly examples of states with thriving Hispanic populations and she did just fine in both.



That's how you interpret it. I don't think they are claiming the states don't matter...but they are saying she's very much in this race and in spite of Obama's winning streak in the past weak it does not mean Hillary can't come back and win Ohio, Wisconsin, Texas, and Pennsylvania and end up with the nomination eventually? Would you seriously expect Obama's camp (or any other theoretical candidate for that matter) to go on record saying, if theoretically he suffered a series of defeats in a few states, that they have suffered crushing defeats and that it's probably over even if polls show him ahead in a few major upcoming states. Way to energize a crowd!!