What do you think Clinton believed her "assassination" remark would accomplish?

[Sparkly]

Poll question: What do you think Clinton believed her "assassination" remark would accomplish?

Please help me understand your point of view. What do you think Clinton wanted as an OUTCOME of that remark?

1. Serve as an example of a campaign going through June? Most here seem to be saying that's not what she really wanted.

2. Suggest to would-be assassins that they should assassinate Barack Obama? If anybody even tried to harm a hair on his head now, she would be blamed for it.

3. Raise a possibility that Obama might be assassinated? Such a reference about Obama would damage her politically in exactly the ways we're seeing now. Why would she want that?

4. Accomplish #2 or #3 without anyone noticing she was doing it? How could she send a message to would-be assassins, Democratic voters, and the media about Obama, while deluding people into thinking it's really only about RFK, without anyone noticing?

5. Accomplish exactly what has happened? To raise an offensive, infuriating parallel between RFK's assassination and Obama, turning people against her and risking blame if, God forbid, any attempt were made to harm him?

If it was not just an example of late nomination decisions, what would she stand to gain from this remark? What would be her "win" here?

(Edit: Please comment and explain why she wanted what you think she wanted, and how this is working for her.)

[TBF]

1. Upon reflection I think her remark is an attention-seeking device. I believe that Obama has been

completely ignoring her (wouldn't you in the same spot?) and she's doing things to try to get his attention. "He's sexist" "He could be assassinated" "He's purple with green polka dots..". Those of us with children understand this behavior. When my kids throw tantrums I leave the room. No audience, the tantrum has no point and they stop.

That is why Obama continues to ignore her today. He has good security, he's seen the math, and he has kids - he recognizes a tantrum when he sees it.

He will continue to ignore her as he adds up his delegates and super-delegates, and frames his race against McCain. All of the other candidates bowed out gracefully. She's not as graceful, but eventually she will go to (either quietly, or in a straight jacket).

Obama is not a stupid man.

[Sparkly]

4. Do you think she wanted to engage him in a discussion about assassination?

I don't understand why she'd want that.

[TBF]

10. Of course not. She is just trying to get his attention, or put pressure on him to pay attention

to her. He continues to ignore no matter she throws out there. "I'll count the big states, but not the little ones", "I'll count the popular vote but not caucuses", "I'll count states that have the letter "M" in them but not "R"). This was worse than usual, but she says crazy stuff all the time.

[Sparkly]

13. She just didn't realize there'd be a tremendous outcry? nt

[TBF]

18. I don't know if she thought that part through - but I do think she is making whatever noise

she can to remain in the press and relevant. Lately the MSM has been focusing more on Obama v. McCain. The big states are gone with just a couple of contests left. She is running out of options and will fade into history unless she comes up with ways to convince everyone she is still a player.

[polpilot]

12. Fact: She thought this was a clever statement. Only a MORON would not recognize the impact of this.

[Sparkly]

15. Since you know what she thought, what was she thinking she'd get from it? nt

[MrModerate]

2. More precisely, make people understand why she wouldn't quit . . .

Just because Fux News (and GDP) told her to.

Didn't quite work out that way. I'm not sure how the real world (by which I mean the non-DU, non-MSM world) is going to take it. My guess is they won't give a flying fuck because Clinton has pretty much lost already and has no interest in being Obama's running mate.

[Bjorn Against]

3. Her words implied that she thought she needed to stay in the race in case of assassination...

If all she was talking about was campaigns going into June there are many better examples to use than a candidate getting assassinated. I don't think she was hinting that anyone should assassinate Obama, but I do think she knows she can't win mathematically so she is trying to act as "VP" ready to take over as nominee if anything were to happen to Obama. She is not VP though, and for her to publicly say such a thing is despicable.

[bigtree]

5. She's given an explanation

why isn't her own explanation included on the poll, in her own words?

[Sparkly]

11. I thought I'd summed up her explanation in #1, no?

If not, I'll edit the OP. Please let me know what would be fairer to include.

[bigtree]

17. did you read the statement in context? Here's a larger snippet.

(and I really don't want to dictate to you how to conduct your poll, but I did think that one line was too brief.)


"Neither of us has the number of delegates needed to be the nominee, and every time they declare it doesn't make it so. Neither of us do," Clinton said, according to a transcript assembled by the ABC News political unit's Talal Alkhatib. "And I've never seen anything like this. I have, perhaps, a long enough memory that many people who finished a rather distant second behind nominees go all the way to the convention. I remember very well 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, where some who had contested in the primaries, you know, were determined to carry their case to the convention.

She said, "People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa. ... I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don't understand it. And between my opponent and his camp and some in the media, there has been this urgency to end this. And, you know, historically that makes no sense. So I find it a bit of a mystery."

"You don't buy the 'party unity' argument?" she was asked.

"I don't," Clinton said. "And again, I've been around long enough. You know, my husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary sometime in the middle of June. Right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just-- I don't understand it. And you know, there's lots of speculation about why it is, but uh..."

She was asked: "What's your speculation?"

"You know, I don't know," she said. "I find it curious, and I don't want to attribute motives or strategies to people that I don't really know. But it is-- It's a historical curiosity to me."


http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/clintons-contex.html

[Window]

27. I think you are a marvelous person Bigtree, but her explanation was

tortured gibberish. Under no circumstance should she have used the word assassinate; especially when there are other historical instances she could have used to get her point across.

I actually feel sorry for Hillary because she just can't accept the defeat of her life-long dream of becoming POTUS.

[virtualobserver]

6. she is in desperation mode and is trying all conceivable options

she will pick up the pieces later.

per no. 3....Her gain is just to avoid being written off......this wasn't a new argument.....she has been using the two-pronged 1992 and 1968 examples for a while.......the reality of her statement finally hit.

[patrice]

7. VP nt

[TBF]

14. Right - at this point that is all she's got left & he continues to ignore her.

She doesn't like being ignored.

[patrice]

22. She could FIX that INSTANTLY by talking for real about what her vote on the IWR really was. nt

[patrice]

23. P.S. Confession really is good for the soul. I really worry about why she doesn't do this . . .

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but is she in fear for her life if she does fess up to wooing the Neo-Cons and their Slaves with that vote? Does she know something we don't (almost definitely YES). Is that where these assasination remarks are coming from?

[DCofVA]

8. She's gotten away with it before. I guess she thought she could get away with it again

But, not this time. Her campaign is now, for all practical purposes, history.

[Perry Logan]

9. Psst--guys. People are saying you're stupid. Take a hit on the Hope Bong.

[Bucky]

31. I'll take a hit on the Hope Bong right after you take your dose of the Experience Laxative

(Writing that made me happy)

[Blue-Jay]

32. It's a good thing that nobody has ever said that about you.

[Leopolds Ghost]

16. 6. Compare herself to RFK (martyr complex) 7. Drag issue into the open to preempt would-be assassins

Devils advocate here.

[On the Road]

19. I Think it Was a Completely Witless Remark

Sometimes people blurt out long-time private thoughts not taking into account there's a reason they have stayed private for so long.

On Edit: I am not as concerned about any murderous intentions as what it says about Clinton politically -- namely, that she has a tin ear and is prone to horrendous gaffes. That really undercuts her argument that she is more electable.

[CanonRay]

20. I think she knew it was a mistake the instant she said it.

[Bucky]

34. Do you think she instantly knew her non-apology not to the Obamas was a dud?

She regrets, she told us, IF anyone took offense. That doesn't speak to the conclusion that she understood she said something wrong. It tells me she's too stubborn to admit a mistake, no matter how quickly she recognized it.

[IndianaGreen]

21. Hillary has appealed to the white racist vote, now she appeals to the Presidential assassins

(Hillary) had used similar, more carefully phrased language back in March, in a Time magazine interview: "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302789.html?hpid=topnews

The Secret Service should investigate the Clintons to determine if there is more to their incendiary language about assassination.

[C_U_L8R]

24. Seeding doubt with superdelegates

it's the only hope she has and,
as cynical and disgusting as it is,
it's exactly what she is doing.

Problem is, most SDs are smarter
than Hillary plays them for.
That's the blind spot of her arrogance.

[MilesColtrane]

25. #3

She wanted to plant in the minds of Democratic super delegates the idea that a black man will never make it through the campaign for the general election, so they should get behind her.

[Window]

26. Other. I think it was a Freudian slip. I don't think she meant to say it out loud, but it was

certainly a repressed thought, that just slipped out. She just shouldn't have said under any circumstance.

[gkhouston]

28. I don't think she WAS thinking. More and more, she reminds me of

a guy I knew who pretty much lived in the moment and lied constantly. He never seemed to consider the possibility that his current statements would be checked against past or future statements or against reality. It was as if he believed he could make anything be true as long as he kept talking.

[papapi]

29. We need a President who CAN think.

Not one who desperately needs to forward their own agenda. We've had enough of idiots who don't think before they act.

Case in point. GWB.

[Bucky]

30. I'm very close to the "talking about June" choice, but I think it was less banal than that

I think what this showed was that Clinton has a mind fixated on politics-as-conflict. Doubtlessly, she sees herself as the RFK in this race, the populist, nonideological, fightin' lightning rod of the country. And why not? Right wing smear artists have cast her in that role for 20 years. I think she has the Washington beltway equivalent of PTSD.

Having lived a life under harrowing pressures, having seen her family attacked, having seen her marriage attacked & betrayed, having seen a dear friend driven to suicide, then beyond all reason being blamed for it, having seen her admittedly skirt-happy husband accused of rape, having been demonized and even booed while honoring the heroes of 9/11... It's stunning that she's as emotionally healthy and together as she is. But it would be weird if such a veteran did not see the world through a skew of constant conflict and have a special sensitivity to the violent passions that undercut our political life.

The mindset, then, is someone who is willing to throw kitchen sinks (her campaign's word choice) in pursuit of her nomination. She wanted to barrage the Obama campaign with any and all distractions. That's what worked in stopping so much of the Clinton agenda in the 90s--consequences be damned, her enemies hammered her mercilessly and never stopped to consider what's fair, what's decent, what's permissible in a civil society. And as for the feelings of political activists--pffft, feelings are the first trade off along the road of political success.

A good lawyer--which Clinton is in spades--makes whatever argument she can. When making a case, she picks the best line of reasoning that will move the jury in her direction and won't regret a word of it... as long as it works. That's the whole point of an adversarial system. And it's not like the campaign in the fall is not going to be entirely adversarial. From the gitgo, she was targeting the general electorate, trying to be the toughest competitor in the rough and tumble.

The problem is, she's not marketing herself to general election voters. The game, right now, is Democratic voters--people who culturally are more inclined toward reconciliation & cooperation--people who are more sensitive to indiscreet allusions--people who are less inclined to the red meat approach she's been working on since the road got bumpy in January.

So her "kitchen sink" arguments included one intriguing little pipe that dripped like this: "I need to stay in the race, because anything might happen." She wasn't focusing entirely on assassination, but that's the example her mind landed on--and thus the 1968 Kennedy assassination was the meme that her campaign alluded to on at least four occasions when drawing up sound bites to justify continuing her just-barely-behind campaign.

I gotta say something bad about Democrats: we're good sports. When we lose, we tend to say "well, shucks, guess we'll hafta do better next time." We are not the win-at-all-costs party. We are not the kitchen sink party. Culturally, Democrats seeks harmony; we believe in putting the national interest ahead of the party interest. We play by the rules. We want to see a nominee who wins by the rules. Clinton has culturally clashed with that worldview since January at the least. But even last year when her people were loading the dice financially, making it hard for competitors to even raise the funds needed to run races after New Hampshire, it seemed to many that she was overplaying her advantages.

She was pitch perfect and polished. She forgot what Walter Mondale said about our kind of people in 1984, that Democrats who voted for him "like their politicians to have a shitty haircut." Because perfect, to Democrats, can come off a little phony. I don't think Clinton is a phony. But too often she comes across as a phony. So, when she says something that people can construe as a devious allusion, when she's already announced she'll do or say anything to weaken her opponent, when she makes sarcastic jokes about Xeroxing ideas against a clearly sincere and thoughtful and explicitly culturally Democratic candidate like Obama, it sets too many Dems up to believe the worst in her.

I don't, but I think she's created a marketing problem for herself. She's become a hard sell. People will vote for her, but polls continuously show her to be the least trustworthy candidate in the race. People believe the worst when she slips and exposes the A-word in her thinking because it fits a pattern of do-anything-say-anything, of dredge up any argument to undercut her opponent. It looks bad because for the past three months Clinton hasn't been running so much for president as she has been running against Obama. Again, it's hysterical to claim as some have that she's not a real Dem; that she might go third party in the fall, or that she's setting up a 2012 run. But she herself sowed the seeds of these doubts.

[Stinky The Clown]

36. I wish I could recommend this

Excellent, thoughtful, insightful post.

How rare.

[AtomicKitten]

33. She's playing the fear card.

"Vote for me because my opponent is black and you know how America dispatches those people."

[dansolo]

35. She has deluded hersle fto think that it would influence the superdelegates

Every one of her arguments is meant to try and sway the superdelegates to choose her.

[Marnieworld]

37. She wants the Super Delegates to vote her over him because he might get assasinated.

That he is less electable than she is because he has a greater risk. It's sort of like her appeal to them to vote for her because people are too racist to elect him.

It's not a gaffe if you repeat it. It's a talking point. She chose those words with intent.

[Skrelnick]

38. Like George Bush, Hillary may be a clinical psychopath

All signs point to yes.