You Should Concede Now

Hillary's just boarded the fear bandwagon. Her latest campaign ad shows her staying up all night answering the phone.



Hillary you've done your duty. Obama can take it form here. Concede now for the sake of the party and for those that don't see what you're trying to accomplish.

I believe Hillary's been grooming Barack Obama for the general election. Knowing how savvy and intelligent she is, I refuse to believe that her ambition would trump her good judgment.



So far, Hillary has been the one introducing the attacks and McCain has been piggybacking her campaign’s remarks and innuendo. The most recent example if with the picture released of Obama dressed as a Somali elder and, soon afterwards, of the conservative talk show host who introduced McCain at a rally who kept referring to Barack’s middle name, Hussein. Somehow trying play on people’s fears that Obama is muslim.

It’s not a secret on how the Republicans are going to try to frame the debate between McCain and Obama. Karl Rove, a few months ago, outlined talking points for ways to defeat him in an address to a group of state GOP executive directors at the Republican National Committee.

Rove made it clear that most Republican attacks on Obama would focus on his “accomplishments and experience.”

“He got elected three years ago, and he [has] spent almost the entire time running for president,” Rove said.

Rove added that Obama has only passed one piece of legislation during his time in the U.S. Senate, and during his time in Illinois state Senate, Obama had “an unusual habit” of voting “present” instead of yes or no.

Rove also said that nonpartisan ratings show that Obama is more liberal than Clinton, which he said is “pretty hard to do.”

Time and again, however, Rove returned to the trump card he used in his successfully executed 2002 and 2004 elections, saying that neither Obama nor Clinton is prepared to protect the country from terrorists.

Rove served notice that Obama and Clinton would be targeted over how they vote on any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation that comes before the Senate this year.

“Do they or do they not want our intelligence officials to be listening in on terrorists’ conversations in the Middle East who may … be plotting to hurt America?” Rove said.

He told the state officials that it would be their responsibility to find “creative and sustaining ways” to “talk about these contrasts.”

The FISA issue is an interesting one and might be where Hillary decided to start conditioning Obama. For FISA, only 31 senators — all Democrats — voted to take away retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies facing lawsuits over wiretaps carried out under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Sixty-seven senators — a mix of Republicans and Democrats — voted against the amendment.

With the immunity provision intact, the Senate voted to pass the bill, 68-29, setting up a tough negotiation with the House, which opposed telecom lawsuit immunity. The Senate vote amounts to a major victory for the White House, which had threatened to veto the bill if it did not protect telecom companies that aided spy agencies with wiretapping.

Obama voted against immunity for telecoms, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), voted to keep immunity in the bill. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) did not show up for the vote. All three candidates were in the Washington area the morning of the vote for the region’s three primaries.

The whole wire-tapping thing is a civil liberties issue. I think Obama as a constitutional scholar appreciates the just how far wiretapping can go. Who’s to stop Bush spying on journalists to find their sources? Click here to see how this could or might have been played out.

Hillary bowing out from the vote set the stage for a stark contradiction or choice between McCain and Obama.

Good stuff.

By the time the general election comes around, a lot of these attacks might get less traction. Hillary’s been airing the obvious attacks out and has been giving Obama a chance to fine tune his responses.

Also, in another brilliant strategic move, Hillary aligning herself with McCain in the attacks will make republicans hesitate about conceivably, in any way, aligning themselves with a Clinton. Brilliant.

Hillary is a patriot and it’s unfortunate her campaign derailed in the first place. But once she hit that point of no return, she boldly gave up any chance of saving face in order to do what’s good, in the long run, for the country.