Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
Who picked this movie? A few months ago, the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination looked as if it would be the feel-good political campaign of the decade, if not the century. We settled in for a heartwarming sequel to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Instead, we’re having to endure an endless loop of “Alien vs. Predator,” a grisly piece of cinema in which all-powerful extraterrestrials battle for ultimate supremacy while mere humans become collateral damage.
Somebody make it stop.
Actually, the better film analogy may be “The Terminator.” (Anything but “Rocky” — or, in the popular Internet video, “Baracky.”) Yes, I know it’s inappropriate to compare a talented and accomplished woman such as Hillary Clinton with a homicidal cyborg from the future. But it’s hard to come up with a better image for the woman’s sheer relentlessness. If she ever says “I’ll be back” while I’m within earshot, I’m getting out of Dodge.
No, I’m not calling for Clinton to get out of the race. It’s ridiculous to advise a candidate who just won Pennsylvania by 10 points to pack it in, even if it’s still hard to imagine a plausible way for her to win the nomination.
And it is, you know; the delegate arithmetic has hardly budged. Clinton would have a realistic chance of eliminating the future rebel leader who someday will threaten the dominion of sentient machines over all of humankind — I mean, of defeating Barack Obama — only if her opponent were gracious enough to dissolve into a quivering puddle. She has done everything she can to encourage such a meltdown, but by now it should be clear that it won’t happen.
If anything, Obama is learning some of Clinton’s war craft. He watched as she moved the goalposts so often that they’re not even in the stadium anymore, they’re somewhere out in the parking lot — his lead in delegates didn’t matter, his wins in caucus states didn’t matter, his wins in states below a certain population threshold didn’t matter, his wins in states above that threshold didn’t matter if those states were Illinois, Georgia and Virginia. In Pennsylvania, the Obama campaign did a similar thing with Clinton’s victory margin, arguing that if Clinton won by five points or less she would actually suffer a humbling defeat.
But she beat the point spread handily. Our long national nightmare continues.
