give up or cowboy up?

I just read an article that says that Rush Limbaugh, the Great Pompous Fool of the Lunatic Right, is imploring his listeners (and I must pause here to wonder aloud why on earth he still has any) to abandon their principles and vote for Hillary Clinton because it would prolong the Democratic race, which he believes is inevitably Obama's to win, and because he sees her as the GOP's secret weapon in that she is more willing to attack Barack than McCain is.

I suppose this makes just about as much sense as anything else Rush Limbaugh has ever said (which is to say about as much sense as one would expect from a self-appointed crusader of morality and truth...and prescription drug abuser). But I don't really want to write about what a self-righteous egomaniac Rush Limbaugh is. Al Franken already did that. (See Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.) Or don't. That's up to you. But what interests me the most about the story is that it echoes calls from within the Democratic Party: not that Hillary Clinton should continue to divide the party, but rather that she should do exactly the opposite.

It began in earnest with her husband, President Bill Clinton, who should get a Gold Star some time from President Obama for his role in the Obama campaign. Has there been any other single high placed person who has done more to steer votes to Obama than Hillary's hubby? I respected the man as a President and even as a former President, but as a husband on the campaign trail, let's face it, he's all ego. He's done nothing but hurt his wife's chances. And now he comes out and says if she doesn't win big in both Texas and Ohio it's all over; well isn't that Obama's argument to make? (Ridiculously, her campaign is trying to reverse that now, saying that it's Obama who needs to win both states, but that's another story.) Anyway, Bill really should just get out of Hillary's way, find himself a nice intern, and shut himself up in a log cabin somewhere until the election is over.

But the genie is out of the bottle, and the thought has been echoed by people in her own campaign and by Big Shots in her own party. If she loses one or both of these big states she led by 15-20% just two weeks ago, should she pull out? Should she pull out, in the name of party unity, even if she wins but does little to dent Obama's delegate lead? If she comes out of tomorrow's primaries in much the same shape (or worse) than she is now, she could be facing a future of needing to win significantly more than 60% of the remaining delegates to defeat Obama: not impossible, but highly unlikely. And I hate to even utter these words, but Rush does have a point in that vast rumbling wasteland of a head of his: the longer she remains in the race, the longer she hands the GOP attack machine, which is so successful without any help, additional weaponry.

Still, this is a woman who has been running for this job for a very long time. It could be argued that she had her sights on it long before she even married Bill; certainly she knew when she stayed with him, reinventing herself as she needed to while First Lady, that she was prepping for her own run. Few people, even back then, would have been surprised to find her as a candidate today. And she is a woman with every bit as much ego as her husband, and every bit as much drive. Probably much more. So if she gains only a little or holds steady or slips further behind tomorrow, what will she do? Will she give up her dream and return to the Senate, where she is making a difference for so many? Or will she, in the phrase made popular by the 2004 Red Sox, "cowboy up"? Down 3-0 in a best of seven series to the arch-rival Yankees, the self-declared "idiots" on the Sox figured, what the heck do we have to lose now? Jump on the darned horse and ride! And for the first time in the history of the major leagues, they came back from that deficit to win the series and then went on to become World Champions.

I'm a supporter of Barack Obama, and I do think that it would be in the best interest of the party if Hillary Clinton, should she find herself tomorrow night in a similar spot vis a vis Obama to the one she is in now, courteously threw in the towel. But I have to say that I look at that woman and I see someone who knows herself and her ideals, knows and believes in her heart that she can do this job and should be given the chance, and (to use her husband's phrase) feels the pain of an America that has been dumped on by seven years of this absolutely outrageous Presidency. If she decides to jump on the horse and ride as long as she can stay up, who really can blame her?

--sunspark