Thursday, March 6, 2008

The Slow Bleed Continues

Even a political activist with reason to feel loyal to Clinton and would prefer to stay neutral, now supports Obama. Read Mike Lux's reasoning over at Open Left.

Choice cut:
My feelings started to change after going to Iowa for caucus night. The enthusiasm and passion of all the young Obama supporters, their excitement about being involved in progressive politics, won my heart. If Obama could inspire all these folks who probably never would have showed up at all, that was a pretty exciting thing. However, I continued to feel that it was important to stay neutral for all the reasons I mentioned above, and continued to praise and beat up on both sides from time to time as the campaign went on.

However, we have now come to a crossroads in this campaign. Ironically, it was yesterday's results which have spurred my decision. If Obama had won Texas or Ohio or both, the end would be clearly in sight, and there would have been no reason for me to take the painful personal step of opposing my old friend Hillary. But I now feel it more important than ever to do so. Yesterday's victories by Hillary were impressive- as I've said before, you can never count her out. But even as impressive as those victories were, she gained very little net advantage in the delegate race. It's become increasingly clear to me that between Obama's delegate lead and the number of states left where he is likely to win big victories (WY, MS, NC, OR, MT, SD), it is virtually impossible for Hillary to gain an advantage in the pledged delegate count.

It is also clear that she won Ohio and Texas in great part to a harshly negative attack, including an ad and rhetoric on national security that completely reinforces the Bush/McCain/Republican line of attack on Democrats for the last several years. […]
Read the whole thing, it's pretty fascinating.

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