Capital Outlook Viewpoint

Let Hillary decide when it's time to quit

The media and all Barack Obama supporters should stop advocating that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton withdraw from the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.

Likewise, so should all of the super(unelected) delegates and other Democrats, even those who believe her continued campaigning will be a detriment to the party.

Wisely, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama and his campaign aren’t touching the call for her withdrawal.

She should be permitted to continue until everyone has voted and the matter of the Florida and Michigan’s delegates have been resolved.

Those two states lost their delegates when they violated Democratic Party rules by holding their primaries early.

However, party officials and representatives of the Obama and Clinton campaigns are expected to meet May 31 to resolve the controversy by figuring out a way to seat the delegates in a way that is fair to both candidates.

It is OK for Hillary’s supporters or former supporters as they leave the Clinton camp to join the Obama camp, to call for her to give up the hopeless fight. These were her supporters, part of her campaign family.

If they want to debate publicly whether she should withdraw, they have earned the right to do so. Everyone else should just stay out of it until Hillary or the circumstances decide it is over.

Mathematically, despite her decisive victory over Obama on Tuesday in West Virginia and another expected next week in Kentucky, Clinton trails too far behind Obama to put much of a dent in his leads in elected delegates, states won and the popular vote.

The only way she can possibly win the nomination is for some “October (last-minute) surprise” to derail Obama or for the super delegates to take it from Obama and give it to Clinton. That will not happen.

But calls from the media, pundits and Obama supporters for Hillary to drop out of the race make it look as if everyone is ganging up on Hillary, and it could alienate her passionate base of supporters, especially women, and make it difficult for them to support the Democratic ticket in November.

Interestingly, however, Hillary openly courts women and says she represents women, and women openly support Hillary, especially white women who say we need a woman president.

Barack cannot openly court blacks and blacks cannot openly say we need a black president. Fortunately that is not happening, but it is being inferred by a lot of people in the media and in the Clinton camp because Obama gets 90 percent of the black vote in virtually every contest during the primaries.

However, that is a side issue and Obama rightfully is taking care not to get involved in that and create another distraction.

While the media are trying to make issues of Hillary’s discussion with USA Today regarding how she can attract working-class white men and working-class white women, the Obama camp is remaining quiet and, in fact, Obama is turning his attention to John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, having very little to say about Hillary. He does, however, often refer to her as a “smart, formidable and tenacious” opponent.

Staying above the fray is what makes Obama such an attractive candidate to most Americans, because that’s what they want in a president. They are tired of politics as usual.

That is why Obama supporters should resign from the chorus of media and pundits calling for Hillary to with draw from the campaign. She, in effect has been mathematically eliminated and, as one super delegate put it, “Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee.”

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