Hillary’s endgame made easy: If she can’t have you, no Democrat will

Everyone knows now that Hillary Clinton cannot win it by the numbers in the normal course of events. It’s not extremely unlikely. For practical purposes, it’s impossible. The Chuck Todd analysis from MSNBC that Tom Elko posted here this morning says as much. So does the WashPost’s Dan Balz. So does everybody else, for that matter, because it’s the only conclusion the numbers will yield.

And so what? Anyone who was really paying attention, including the HRC braintrust, knew all this many weeks ago. But you underestimate Clinton badly if you think that means she’s only sticking around out of spite or denial. There are two reasons for Hillary to press on despite the very long odds, and both are entirely sensible if you subscribe to the leadership principles of Attila the Hun that have guided her campaign.

First, to say that Clinton can’t prevail in the normal course of events isn’t to say she can’t prevail. When Mike Allen and Jim Vandenhei of Politico wrote their famous “Hillary can’t win” piece a few weeks back, they quoted one HRC insider who put her chances at around 10 percent. That sounds about right. Granted, there’s no way for Hillary to win a war of attrition for superdelegates even if she takes most or all of the remaining states; she would need 90 percent of the supers who are still uncommitted, and she isn’t going to get that. Her slim but abiding chance at the 2008 nomination now requires a catastrophic collapse of the Barack Obama campaign — be it by scandal, a slanderous sideshow that finally sticks, or a bullet — that knocks him from the race entirely or forces a superdelegate stampede to her side.

The second, and much more likely, scenario is that Clinton does not win the 2008 nomination, but so damages Obama in lower-grade ways that she contributes to his defeat in the general election, thereby leaving the road clear for another Hillary run four years from now. The 2012 race is really her last chance; after that, she’d be pushing 70 by the time her next turn came round. I realize most Democrats don’t care to believe she’s that cynical or that selfish. But month after month of spinning variations on “Obama can’t win” and “McCain’s more qualified” would seem to suggest that these Democrats, and not Hillary Clinton, are the ones experiencing a problem with denial.

It’s not terribly complicated. Clinton’s increasingly implausible mission is to succeed President George W. Bush in 2008. If she can’t pull it off, her contingency plan is to succeed President John S. McCain in 2012.

Jeffrey St. Clair of Counterpunch wrote about Hillary 2012 recently and spotted a historical analog: “Hillary is following the Reagan model. In 1976, Ronald Reagan bled Gerald Ford through the long winter and spring months, before bludgeoning him the late primary in Pennsylvania…. Reagan fell short in the end, but he had hobbled Ford, who stumbled and fell against Carter in the fall election. Carter inherited a stagnant economy, soaring oil prices and a simmering crisis in the Middle East. Reagan easily unseated Carter in the 1980 election. The Clintons are shrewd enough to detect the striking historical parallels here and craven enough to exploit them for their own long-term advantage.”