Jonathan Ellis

jonellis@argusleader.com

It was a hot May day in Sioux Falls, and Hillary Clinton was blowing up the Internet.

Clinton made a stop at the Argus Leader May 23, 2008. On that day, a Friday, there were reports that her presidential campaign was secretly negotiating with Barack Obama’s campaign to “gracefully” exit the race. At that point in the election cycle, with only a few contests remaining, including South Dakota’s, Clinton was down about 200 delegates to Obama. She had almost no chance of wresting away the nomination from the Illinois senator.

Obama supporters and Democratic honchos were desperate to get her out of the race. They wanted Obama to start campaigning for the general election rather than wasting his time campaigning in places, like South Dakota, where he would have little chance of winning in November.

Thus the rumors – which Clinton blamed on the Obama campaign – that she was trying to exit the race.

Clinton was asked about all of this by the Argus Leader editorial board during her visit. Why, she was asked, prolong the race?

Clinton responded that she didn’t understand the calls for her to withdraw because it wasn’t unusual for presidential nominating contests to run into June. She cited her husband’s 1992 campaign, which didn’t finish until Bill Clinton won the California primary in June. And then she referenced another well-known campaign that ran into June: “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,” she said, referring to the 1968 event that stunned the nation.

All of this was livestreamed on the Internet. Following that exchange, Clinton sat down for a one-on-one interview with me. Next, it was off to a campaign event at the Sunshine grocery store in Brandon. By the time we got there, Clinton’s comments about Bobby Kennedy were crashing the Internet.

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Choose a profession – prostitution, armed banditry, insurance sales – and you won’t find one that outdoes politics in terms of violating the 10 Commandments. In this case, Clinton’s opponents were bearing false witness against her. They were twisting her comment about Kennedy out of context and implying that she was staying in the race because she wanted her opponent to be assassinated.

It was nonsense. It was actually worse than nonsense. It was slimy. Unseemly.

As absurd as it was, Clinton was still forced to clarify the remark and issue an apology. Because politics is also a profession filled with whiny victims.

Fast forward eight years. Clinton-for-president is back for round two. This time, she’s the one with the 200 delegate lead. She’s the candidate in which party big shots known as super delegates are lining up behind. And now, it’s Clinton’s supporters who want to see the upstart, in this case Bernie Sanders, concede the nomination and allow Clinton to reorient for the general election.

It will surprise no one that besides being filled with whiny victims who are constantly breaking the 10 Commandments, politics is drenched with hypocrisy. The scope and audacity of the hypocrisy practiced by the political class has been captured by modern video and the Internet. Thus, you have Democratic senators who, today, are in high moral outrage over Senate Republicans’ refusal to take up the president’s Supreme Court nominee when, a few years ago, they were promising to do the same thing when the president was a Republican. And thus, you have Republican senators practicing no-holds-barred obstruction of the president’s nominee when, a few years ago, they were crying about Democratic obstruction.

Clinton supporters have already called on Sanders to quit the race, although those calls grew quieter after the Vermont senator won Wisconsin. But the longer it goes on, the louder those calls will become.

But if he insists on continuing, even if victory appears remote, Sanders might want to remember this quote from Bill Clinton, who was campaigning in South Dakota for his wife on May 25, 2008: “Don’t believe all those people who say your votes don’t count because they do,” he told a crowd in Wagner. “The reason they are telling you (they) don’t count is because when anyone says it is over, they are afraid it is not over.”

So if Sanders continues to campaign and he’s asked why, he can answer this way: “It’s not uncommon for nominating contests to go into June. Bill Clinton didn’t secure the nomination in 1992 until June. And surely everyone remembers that Barack Obama was forced to campaign for the nomination in June, just eight years ago.”

It might be best, however, if he avoids mentioning Bobby Kennedy and the 1968 contest.

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