No wonder they want her to concede

It's not that the Clinton campaign hasn't already been showing signs of strain over the past month -- beginning with Bill Clinton's mess-up in South Carolina.  It's that the disarray within the campaign has been getting a lot of publicity during the past ten days and has become embarrassing for both Clinton and the Democratic party.  Hillary Clinton hasn't yet lost this final "super Tuesday."  But she does appear to have lost control of her own campaign. 

Mrs. Clinton, facing calls from some Democrats to get out of the race should she perform poorly on Tuesday after 11 straight losses, appeared almost defiant as she declared at the start of her day in Ohio that “I’m just getting warmed up.”

Then she charged that one of Mr. Obama’s senior advisers had told Canadian officials that Mr. Obama’s opposition to the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, was largely a political tactic, not a serious policy position. Mr. Obama denied that he was sending back-door messages to the Canadians and said the Clinton campaign was “throwing the kitchen sink” at him.

Mrs. Clinton had her own internal problems as reports of dysfunction and finger-pointing rumbled through her operation. In an e-mail sent over the weekend to The Los Angeles Times, Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, appeared to be distancing himself from the campaign’s operations when he told the newspaper that he had “no direct authority in the campaign” and described himself as merely “an outside message adviser with no campaign staff reporting to me.”

Mr. Penn is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and serves — as he invariably describes himself — as the campaign’s chief strategist. This means that Mr. Penn is involved in directing the message presented by Mrs. Clinton in her speeches and campaign advertisements, and the overall strategic thrusts of the campaign...

When her "chief strategist is trying to distance himself from her, her inability to lead throws into doubt her suitability as a presidential candidate.  When she lashes out at Obama, she appears to believe that hurting him will mend her own candidacy.

In Toledo, she worked the crowd tirelessly but not always successfully.

One worker was pulled along by the crowd and ended up shaking Senator Clinton’s hand. “Aw, man,” he said. “Now I have to go home and wash my hands.” He declined to give his name. But Deborah Young, 51, a vehicle inspector, was mildly awe-struck. “Isn’t she the coolest?” she said.

And then she bounces back in Austin  -- briefly and with self-deprecating humor.

Mrs. Clinton made a brief detour from the campaign trail to appear via satellite on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. Standing at a rally in Austin, Tex., Mrs. Clinton took the first question from Mr. Stewart, who wondered why, with only one day left before the primaries on Tuesday, she was taking time to appear on his show. Mrs. Clinton replied: “It is pretty pathetic.”

It's hard not to feel some sadness at the extent of her fierce ambition when it may all end in the steamy Rio Grande valley or up in Ohio where she invests her greatest hopes. Chances are, she'll go on, whether encouraged or just unyielding.

Comments

[Jim W]

"It's hard not to feel some sadness at the extent of her fierce ambition when it may all end in the steamy Rio Grande valley or up in Ohio where she invests her greatest hopes".

Here's a tip when that Old Yeller Best Doggone Dog In The West feeling about Hillary starts to gain the upper hand:

Think back to that little Iraqi boy whose arms were shot off by the same American shell that killed his family. Then reflect that her ambition wasn't "fierce" when she cast her lot with Bush- it was perverted.