Hillary Gives A Good Speech, But....

It seemed like it was only a few short days ago that Hillary Clinton was so critical of Barack Obama as only having to offer a "good speech", while she claimed to offer more specifics. Indeed, at a rally in Hillsboro, Oregon on Saturday morning at a local high school, Clinton did also offer a very good speech as well as some solid ideological goals of any possible Clinton presidency to a cheering crowd of around 3,000 supporters. Compared to the massive rally of Obama to a crowd of 12,000 only a week ago, this Clinton speech was a decidedly smaller event. In fact, in every important regard, Clinton is on the shorter side of every important aspect of her race with Obama. Less cash, less delegates, smaller crowds, less popular votes, etc.

For the former "Goldwater girl" Republican, Clinton, has totally transformed herself into strong enough of a modern Democrat that under normal circumstances should certainly be electable as president. But at this point, even though her speeches may be now honed to a fine point, and her message solid enough to convince any mainstream Democrats, her continued bid for the presidency is simply a case of just too little, too late.

Clinton often seems to be at her very best whenever her back is up against the wall. However, with some calls for her to quit the race, many cash donors are wary to contribute to the Clinton campaign, and this is starting to dry up cash. It seems that just too many donors don't want to give cash to a candidate who may quit the race very soon. It just doesn't make sense.

And fresh polls from Rasmussen have Obama with 8-10point national leads over Clinton the last two days, and with a huge donor advantage, Obama is spending big money in Pennsylvania aiming for a knock-out blow to the Clinton campaign. In other states such as North Carolina, Oregon and Montana, Obama is likely to score more big wins in the coming weeks as well. In fact, Obama is now only 395 delegates short of capturing the nomination. Clinton is much farther back at 538 delegates. If Obama even comes close in Pennsylvania, let alone wins there, Clinton's drive for the presidency will be all but over, if it isn't now.

Clinton's campaign officials really let her down. No one had a decent plan for a continued effort after Super Tuesday, while the Obama campaign managed to line up massive donations for huge numbers of small donors usually giving under $100 each, which funded efforts in every state, and the Clinton campaign sat back and only allowed the Obama forces to score 11 straight wins in a row in primary and caucus states, yet failed to effectively compete in these states and instead concentrated on some absurd strategy of only targeting the bigger industrial states.

All of these internal problems for the Clinton campaign have only left her on the short end of her race with Obama, and almost nearly certain to lose her race. Clinton may be in top campaign form right now, delivering some of her best 11th hour campaign speeches so far. But it's really just simply too late at this point. She's too far behind in delegates and cash is quickly drying up to buy critical ads, and the superdelegates are rapidly moving more in the direction of Obama each week. In fact, Clinton hasn't gained a single delegate in days, while Obama has had a steady pick up of superdelegate in the last few days. Pennsylvania may be Clinton's last stand, especially with her numbers slipping there. After that, Clinton may just have to finally face reality and realize that she's only hurting the Democratic Party, and needs to gracefully bow out. If Clinton really wanted to win the nomination, then someone in her campaign really needed some ideas after Super Tuesday, but no one did. That's when Clinton lost this nomination race.