Yesterday Hillary Clinton said:
Using 1968 as an analogy for the 2008 primary season is simply misleading. In 1968 the first primary was held the second week of March. When Lyndon Johnson failed to do better than 49-42 percent over Eugene McCarthy, he withdrew, leaving the race wide open. Thus, the current race, which began in early January, has already lasted as long and been fought as hard as the 1968 race.
In those days, remember, presidential campaigns started far later. Due to the massive amounts of money that must be raised to compete on more television networks than existed even 20 years ago, and from many more contributors, modern presidential campaigns must begin two years before the general election. We no longer have the luxury of a leisurely stroll to the convention.
Even in 1992 the New Hampshire primary was held in February. Yet, again, Hillary Clinton misleads: the nomination that year was wrapped up by March, not, as she says, June.
It would be easy to forgive the 1968 reference as ignorance of history. But Hillary Clinton participated in the 1992 race. She knows when it ended, and she surely knows that her assertions have already been contradicted by journalists.
I can only conclude that she really doesn't care about getting it right. Perhaps all these months of spreading misinformation have become an ingrained habit, much as that first lie is always the hardest.
But rewriting history, at the same time you cite a particularly tragic event in our history as justification for staying in a race you have no chance of winning, and every chance of sabotaging, is not only brazen but mendacious.
And she still doesn't understand why some people (far too few, actually) have called for her to get out?
"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing the idea of dropping out.I'll just ignore the incredible tastelessness of Hillary Clinton's remarks on the possibility of Barack Obama being assassinated in June (and her refusal to apologize to him and his supporters) and instead point out the fallacies in her knowledge of history.
Using 1968 as an analogy for the 2008 primary season is simply misleading. In 1968 the first primary was held the second week of March. When Lyndon Johnson failed to do better than 49-42 percent over Eugene McCarthy, he withdrew, leaving the race wide open. Thus, the current race, which began in early January, has already lasted as long and been fought as hard as the 1968 race.
In those days, remember, presidential campaigns started far later. Due to the massive amounts of money that must be raised to compete on more television networks than existed even 20 years ago, and from many more contributors, modern presidential campaigns must begin two years before the general election. We no longer have the luxury of a leisurely stroll to the convention.
Even in 1992 the New Hampshire primary was held in February. Yet, again, Hillary Clinton misleads: the nomination that year was wrapped up by March, not, as she says, June.
It would be easy to forgive the 1968 reference as ignorance of history. But Hillary Clinton participated in the 1992 race. She knows when it ended, and she surely knows that her assertions have already been contradicted by journalists.
I can only conclude that she really doesn't care about getting it right. Perhaps all these months of spreading misinformation have become an ingrained habit, much as that first lie is always the hardest.
But rewriting history, at the same time you cite a particularly tragic event in our history as justification for staying in a race you have no chance of winning, and every chance of sabotaging, is not only brazen but mendacious.
And she still doesn't understand why some people (far too few, actually) have called for her to get out?
