Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Five Stages of Grief

Hillary is so completely “Dead Woman Walking.” The response of the Clintonistas to the decisive victory by Obama in Wisconsin (15 pts.!!!) has been of the gallows variety.
How do you respond to demographics that show Obama taking his core groups by big margins and going dead heat with the core Hillary supporters? It is hard to spin.

Bill Clinton sent the signal today. Hillary has to win Ohio and Texas or it is over. Bill, sorry to say it, but it is already over.

Now, the fear takes over. Will Hillary be able to step aside with grace? I fear not. Everything about her and Bill causes me to believe them utterly incapable of grace in defeat. The evidence abounds that they both have fiery tempers. They both possess a self-absorbed sense of entitlement.

So, I fear what they will do. I fear that they will litigate and prevaricate in order to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan. I fear that they will pull out all the stops to lean on the superdelegates. I fear it will get ugly. And I fear it will be ugly all the way to the convention in Denver.

An aging Westside LA Jewish Liberal friend of mine said, “If the Clintons do that (get ugly to win the nomination) then I will revolt. I will be in the streets if they rip off the nomination.”

It seems inevitable that Obama is the crowd favorite. Now, he needs to become the favorite of the nominating convention.

Allow me to be optimistic for a moment. Perhaps we just have to be patient with the Clintons as they go through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. Dead woman walking and her husband are grieving. Their grief is over the loss of the biggest prize of all. First comes denial. They were in that stage right after Iowa. Next came anger, the second stage. They have been in that stage for awhile. Next comes bargaining. That will be ugly…and could involve challenges in Florida and Michigan. When will we see depression and then the final and fifth stage, acceptance?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here is one symptom of anger: blaming others for your failings. Hillary is now saying that "it's time to get real about" who the Nation is supporting. That is, to put words in her overly made-up mouth, that if we support Obama we are somehow out of touch with what is real. In this over-the-shoulder potshot, she is polarizing not the Republicans, but people in her own party!! C'mon Hillary - you think you can win that way? Get real.

I learned a few things from my father, too. One of them goes like this: my life is my own fault.