Clinton's End Game

The end game for the Clinton campaign is now becoming clear. Regardless of the protestations of her most aggressive supporters, the Clinton campaign will end in early to mid June.

Between now and then the Clinton campaign will reduce the negative attacks against Obama as a part of their significant reduction in television advertising. Hillary will continue to campaign and will continue to give her standard stump speech and continue to talk about going all the way to November and the White House. She must do that to keep up the illusion that the game is not over.

She will continue to raise money. The money will be used to pay for the campaign essentials. Campaign debt to existing vendors owed millions will not be paid and the Clinton debt will not be repaid, at least not now. Ultimately, of course, the repayment of the Clinton debt and campaign vendor debt is a relatively trivial matter and will be handled in due course, either by or through the efforts the Democratic Party, Obama and others. Money is always easier to raise for a gracious loser than for a failing competitor.

Clinton will play it out through the remaining primaries in part because it would look bad if Obama lost in West Virginia or Kentucky to Clinton who will remain on those ballots even if she withdraws from the race. Hence, she will stay to the end.

The key piece to keep in mind is that she will lower the rhetoric, reduce the attacks and focus her campaign on the issues she wants on the agenda. The next month she will focus on that agenda and, with her fingers crossed behind her back, hope against hope that Obama implodes somehow.

He won't and she will then graciously move aside. So, we should just relax and let it play out.