Why will Clinton drop out? A seat on the Supreme Court.

[The Sisko]

Zeifman gives essentially the same account here. However, in the comments below, someone claims to have a professional realtionship with him and says, "Take what Jerry Zeifman says with a grain of salt, or even a pound of salt. While I have a great respect for his work during his career, i’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with him on a professional basis, and in my opinion, the man should be committed to an institution. Has absolutely lost it."

I don't know if that's true but Zeifman obviously sticks by his account.

[mjah]

That same criticism could be levelled against every unsucessful presidential candidate in history. A year ago, we were all sure that Rudy Guiliani was going to be the Republican nominee. He screwed up, but I am still certain that he is very intelligent.

While many of Hillary's failings are shared with others, she still stands out among unsuccessful candidates in two ways:

1) The extent to which the path to the Democratic nomination was laid out at her feet; and

2) The fatal blows she delivered to her own campaign -- despite a complete lack of need for such aggressive tactics on very poorly-chosen topics, and after her own existing baggage had largely already been sorted through. I'm not talking about old events that others suddenly "discovered" during her candidacy. I'm talking about brand-new, shiny, completely unnecessary broadsides that she delivered to herself during primary season.

In other words, the heights at which she started, and the huge, huge distance she fell -- simply because she couldn't stay out of her own way -- separate her from other failed candidates. Losing the way Hillary lost takes some real doing.

The only other losing candidate I can think of who inflicted so much damage upon himself as a presumed front-runner was Gary Hart, with his active extramarital affair. Daring the press corps to pointedly follow him around and see his life for themselves was beyond stupid; they instantaneously saw Donna Rice coming out of his home. Moron.

Even that was different, though, because Hart knifed his own candidacy in May 1987 -- a year and a half before the election, and a full year before the Democratic Convention. During this election cycle, that would be like Hillary bowing out in mid-2007. Of course, she was still a front-runner at that point, and well beyond it, giving her the distinction of the quickest self-inflicted fall from nomination grace that I can recall.

[Thiebear]

I thought in Nova they say "you mean raspberry"?

NO! Sweet regular tea...

[Predicto]

While many of Hillary's failings are shared with others, she still stands out among unsuccessful candidates in two ways:

1) The extent to which the path to the Democratic nomination was laid out at her feet; and

2) The fatal blows she delivered to her own campaign -- despite a complete lack of need for such aggressive tactics on very poorly-chosen topics, and after her own existing baggage had largely already been sorted through. I'm not talking about old events that others suddenly "discovered" during her candidacy. I'm talking about brand-new, shiny, completely unnecessary broadsides that she delivered to herself during primary season.

In other words, the heights at which she started, and the huge, huge distance she fell -- simply because she couldn't stay out of her own way -- separate her from other failed candidates. Losing the way Hillary lost takes some real doing.

Maybe. But a lot of the "Hillary is guaranteed to be the nominee" stuff was a myth created by ..... Hillary herself. I don't think she ever had it in the bag. At least not more than Rudy did. I don't think she fell entirely because of poor strategic decision - she fell because a LOT of people simply don't like her and wanted to vote for someone else.