The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
ÒWe all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,Ó Hillary Clinton said last week in explaining her decision to stay in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. LetÕs give Clinton the benefit of the doubt: She did not mean to suggest that she is staying in the race because the front-runner, Barack Obama, might be assassinated. Rather, she was recalling that Kennedy was still running in June in the 1968 Democratic nomination race and, in her words, Òmaking the simple point that ... the length of this yearÕs primary contest is nothing unusual.Ó But the question remains: Why is Clinton still in the race, given the apparently long odds against her winning? Clinton tried to answer that question yesterday in a lengthy letter to the New York Daily News. She ticked off numerous reasons, including: she still thinks she can win; she is not a quitter; she owes it to American women who have been energized by her campaign; and she believes that she is the best choice to run against John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. There is undoubtedly some truth in all of the above. But the primary reason Clinton is hanging in there is that it allows her to retain some leverage with both Obama and the Democratic party. She could use that leverage for something big, such as the vice-presidential nomination, or something relatively small, such as a prime speaking slot at the Democratic convention in August. Whatever it is, we have certainly not heard the last of Hillary Clinton.
