Someone has to tell Hillary: ‘it’s over’

Conservative commentator Robert Novak (left), who has been writing about Washington politics for over 50 years, says: someone needs to tell Hillary Clinton her failed campaign is over.

Even before Barack Obama won in Wisconsin last Tuesday, wise old heads in the Democratic Party were asking this question: Who will tell her that it's over, that she cannot win the nomination and that the sooner she leaves the race, the more it will improve the party's chances of defeating John McCain in November?

The Democratic dilemma recalls the Republican problem, in a much different context, 34 years ago, when GOP greybeards asked: "Who will bell the cat?" - or, go to Richard Nixon and inform him that he had lost his support in the party and must resign the presidency. Senator Barry Goldwater successfully performed that mission in 1974, but there is no Goldwater facsimile in today's Democratic Party (except for Ted Kennedy, who could not do it because he has endorsed Obama).

Clinton's rationale for remaining a candidate is the Texas-Ohio parlay, and pre-Wisconsin polls gave her a comfortable lead in both states. But Texas has become a dead heat, and her margin in Ohio is down to single digits. Following the Wisconsin returns, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Clinton's leading endorser in the state, is reported to have privately expressed concern as to whether he can hold the state for her. If she ekes out a win in Ohio while losing Texas, who will bell Hillary?

Clinton's tipping point may have come when it was announced that her $5 million loan to her campaign came from a fund she shares with Bill Clinton. That puts into play for the general election business deals by the former president that transformed him from an indigent to a multimillionaire and might excite interest in their income tax returns, which the Clintons refuse to release. The prospect impels many Democratic insiders to pray for the clear Obama victories on March 4 that they hope will make it unnecessary for anybody to beg Hillary Clinton to end her failed campaign.

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 25, 2008