The Clinton camp response to Richardson's endorsement of Obama merely highlights the reason she is losing the race for the nomination. Hillary and her minions live in a bubble removed from everyday life. They can only react to things from the viewpoint of being in the bubble.

The reason Richardson, and now Casey, endorsed Obama is because he is going to win the nomination. Why ride the loser? While it is possible that Obama self destructs before the convention, he has taken every shot and looks just fine. The only calculation that had to be made by Richardson and Casey was 'Will Obama hold his own in Pennsylvania?'. Apparently, the smart money says yes.

But in bubbleland the Clinton victory was apparently supposed to be snatched from the jaws of defeat by the super delegates because...(fill in your on illogical fantasy here). In bubbleland everyone owes the queen forever for all good that has happened in their lives. The ingrates.

And since no one outside bubbleland buys into this worldview, the distance between the Clinton campaign and reality, which has always existed, will become ever more apparent. Graceful loser will not be an operative concept in this situation.

By the way, if Richardson is Judas, Carville is Gollum (the visual works too).

Ha! Very clever, radicalcenter. Very clever indeed. In your construction, I assume. "The Precious" is the Presidency, which Carville once was touched (i.e.: possessed) by, and which he fears is on the precipice of slipping out of his grubby, web-fingered grasp.

Oh, that's excellent! Thank you for that. If I could send you a gift card, I would.

-T

There is a helluva resemblance...

Why does this suggest living in a bubble? It seems like a very normal reaction to feel betrayed when someone you consider a compatriot and/or friend does something against your interests, which he led you to believe he would not do.

You point out that Richardson, along with Casey, is the calculating politician, endorsing the opponent of a friend because, and when, it looks like the friend is going to lose. How is Ms. Clinton the bad guy in that scenario? It's fine for Richardson to calculate and abandon whenever it suits his own purposes, but Ms. Clinton is a scheming witch for esxpecting someone to keep his word, or even to just pay back past favors? Why isn't Richardson an ingrate? Why is Ms. Clinton wrong for feeling wronged?

It is certainly fair to slam someone when she does something bad herself but it must really suck when, like Ms. Clinton, you also get slammed when something bad happens to you.

You seem to think that Richardson was under contract with the Clintons.

Do you live in a bubble?

Wow! you people are really duped! We wouldn't even know of Richardson -Who? Had it not been for Bill Clinton. Richardson is an OPPORTUNIST. When the heat is up the true colors really show. Politicians make strange bed fellows. I am so glad his not the nominee. Clearly, he has loyalty to himself only.

It's exactly this kind of loyalty that has helped make the Bush administration the unmitigated disaster that it is. We all know that with Bush, loyalty always trumps competence.

If Bush's secretary of defense had been competent and had listened to his generals and had listened to the state department experts, Iraq might actually be a functioning democracy today.

Does anybody want to see Hillary Clinton staff her hypothetical administration with the few hundred people she owes the biggest favors to? Eight years of that have been quite enough.

Obama 08!

Gloat all you want... the future is yet to tell her tales...

... saith the oracle.

Obama 08!

StopTheMadness:

Two things:

1) Perhaps Bill Richardson wouldn't have gained national prominence without his appointments to UN Ambassador and SecEn under Bill Clinton. But before that, he was a Congressman for 14 years and before that was a Congressional staffer. His negotiations with Saddam Hussein came during this time period, and are probably what caused him to be tapped for UN Ambassador, and certainly led to being more noticed by the Democratic Party leadership. That it happened under Bill Clinton is timing - Richardson is ambitious on his own.

2) To call Richardson an opportunist in the same breath as the Clintons is the pot calling the kettle black. The Clintons pretty much only care for the Clintons and their ambitions. If they dispense political favor, it is to help themselves somehow. Do not buy into the concept that the Clintons are public servants - they only serve themselves.

Well of COURSE its the pot calling the kettle black. That's the point. The hypocrisy of so many Obama backers on this point is staggering. The article suggests, and most of these posts don't seem to dispute, that Richardson is a clever, ambitious politician who saw the writing on the wall and therefore made a calculated move to withdraw his allegiance from a person who reasonably expected some sort of loyalty, or at least repayment, and whom he had led to believe, or at least let believe, such support or repayment would be forthcoming, and did it a very damaging time. The kind of cold, calculated, self-serving political move the Clintons would make, right? And Obama took the benefit of it, in a heartbeat.

Well of course he did - he's a politician, just like Richardson and Clinton. Don't act like the evil Clinton got some kind of karmic payback at the hands of the forces of goodness and light. She got snookered by people who are playing the same game she's playing, and playing to win. They're all pots and kettles. Of course she feels betrayed. She was, and Obama didn't reject the Clintonesque act - he's got his arm around the guy who betrayed her. So, she may have had it coming, but don't act like Obama didn't make sure she got it. That's all I'm saying.

Thanks, I am rarely so inspired, but every once in a while.

RC

Bubbleland is somehow believing that Richardson is betraying Ms. Clinton. Where and how does Richarson owe Hillary diddlysquat? Only in the Clinton staffer's clouded mind.

Yes, Richardson was in the Clinton administration, and it certainly didn't hurt him. But he also was a good manager. I call that doing your job. Bill saw a talented guy and hired him. He was a loyal member of that administration, over seven years ago. By the way, Bill Clinton only became president by not deferring to his party elders. But that was OK. I bet Paul Tsongas thought Clinton should defer to him! Damn people keep voting though, perhaps we should discontinue that practice?

Now, years later, Bill Richardson was running for president himself. At no time during this campaign has he been anything else but his own man. It didn't work out for him and he dropped out of the race.

What does Richardson owe Hillary? Why do some think he has some sort of debt to Hillary? He never worked for her. While he was running for the nomination, was Hillary resentful of his lack of deference to her 'royal' candidacy? I don't recall Carville speaking up about that.

In our two party system, both Democrats and Republicans back who their heart's desire in the primaries, and then tend to be loyal party troopers in the general election. Sticking with your party in the general election even if your horse loses in the primary, that is loyalty.

The man gets to back the candidate he prefers in the primary. Every other candidate who dropped out of every other primary in American history has been afforded that right.

Is Richardson's choice calculated? Yes. And smart. But if Hillary pulls off the upset of the year, he will back her as a good Democrat. (But I think it is safe to say that a cabinet job would certainly be out regardless.)

Oh, and Hillary really wants to pick Barrack for VP.

Bubbleland is thinking Richardson is beholden to Hillary just because he was talented enough to earn a job in her husband's administration in the Pleistocene.