"Concede Now, Hillary!"

The Afrosphere Action Coalition has called upon afrosphere blog from across the United States and internationally to join us today in insisting that we will NOT allow our votes to be nullified in the context of the 2008 Democratic presidential nominating contest. This Day of Blogging for Voter Justice is to urge and warn Hillary Clinton that we simply will not condone - now or in November - the game she is playing with the Democratic Party.

Today, in the face of Hillary Clinton's steadfast insistence that she can win the Democratic presidential nomination regardless of the earned delegate count and the popular vote that are irretrievably against her, we are telling Hillary STOP! "Concede Now, Hillary!" Barack Obama has 1,413 earned delegates to Hillary's 1,242. Everyone who's objective says that there's virtually no way that Hillary can catch up, including (privately) Hillary's own advisers. As Michael Tomasky at the Guardian said yesterday, "Democrats want clarity and Clinton's time is running out."

Although Hillary insists that the media has been unfair to her, the truth is that the media has been immensely generous to her by letter her and spokespeople decide when their campaign is over instead of the media simply concluding and announcing, based on every political and historical precedent, that the contest was over long ago.

In every previous Democratic presidential nomination campaign that I've witnessed, paying careful attention since 1976, the candidate who cannot catch up in the delegate count drops out and endorses the winner as soon as it becomes apparent that there is no other numerically sustainable alternative.

Although so-called "dark horse candidate" Jesse Jackson took his campaigns to the Conventions of 1984 and 1988, he and the Party acknowledged much beforehand who the nominees would be and fell in behind them, so that the Democrats could preserve whatever chance they had of winning those elections. The question was always whether Jesse would be offered the vice presidency, not whether he would be offered the presidency in spite of having lost the delegate count and the popular vote. Hillary cannot see this reality.



It was often asked whether Jesse Jackson would be a "spoiler," who refused to give up, refused to be a team player and thereby damned the nominee to failure. Although Jesse Jackson ran outsider candidacies, he was a team player who got behind the nominees. Jesse Jackson could have insisted, in the face of all reason to the contrary, that the Delegates to the Democratic National Convention would eventually nominate him, regardless of what had happened in the primaries. But, would the media have taken him seriously? Should anyone have?

In 2008, Hillary Clinton is the "dark horse" candidate, the "spoiler" of the 2008 election, refusing to acknowledge the reality of her loss and refusing to endorse the winner. Although members of her staff acknowledge privately that there is virtually no chance she can overtake Obama, yet Hillary continues her scorched earth efforts to so defame Barack Obama that he will be considered unelectable.

Worse of all, Blacks almost universally believe that Hillary Clinton, her husband and other surrogates are defaming ALL Blacks in Hillary's efforts to convince Americans that THIS Black man ought not be president. Blacks believe that Hillary is defaming ALL Blacks as a strategy for undermining one presidential candidate.

Whether this is deemed objectively "true" or not, the fact is that Hillary and her entourage have so alienated Black voters that it would be impossible for her to get this 20% of the Democratic Party behind her in November. Moreover, Hillary seems unable to understand that by denigrating the Party's most loyal constituency and attempting to arouse public resentment against Blacks, she defames the Party with which Blacks are tied in the public conscience. In November, white voters, whose color-aroused resentments have been inflamed, may simply vote against the Party that represents most Blacks, regardless of the color of the Party's presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate.

So, we're forced to ask ourselves, "What does Hillary want?!" Politically and numerically, Hillary Clinton's candidacy is dead in the water. But who will tell her this, when Hillary still believes that delegates and the popular vote will be ignored to hand her the nomination based on her . . . strong desire to have it?

So, we in the Afrosphere Action Coalition are circulating the "Concede Now, Hillary!" petition urging Clinton to recognize the reality of her position, respect the needs of her Party, hear and heed the angst and even fury of her Party's most loyal constituency, and END HER CAMPAIGN NOW, before her single-minded effort to win the presidency for Hillary defeats a broad based effort to win for the Democratic Party.