Clinton’s convention role

“Will Hillary outsmart Obama and take the nomination at the last minute?” asked Denis Keohane in American Thinker. Clinton has been phoning super delegates recently—if her name is in play, and just 120 of them happen to sit out the first ballot, “Obama does not get the nomination” without a fight. His “blunder” to push for Michigan and Florida’s pro-Hillary delegations to be seated in full only makes a Clinton upset a real possibility.

“If she’s not plotting to steal the nomination,” said Ron Rosenbaum in his blog, “she should immediately say to her delegates, I release you from your pledge; all I want is a prime time speech” at the convention. A Clinton upset at the convention isn’t a “realistic possibility,” but “I bet the thought has crossed her mind.”

Clinton and her supporters clearly have some “lingering bitterness” about the primary, said Karen Tumulty in Time, and allowing a “symbolic” convention vote for Clinton could be a cathartic “show of respect.” But even though she’s reportedly still “skeptical that Obama can win in the fall”—or even hoping he’ll loose—“Clinton is doing everything she is asked—and then some—to help” Obama win.

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If she wants Obama elected, she should let the convention be about him, said The Economist’s Democracy in America blog. He’s shooting for “the perfect convention,” and with “impossibly high expectations,” Obama “needs it to be perfect, or close to it.” But “if Hillary tries to make it her show, watch as the Democrats squabble publicly,” and watch the press eat it all up.