Clinton Wrong About 1992

Sure, you can argue that Senator Clinton's reference to RFK and the 1968 campaign was simply "an historic fact." The RFK comment was more incendiary, but the other part of her historical justification for staying the race, her husband's 1992 primary fight until "the middle of June," is more spinful and specious. Says AP's Devlin Barrett:

In the same breath, she maintained that her husband had not wrapped up the nomination until June. In truth, he did so in March with the Illinois primary. While California made his victory a mathematical fact, the outcome had not been in doubt for month [Devlin Barrett, "Analysis: Clinton's Latest Off-Key Remark," AP via Yahoo News, 2008.05.24].

For more detail, check out this bullet list from tremayne at OpenLeft:

1. The 1992 primaries ended on June 2, 1992, a day earlier than this year. Several states, including California, had primaries that day. It was not mid-June.

2. According to wikipedia: "Clinton effectively won the Democratic Party's nomination after winning the New York Primary in early April."

3. Clinton's chief rival was Paul Tsongas who dropped out of the race in mid-May, 1992.

4. According to polls, Clinton led in every remaining state except California where Jerry Brown was polling well (his home state). Brown was not going to catch Clinton for the nomination in any scenario.

5. From the May 11, 1992 New York Times: "Aides to Mr. Clinton say that in most of the remaining primaries he will ignore the former Governor of California, Edmund G. Brown Jr., and will try to give voters a clearer sense of his own personality and his positions on major issues, in preparation for a general election campaign against President Bush."

So was Clinton trying to make the point that she was glad Jerry Brown stayed in the race through June? By comparing herself to Jerry Brown, Clinton herself seems to be implying that she is the new Kucinich, the new Nader, the new radical victimized and marginalized by a corporate media and political machine determined to coronate a mainstream frontrunner and exclude true progressive voices...

What the heck am I saying? Senator Clinton, you're no Jerry Brown. And it's silly to compare your campaign to the 1992 campaign of Jerry Brown, who had only 388 delegates versus Bill Clinton's 2,059 going into the June 2, 1992, primaries. You actually have a mathematical chance of winning (see this hoepful conservative thinking from National Review's Byron York). Your 1968 analogy may have offended common decency, but your 1992 analogy defies logic.

Update 2008.05.25: More on Clinton's fuzzy history at the Houston Chronicle open blog. Plus, she wins a "Barely True" Truth-o-Meter rating from Politifact.com for spinning the same yarn back in March. Of course, Bill has been spinning that same yarn.

Update 2008.05.27 10:12 CDT: Oh, wait -- Bill hasn't always spun that yarn. SD Moderate does the homework and finds this quote from Bill's memoir My Life:

On April 7, we also won in Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. On April 9, Paul Tsongas announced that he would not reenter the race. The fight for the nomination was effectively over.

Obama seeks to make history. The Clintons only fabricate it to suit their message of the moment.