Why is this primary race still going on? Because it's not just about the White House.

[WilliamPitt]

There is a huge war in the party for control *of* the party, and it is playing out in this primary race. Clinton, her husband and their people have been basically running the deal for 16 years, and deservedly so. They fought to repair it, won two terms with it, and have the thing pretty much wired the way it suits them. Anyone who finds it odd that they now are fighting to the knife for their hard-earned standing in the party, or thinks it is in bad form to do so, should take a second and look back over Democratic party history. This happens every so often; the old bulls v. the young bulls, and it's never easy or pretty or dignified, but you might as well wish for gravity to stop throwing your stuff on the floor.

Clinton and her people are basically in charge of the party on any number of levels, and they worked hard for it. Obama winning the nomination, however, would make him the leader of the party...out of nowhere, this young guy with a gift for gab and no record, this guy who was rude enough to not wait his turn, this guy is gonna come down with the last drop of rain and take charge of the house Clinton/Clinton etc. meticulously reassembled from the ashes of Dukakis and Mondale?

I think he is ( ;) ). But this contest for party control is, for one recent and vivid example, what Kennedy's endorsement of Obama was aimed at. Not about primaries or who wins the Oval. Teddy is a liberal who thinks Adlai Stevenson was a bit too moderate (joke), and he has spent 16 years and one impeachment living and dying with a Democratic party leadership cadre way too right for his tastes, voted for the war, DLC, etc. Sixteen years.

He saw his shot and took it. Teddy wants Obama in the Oval, but he REALLY wants Clinton to accept the situation. She is only still campaigning because a) It allows her to continue fundraising so she can try to ameliorate the $31 million hole she's in; and, b) To keep at bay any sense that she and her crew have any interest in relinquishing party control.

She'll bird-dog this to the end, until she is confident that her status in the party, along with her crew, isn't going to get taken out to the curb on trash day after 1/20/09. Teddy would like her to make these very reasonable arrangements without making Obama spend money better used to annihilate McCain...and yeah, he wants her and Bill and their DLC folks to lose some influence over the party, because he's a liberal, and that's how it goes.

Obama and Clinton will work something out, maybe even by June. The DLC folks will still have keys to the washroom, Clinton and her husband and their crew will still pretty much be running shit in the party, and President Obama won't screw with that until late into his second term, after wisely taking time to learn how that shit works, where the landmines are, and why being the leader of the world's most powerful nation plus a dime won't get you coffee at Starbucks if the sales associate happens to be a PA delegate, or a MI delegate who had to stand during the whole goddam convention.

Selah.

P.S. for what it's worth, I believe Teddy earned the right to throw some elbows. The world would be a better place if some of his fellow Democrats followed his lead, even if doing so risked hurting the feelings of their cross-aisle colleagues...you know, the ones who wouldn't piss on a Democrat if that Dem was on fire in front of them. Teddy earned the right, in spades.

Cheers.