Now, onto the show.

I checked the diary, and I’m raising a lot of things up my inner flagpole right now, and to be honest, I don’t think we can make any judgements as of right now as to what’s going on in Clinton’s mind. Right now she’s kind of battling in the realm of technical stuff, and rules and such, and what we have yet to see is what post NC/IN Hillary’s identity is.

A lot is going to be seen in her tone towards Obama and towards McCain, and this is the difference between whether she is staying in to win, or if she is staying in for some other goal. That’s to say, there is even a possibility that she is staying in to help Barack.

As far fetched as that would seem, one thing that another Kos diarist pointed out last night was that Hillary dropping out right now may not be a good thing given that West Virginia and Kentucky are clearly in her favor by embarrassing margins.

Think about that for a second; headlines exploded when Ron Paul picked up twenty percent in a Republican primary after McCain was the presumptive nominee–allowing Obama to pick up a loss after he is declared the last candidate standing would not only rightly create a mainstream media storm, but would give Obama opponents plenty to talk about for at least a week.

Thus, we see a situation where it could be marginally beneficial for Clinton to stay in at least until Kentucky so that there is at least a valid reason for Obama to lose those states.

The win in Oregon would also provide the right catalyst for Clinton to get out, and the remaining states of Montana and South Dakota, which are expected to go to Obama anyway, would allow him to cement his image as the Democratic presumptive nominee.

Now, we don’t have any way of knowing if this is the plan, though it definitely appears as though that’s what Team Obama would like to happen given that the signal fires coming from the campaign are that they plan to have the deal sealed on May 20th.

What is really going to tell the tale in what one hopes to be the final leg of the Democratic primary is how Hillary sells herself to the electorate and to the Super Delegates. If she continues with an all out assault on Obama, that would indicate that they have completely lost touch with reality, and there is little telling how far she would go.

The one thing I don’t think she’ll do, though, is run as an independent, or if she does, I don’t think Lieberman or Bloomberg are going to find their way on the ticket. Lieberman is backing McCain, and will continue to back McCain even if Clinton approaches him because McCain is more in keeping with Lieberman’s foreign policy ideology. And I think Bloomberg personally favors Obama. Two high profile incidents have occured on the campaign trail where Bloomberg appeared to be signalling support for the candidate, though there are plenty of reasons why he has not outright endorsed him even if he supports him.

These, i think, would be out of A) not wanting to put himself at odds with what is still a very popular senator from his own state, and B) not wanting his endorsement to hurt Obama in a Democratic primary–the possibility of a Bloomberg endorsement possibly hurting Obama’s credibility with the left.

and then there’s C) in that we still don’t know if Bloomberg is planning his own bid.

But beyond all of this, I don’t think Hillary will run outside the party because she has to know that she has little support without the party. I don’t think she has any delusions to how unpopular she is, and while this may seem antithetical to any presidential bids, it is feasible to be unpopular but with the power of the party winning the White House. By contrast, without that party support, she’s really got not a whole lot going for her, and her independent run would only damage the Democratic candidate. Worse. Plus, such a run would have so many negative repurcussions it wouldn’t be worth the go.

I mean, think about it for a second. Hillary running as an independent has 0% chance of winning the White House. But losing would also seal her fate regardless of McCain won, or Obama won. If McCain won, she would be absolutely done in Democratic politics. She would lose her senate seat, and she would never get elected to another office ever again because she would be seen as the person who lost the White House for the Dems. On the flip side, still losing to Obama would have a similar effect in that it would destroy any credibility as a politician that she currently has.

She had to lose to the rookie twice.

So I don’t foresee an independent run, but, depending on her tone, if she goes right back on attack against Obama, then I do at least foresee her taking this to the convention, or at least trying to.

As I wrote in my latest post, I don’t think that the Super Delegates are going to let things get that far. George Stephanopoulos was right; you’re going to see SD’s come out four or five at a time for Obama.

We’ve all imagined her pushing to the convention as a worst-case scenario. But here’s something that just occurred to me - how badly do you think she wants this? How out of touch with reality is she? Do you think she might just pull a Lieberman and run as an “independant Democrat,” taking her supporters with her and holding the party hostage to her wishes?

I wrote about this in more detail on Kos (here if you’re interested: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/7/5363/22733/862/510707 ) but I wanted to toss the idea out over here and see what you thought.