OBAMA ADMITS DEFEAT; TURNS TO BILL CLINTON

“And, I care about the long term debt of the country a lot. Remember me, I’m the only guy that gave you four surplus budgets out of the eight I sent.”

Of course, the fabled "Clinton surpluses" remain one of the great myths of the 1990s but that's beside the point.  What's significant about the Obama campaign tapping Clinton to give the nominating speech at the guaranteed trainwreck of a convention in Charlotte is that Obama now knows that he has no chance of winning over moderates and independents on his own.  Even with Slick Willie's help it's a longshot but clearly the only shot left to take.

Back in June, Howard Portnoy wrote an article in which he noted that Clinton has a tendency to go off message (because he can!) when discussing Obama.  Portnoy states:

I don’t profess to have an answer myself, but I have assembled a list of clues that may shed light on the method behind “Slick Willie’s” madness. For one thing, there is the bitterness that occurred between the Obama campaign and Clinton’s wife’s campaign during the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination. This antipathy culminated in January 2008 with accusations of racism leveled against Clinton by the Obama camp.

Back in December 2010 Portnoy had written about Clinton's hilarious upstaging of Obama at an official White House press briefing in which Obama literally surrendered the lecturn to the former POTUS.  Obama is notoriously reluctant to submit to questions from the press but it was rather amazing to witness Clinton settle right back into the groove as if he'd never left the White House.

The most recent occurrence happened a couple of months ago when Clinton veered sharply off message regarding Romney's record at Bain Capital.  Can Clinton control himself long enough to do his best for Obama?  And even if he does, there's another problem looming for the speech, as noted at Huffington Post:

The NFL is starting its regular season on that very night, featuring a marquee matchup between the Super Bowl champion New York football Giants and their division rival the Dallas Cowboys. The final night of a national political convention (Thursday) is when the candidate speaks. The night before, Wednesday, is typically when the candidate's name is placed into nomination, meaning that Bill Clinton will be up against the NFL's opening night.

Not good.

The whole point of having Bill Clinton give the nominating speech for Obama is to pull in moderates, independents, and blue collar white guys in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania who remember the great Clinton economy of the 90s. Millions of TV viewers across the nation will obviously choose football over a political convention on that night... including me. 

So...how will it all turn out?  We'll just have to wait and see.  But in the meantime, here's a song that gives a satisfying hint of the desperation that the Obama campaign is feeling as they tacitly acknowledge that they are in over their heads.