Huffington Post writer Wiliam Bradley picks up the other half of Clinton's recent gaffe regarding the 1992 and 1968 primaries and her assertion that both of these ran into mid-June.
Of course, the immediate focus has been on the offensive-to-many RFK reference. Today, however, Bradley's piece, The OTHER Big Problem With Hillary's Notorious Remarks, was like a breath of fresh air reminding us about Clinton's bold error regarding her husband's 1992 primary.
But as the New York Times pointed out yesterday, Bill Clinton was the presumptive nominee as early as late March. If the deal need to be sealed even further, he closed it during the New York primary in early April. That's at least 2 months earlier than Senator Clinton is claiming. Frankl, if she wants to make the case that, “It's not over 'til it's over,” then she can point to every primary in history when the delegates cast their ballots at the convention.
Mrs. Clinton has cited her husband's 1992 nominating battle in discussing her decision to stay in the race. While she said that he only wrapped up the nomination in June of that year, he was viewed as having secured it in March, when his last serious opponent dropped out.
In his piece, Bradley speaks mostly on the subject of the California primary and Jerry Brown. But it's nice to see an emerging reality check on Clinton's revisionist history regarding the 1992 primary rising to the surface in the wake of the emotionally charged coverage of the RFK comment.
The link, Bradley's opening paragraph bio below the fold.
The OTHER Big Problem With Hillary's Notorious Remarks
William Bradley; Huffington Post; May 25, 2008.
Hillary Clinton: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it.”
What a remarkably wrong-headed paragraph. The formerly inevitable Clinton got into obvious trouble for her assassination comment. (And is now trying desperately to spin her way out. Lotsa luck.) But the sentence before it is totally wrong as well, as I can tell you that the Clintons knew that they would have no trouble in the 1992 California primary.
In May 1992, I passed on a message to Bill Clinton's national campaign chairman, Los Angeles attorney Mickey Kantor, who later held two Cabinet posts in the Clinton Administration. The message? That Jerry Brown, the former California governor who emerged as Clinton's most persistent opponent, would run no TV ads in the California primary and would pull back from the sharp attacks he'd been leveling on the frontrunner.
The primary was not “in the middle of June,” as Hillary said in the first part of her gross misstatement about it. It was on the first Tuesday in June, as it had been for decades to that point, on June 2nd. Clinton was way ahead in the race. There was no suspense about him getting the nomination. And Brown's decision not to run TV ads in California — he had plenty of money for that — and to refrain from the harsh attacks that had marked his campaign to that point made it very clear that the fight was over.
William Bradley bio:
William Bradley is an award-winning columnist and former political advisor. His NewWestNotes.com is the California leader in real-time political analysis. Bradley has been a senior advisor in several presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, co-founded a newspaper in California's state capital, dabbles as a Hollywood consultant and producer, and has written for a score of major national and international publications. A Berkeley grad and Navy vet, he is a USC senior fellow and a national political analyst and host on XM Satellite Radio.