Senator Clinton ends historic run too soon for Will

COLUMBUS: Well, it’s over. Senator Clinton conceded on Saturday, ending the longest, most intense, most expensive campaign ever by a candidate who ran second.

I wanted to see it go on to the Convention in Denver. That’s purely from a comedian’s angle, and I’m first to admit it was a selfish request. See, I’ve got loads of fresh material stockpiled from the 16-day 1924 Democratic Donnybrook in New York. You’ve read a bit of it, but there’s at least forty more pages, enough to last me through the summer heat.

She ends her race with 18 million more votes than she started with, but twenty million less dollars. She praised her 18 million voters, then gave a final plea for each of ’em to support Obama, but to mail her $1.10. That way she could break even and not have to write another book.

As it turned out Senator McCain pretty well wrapped up the Republican nomination in New Hampshire because Rudy’s bid fizzled in Florida (just like Big Brown’s in the Belmont), and from then on McCain got half the Republican vote while Romney and Huckabee split the other half.

So it’s Obama vs. McCain and we got six months to sort it out. Secure you ear plugs and hold onto your wallet.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays.” DT #1538, June 28, 1931

[After the grueling 16-day Democratic Convention of 1924, Will wrote a Weekly Article focusing on the outstanding women at the convention, mentioning fifteen by name. Here are excerpts.]
     “There will always remain one bright spot. Well, not only one bright spot, but many, for thanks to the 19th amendment there were many bright spots there.
Mrs. Leroy Spring from the Carolinas, the only lady who was ever nominated for the Vice Presidency, was another one I was fortunate enough to exchange daily jokes with…. Then there was another very able and charming lady, Mrs. Mary Miller from Pennsylvania. I defeated her by one half vote for the Presidency of the United States. She is the first woman to ever receive a vote (or half vote, rather) for the Presidency, and I am the first acknowledged comedian to receive one (not the first comedian, mind you, but the first acknowledged one.) She made a seconding speech for Al Smith that knocked the old men politicians right back onto their flasks.
The best speech made there was by Mrs. Izotta Jewell Brown from Virginia. She seconded the J.W. Davis nomination late in the evening.
Oh, I can’t tell you all the ones I met. It would take a book for this was truly a woman’s convention, and during the last few days who pops in but my good friend Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth [daughter of Teddy Roosevelt]. I don’t know what she was doing slumming around a Democratic Convention, but I certainly was glad to see her, as she knows more politics in a minute than all the floor leaders that ever spoiled a candidate’s chances.
If this Roosevelt woman had been born a man we would not have to be worrying all this time over who would be one of our Presidents.
The women can feel proud of their record at this convention. They made better and shorter speeches, didn’t sell out, look better, dressed better, stayed awake better, and had they been running it, they would have cooked up some candidate earlier and we would all have been home.” WA #85, July 27, 1924