Senator Barack Obama would like to begin shutting down the nominating contest with Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night as two more states — Kentucky and Oregon — hold their primaries. But he wants to do it subtly.
If Mrs. Clinton wants to keep going to the end — and by every indication she does — she probably needs to post a convincing victory in Kentucky. And if Mrs. Clinton comes close to defeating Mr. Obama in Oregon (or beats him), that would certainly throw a shadow over Mr. Obama’s moment even if it did not stop him from reaching a majority of pledged delegates.
This race will come down to the superdelegates and the sooner they act, the better for the Democratic Party.
Sen. Ted Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor, doctors treating him at Massachusetts General Hospital said today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the 76-year-old Democrat’s “fighting spirit will hold him in good stead.”
Kennedy, 76, was hospitalized Saturday morning after suffering a seizure at his family’s compound at Hyannisport, Massachusetts.
“Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe,” according to a statement from the doctors treating the senator.
The usual course of treatment for Kennedy’s type of tumor includes radiation and chemotherapy, said a statement from Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Larry Ronan, primary care physician at the hospital.
Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1962. He is one of only six senators in U.S. history to serve more than 40 years. He is known as a liberal champion of social issues such as health care, family leave and the minimum wage.
Microsoft Corp., the software maker that said it had moved on after acquisition talks with Yahoo! Inc. failed, revived the possibility that the companies may strike a deal to challenge Google Inc.
Microsoft said yesterday that it is exploring an agreement with Yahoo that stops short of a full acquisition. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft didn’t elaborate on the proposal and said it “reserves the right” to reconsider its bid to acquire all of Yahoo.
The proposal gives Yahoo, owner of the second-most popular Web search engine, another chance to forge an agreement with Microsoft as investor Carl Icahn threatens to oust the Internet company’s board. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang demanded a higher price than Microsoft’s $47.5 billion offer, prompting Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to abandon talks on May 3.
“The best strategy for Yahoo is to embrace Microsoft,” Troy Mastin, an analyst at William Blair & Co. in Chicago, said in a Bloomberg Television interview last week. He predicts Yahoo shares will perform in line with the market. “If they structure a deal correctly, they might still be able to retain a lot of the control and autonomy that they have today.”
Yahoo said in a statement yesterday that it is open to pursuing any transaction in the best interest of investors. The company said it will continue to consider all of its options, including any proposal from Microsoft.
Despite Sen. Barack Obama’s commanding lead in the delegate count, Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigned hard Sunday, telling voters she’s “running for the toughest job in the world.”
A valiant front in a failing effort, Clinton needs to begin toning down her rhetoric as she winds down her campaign.
With Hillary Clinton’s resounding win in West Virginia this evening, the Democratic party knows it is in real trouble. Hillary sounded a bit too victorious during her victory speech in a state where she only gained 12 more delegates than Barack Obama, and where John Edwards won 7% of the vote.
Clinton vows to push on even though there is no way for her to win. Her continued efforts only make it more likely that the Democratic Party will lose in the fall.
The primary race will contine and, even though Clinton will lose, there seems to be no immediate way to make her drop out of the race. She is engaging in a racial and gender charged slash and burn strategy to win at all costs.
The numbers do not work for her. She has no way of manipulating events enough to gain a majority of delegates. She can only act as a spoiler.
She should be stopped before she destroys Obama’s momentum and alienates all of the new voters that the Democrats have enlisted this year.
She will not make this decision on her own, nor will her advisors. They will drag the convention into the mud as they claw and scrape for every single delegate.
She continues to believe that she can change the rules and somehow overturn the elected delegate majority. This approach can only turn out badly.
One path to a quick conclusion is if a large majority of undecided superdelegates endorse Barack Obama very soon, well in advance of a convention, and send a clear message of unity and support for the will of the voters and elected delegates.
145 Superdelegates voting for Obama would end this now.
It would send a wake up call to Hillary, and the Clinton machine, telling her to negotiate for the Vice Presidential nomination now, and let the ticket begin it’s consolidation and fundraising efforts against John McCain.
BeyondGenius.com knew that the Microsoft-Yahoo deal would go through, but we didn’t see the introduction of Carl Icahn, the enigmatic billionaire activist investor, who is considering whether to mount a proxy fight to take control of board seats at Yahoo.
Late last week, Icahn built a significant position in Yahoo that may be as much as 50 million shares worth more than $1.2 billion.
Icahn is said to be unable to get a confirmation that Microsoft will return to the negotiating table should all or part of Yahoo’s board be replaced, according to those close to him.
Look for this deal to push through and a deal to be struck at a price less than Microsoft’s last bid. This saves face for Microsoft, makes a lot of quick money for Icahn, and makes Jerry Yang look ridiculous.
The reality of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run is apparent when viewing the Clinton family faces in the photo above. The image was captured this week as Hillary gave her “victory” speech at the end of the Indiana primary.
Although she claims to be in the race “all the way until the end,” her her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, predicted today that the party would have a presumptive nominee in June and, if it’s not Clinton, she would campaign for Sen. Barack Obama.
These comments, combined with a growing sentiment of inevitability and a lack of cash flow into the Clinton campaign, make her loss to Obama a certainty. If this is so, then why wait until June?
This is Clinton’s negotiating card. She wants her private loans to her campaign repaid and she wants the #2 position guaranteed. We’re sure there are a few dozen additional requests. The Vice Presidential nomination is the main target.
Obama is said to be resisting this, but Obama, Clinton and most of the Democratic Party realize that an Obama-Clinton ticket may be an beatable pairing, even up against McCain-Romney.
Look for Mrs. Clinton’s graceful resignation announcement before Memorial Day with rumors of her and Obama discussing the VP position immediately thereafter. The timeframe will be just long enough to build a frenzied interest, but short enough so as not to disenfranchise the masses.
Never mind that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo will be less of a company than the two companies separately.
The fact is that Microsoft bid for Yahoo and even raised its offer in the 11th hour with Microsoft ultimately offering $33 per share, but Yahoo wouldn’t bite.
Chairman Jerry Yang and co-founder David Filo, who still own a combined 9.7 percent of the company’s stock, flew to Seattle to demand $37 per share — a price Yahoo’s stock hasn’t reached in more than two years. (We imagine Yang and Ballmer’s negotiation meeting looking more like Olive Oyl trying to negotiate with Bluto.)
Microsoft pulled it’s offer.
Now the real action begins. Capital Research Global Investors, whose parent company is the largest Yahoo shareholder, represents a growing group of investors who are upset. “I would love to know who these shareholders are,” Gordon Crawford portfolio manager said. “It’s none of the ones that I talked to today. Everybody I talked to would have sold their stock at $34.”
Now Jerry Yang is in the hot seat. Everyone did the math and knew what kind of return to expect except Yang and Filo, because returns and money don’t mean as much to them as their investors. Now they will begin to feel a level of oversight and critique unlike any they have experienced before. Shareholder lawsuits have already begun.
Jerry needs to learn that all successful negotiations require knowing who has the upper hand. In this case, it was Microsoft and their checkbook (unless Jerry has another buyer in the wings with more than $47.5 billion?).
Expect Yahoo’s stock to continue to fall and Yahoo’s stockholder’s ire to continue to rise until the heat on Yang and his board is so high that they will have to “reopen” (grovel) the dialogue with Microsoft.
In the end, Ballmer will gratiously accept the gesture and pick up Yahoo for $33 or less per share.
We always knew they could, and that they probably would, though it is not something that they should.
