Political Wire, February 23, 2008 (H/T Oliver Willis):

[A quote from an attendee at a Kathleen Kennedy Townsend speech at St. Mary's College]

"Townsend said she expects Sen. Barack Obama to win the Democratic presidential nomination and that Clinton is finished. She believed that the Wisconsin results demonstrated that Clinton's coalition (voters over the age of 50 and those earning less than $50,000) had fallen apart. When asked why the Clinton campaign had failed, Ms. Townsend had plenty of opinions and she placed significant blame on Bill Clinton and his racially tinged statements in South Carolina. She also felt that Clinton made a tactical error in making "experience and inevitability" her central campaign themes."

The quote went on to summarize Townsend's alleged advice to Team Clinton that it leave on a high note.

Several points.

1) What a way for a relatively prominent Democrat to shiv her endorsee - to tell a room packed full of internet savvy young adults that her endorsee is dead, then to repeat the confidential strategic advice that she gave! Moral: Future Democrats cannot trust KKT's confidences, let alone political business judgment.

2) I want Obama to win, make no mistake but he does not own this yet, not at all. The race is quite close and she is backed by desperate political blackbelts, not just the ineffably short-sighted Mark Penn. So one must conclude that Townsend is trying to kill this campaign, as opposed to declaring it dead. There was NO NEED for Townsend to contribute this information if she is a Democrat trying to help her other Democrats win; it smells like a vicious, stupid shiv, not an honorable funeral oration.

3) I floated the theory in jest some time ago that KKT was trying all along to make another Democrat look politically inept to pull her political rep out of the toilet. but I had no idea that KKT would actually hand me a pile of evidence for that thesis this late in the game. Her actions are NOT the actions of a friend and Team Clinton should not easily forgive her. At least Mark Penn was and is trying to win, however maladroitly.