Game Change (Excerpt)by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
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... blame me. Somehow I didn't do enough."
"'She stayed in too long,'" Penn put in.
In a voice of mock horror, Clinton exclaimed, "'Oh, she damaged him,' you know -- screw you! I thought it was a competitive election. I can stay in as long as I want to stay in. Teddy Kennedy stayed in until the convention. Give me a break."
Penn, always on the lookout for business, said he wanted to try "to reconcile with the Obama campaign."
"They're never going to reconcile," Clinton said dismissively. "Ain't gonna happen. Ain't gonna happen. Ain't gonna happen. They are vindictive and small. They don't think they need me. They had that conversation with Bill, they never called and asked him to do anything. They don't care about a former president."
Clinton returned to Obama's prospects in the general election. "I think it's fifty-fifty whether he wins, right?" she said, noting that Obama's VP choice was critical, giving odds on whom he would pick: "Biden, one-in-two chance. Bayh, one-in-four chance. Kaine and Sebelius, both which I think are terrible choices, one-in-eight chance."
For a year and a half, Hillary had spent every waking moment not just trying to defeat Obama, but convincing herself that he was a lightweight, a nose-in-the-air elitist totally unfit to be the leader of the free world. A little more than a month after he ended her dream, she hadn't become unconvinced. But now she would be forced to sit back and watch him run against McCain -- a man whom Clinton considered a friend, but one whose election would be tantamount to reelecting Bush to a third term.
"The campaign was a terrible disappointment," she said. "I hate the choice that this country's faced with. I think it is a terrible choice for the nation."