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When To Hold 'Em, When To Fold 'EmJohn Dickerson takes readers' questions on the candidate's decision to quit or fight on.

Posted Monday, April 7, 2008, at 6:21 PM ET

Slate political writer John Dickerson was online to chat about how and why past presidential candidates have made their decisions to end their campaigns, and what this tells us about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

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John Dickerson: Hello everyone. I look forward to answering your questions.

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Anonymous: I support Obama but I think it's ridiculous for Clinton to bow out now. Granted, I am not a political pundit, campaigner or other, but there are many real issues to debate in this election. I think the way the Democratic Party gets the campaign back on track is to speak to issues. Shouldn't the party chair speak to that issue as well?

John Dickerson: I think that's right. The party chair should speak up and Dean eventually did, saying he hoped people would make their decision around July 1, which means not before then. Trying to get Clinton out early wasn't working as a political matter for Obama either.

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Washington: John, my understanding is that Ted Kennedy was much farther behind Carter in delegates and the popular vote in 1980 than Clinton is today, but refused to pull out until the convention. Was this viewed as being the blow that helped kill Carter, or was he doomed as a candidate even without this?

John Dickerson: Great question. Lots of people think Kennedy killed Carter. Though there were also lots of people who thought Carter was doomed from the start. In my reporting the distinction between Kennedy and Clinton made by Democrats was that Kennedy had issues he was fighting for (ERA, taxes and the draft) that made his crusade about the party and what it stood for, while Clinton's is not issue oriented in the same way.

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Minneapolis: How much is the decision to bow out tempered by the notion that one may have another chance in the future? Huckabee certainly believed that any success in 2008 was an investment of political capital in his 2012 campaign. If neither of the two remaining Democratic candidates salt the earth en route to pulling out, it certainly can be argued that another campaign is possible. Is this consolation prize even worth mentioning?

John Dickerson: I think ultimately those candidates who don't get out right away (because money problems force them to) make their decision based on a bet that staying in any longer hurts their long term prospects.

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Washington: Why should a candidate who hasn't been completely blown out in the primary quit? This is one of the first times in recent memory that I've seen a Democrat with some backbone actually fight for what they believe in. I'm an independent, and I often have a hard time taking the Democrats seriously.

John Dickerson: The arguments for Clinton to get out are largely based on the idea that she's "harming the party" by staying in and raising ugly issues in the public square that harm the eventual nominee. One example was the recent news that she told Bill Richardson that Obama "can't win." (i.e. that he's fundamentally flawed). This is good ammunition for McCain, some Democrats argue and wouldn't have gotten out there if she wasn't fighting so hard to stay in.

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St. Simons Island, Ga.: Mr. Dickerson, I am a regular reader of Slate and of your columns in particular. You do very fine work. About Sen. Clinton's campaign: Most of her remaining support is from feminists and blue-collar workers. I believe the feminists will stay with her, but the disclosure of the Clintons' tax returns has to hurt her with the blue-collars. Indeed, I expect her polling numbers this week in Pennsylvania will take a significant dive. How do you see her campaign being affected by the disclosure?

John Dickerson: Thanks. I wonder about the blue collar vote. Some polling on other issues shows that people don't really mind if others are rich (as long as those rich folk aren't seen to prosper unfairly). Some advocacy groups that have thought about beating up on the wealthy owners of certain corporations have decided not to because it doesn't really work. This, I should note, is complicated. Plenty of polls show that disparity in CEO pay gets people furious— but that's not exactly what would hurt the Clintons in this case.

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Fairfax, Va.: What role does concern for the good of the party play in candidates' decisions about when to drop out? When Obama won 12 in a row it seemed obvious that he simply was more popular than Clinton, so Clinton chose to rip him apart rather than acknowledge that the party had the most appealing candidate it has had in years. Theoretically she could have quit then and got on his bandwagon. That would have been good for the party and probably would have preserved the excitement surrounding Obama, which has declined.

John Dickerson: This is certainly the case the Obama forces would make. Those in the Clinton camp would argue that he's just not a general election candidate and that the later contests will show that. If Clinton loses one of the big later contests though, the argument is largely sunk.

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Fairfax, Va.: If Clinton stood for something other than for herself I could understand fighting on to the end because a noble cause was at stake; but because she is not associated with a cause, what is the point of her continuing on (and in the process exposing her disdain for the larger good of ending Republican rule and rebuilding America)?

John Dickerson: The Clinton folk would argue that her cause is the Party cause. Since she believes that Obama is a flawed general election candidate, she thinks all that Democrats believe in will disappear if he wins the nomination. The stakes have to be that high for Clinton as she makes her pitch or people will think she's only in this for personal ambition.

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Alexandria, Va.: All this "Hillary has to quit now" stuff is driving me crazy. I know it doesn't look good for her, but that's her call. And rules are rules—no Michigan or Florida primaries, because that was the rule. But we can't allow superdelegates to independently choose, and we can't allow the (agreed upon) process to work to completion. And while there's some venom that seems destructive, all I can say is that the Republicans have been quite good at cooking up worse stuff for years.