Opinion: Slate sets up a Hillary Deathwatch on Clinton candidacy

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While some people still debate whether Sen. Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president and others argue that she shouldn’t and still others discuss when she should quit, Slate has gone ahead and established a Hillary Deathwatch on her candidacy.

A year ago now, it looked like a Hillary Clinton nomination was virtually a sure thing, despite the growing number of Democratic candidates, many of them senators trying to become only the third sitting senator in U.S. history to become president.

As it turns out, all three of the remaining candidates, including Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, are in office, so the 44th president will be the third sitting senator to move into the White House after Warren Harding and John F. Kennedy. Americans in more recent years have shown a distinct preference for governors as their national chief executives.

The new Slate Web page constantly adjusts the chances it says Clinton has to actually win the nomination.

Tuesday the odds improved -- not a whole lot but still up -- from 9.7% to 9.9%.

The site determined she hadn’t had any major screw-ups in a few days. Some disparate polls showed her up a little. ‘Slow news is good news for Clinton,’ it proclaimed.

You can check the latest reading here.

-- Andrew Malcolm