Victories are increasingly empty and lucid arguments for staying in the race are harder to come by. The South Carolina race-bating, fear mongering, even the 3 a.m. phone ad didn’t cut it. Hmmm. Have we tried the conspiracy angle?

According to former President Bill Clinton, what we have here is a simple matter of respect, or more accurately, disrespect. That’s why his wife isn’t the presidential nominee of the Democratic party right now.

Implying sexism, media bias and broad cover-ups, Bill Clinton says he has “never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running,” and “she will win the general election if you nominate her. They’re just trying to make sure you don’t.”

They’re out there, Bubba says! They!

“I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out,” Bill Clinton said during a South Dakota campaign stop on Sunday.

The former chief executive also suggested some were trying to “cover up” Sen. Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning in some of the key states that Democrats will have to win in the November general election.

Here’s how he put it: “‘Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.’”

Bill Clinton did not expound on who he was accusing.

Echoing a familiar theme, the former president added that his wife has not been given the respect she deserves as a legit presidential candidate.

“She is winning the general election today and he is not, according to all the evidence,” Clinton said. “Her only position was, ‘Look, if I lose I’ll be a good team player. We will all try to win, but let’s let everybody vote, and count every vote.’”

The former president suggested if his wife ended the primary season June 3 with an edge in the popular vote, it would be significant.

However, with an advantage of nearly 450,000 total votes - 16,685,941 to 16,227,514, not including Florida and Michigan - it is unlikely rival Barack Obama will lose his lead in that tally with just three races left.

The current requirement to claim the Democratic presidential nomination is 2,026 delegates, a formula that does not take into account delegates from Florida and Michigan, whose contests were barred by the party.

But if those votes were counted as cast, Hillary Clinton would still trail Barack Obama in the overall delegate count. Obama has officially clinched a majority of the Democratic pledged delegates as of May 20.

The former president said Sunday that the media had unfairly attacked his wife since the Iowa caucuses way back on January 3.

“If you notice, there hasn’t been a lot of publicity on these polls I just told you about,” he said. “It is the first time you’ve heard it? Why do you think that is? Why do you think? Don’t you think if the polls were the reverse and he was winning the Electoral College against Senator McCain and Hillary was losing it, it would be blasted on every television station?”

“You would know it wouldn’t you? It wouldn’t be a little secret. There is another electoral college poll I saw yesterday had her over 300 electoral votes.”

NOTE TO BILL CLINTON: Hillary Clinton isn’t running against John McCain, and the Democratic primary process doesn’t actually use electoral votes. Maybe you missed that memo? We appreciate the spin job, and think Mrs. C. has every right to stay in the race until the winner is officially crowned. But when you’re talking about hypothetical polls you “saw yesterday” and alleging bogus media conspiracies, it’s fairly difficult to take you seriously. Sincerely, Donkey Dish