You have to admire Hillary's determination. Being the underdog brings out the best in her--and it either neutralizes or makes forgivable the less appealing aspects of her campaign and character.
She remains the underdog. Her victory in Pennsylvania was solid without being startling. The margin was exactly what was required to make it certain that she would stay in the race--yet without much altering the arithmetic that so strongly favors Obama. Her ten-point advantage is less than she needed to get on track to overturn Obama's lead in the Democratic popular vote (although, admittedly, this depends on how you measure it); his lead in pledged delegates was secure in any case. It is not enough, either, to persuade wavering superdelegates that the Obama campaign is failing--or at any rate, failing so badly that they could override a pledged-delegate lead without tearing the party to pieces. Having said all that, once again she arrested his momentum, and raised questions about his ability to close the deal.
He can argue that he came through the Wright and Bittergate affairs unscathed. His overall result in Pennsylvania was close to his performance in Ohio, a demographically similar state, which voted before those recent setbacks. Indeed, he made big inroads on Hillary's early lead. One wonders whether, if not for Bittergate, he would have held her to a closer result, and maybe even won--in which case it would all have been over. But he did not, and, money permitting, this result most likely gives Hillary enough momentum to keep going through all the remaining primaries.
What kind of campaign will she fight from now on? As I say, she will most likely end up losing, but what matters for the party's electoral prospects in November is the manner of her losing. She may increase the intensity of her attacks on Obama--which puts her party as well as her own reputation at risk. Or perhaps she will strike a more positive note, calculating that a negative assault does not meaningfully improve her chances. You could argue that her best hope now is to stay viable as a candidate and pray that Obama makes some terrible error, and she does not need to go negative to do that. It will be interesting to see whether Hillary is capable of that kind of tactical compromise--whether she can do anything but fight all out, whatever it takes.
As her final, desperate argument, Clinton may have to say out loud and in public what is only tacitly hinted at to the superdelegates and what her supporters in Pennsylvania understood without needing to hear from her in so many words: That Barack Obama is "unelectable" because he is a black man.
This is the big elephant in the Pennsylvania living room. I can think of no legitimate reasons that would account for Clinton being so appealing as to be able to win by 10 points against such a talented, inspiring, charismatic, intelligent candidate who had the money to outspend her three to one over the course of weeks.
Having been beaten in every possible metric throughout this campaign, Hillary is forced to rely on the one thing she has that he does not, whiteness.
It is ironic but in a way "whiteness" is its own affirmative action.
I know there's great anti-Clinton bias in the press -- and an awful lot of people who want this campaign to do what the media elite wasn't able to do in the '90s; run the Clinton's out of Washington on a rail (with tar and feathers). But even given that, I don't see how intelligent, serious commentators can continue to refuse to talk about the likely long term and general election consequences of Obama's attacks on Clinton and on the Clinton administration -- the only successful 2 term Democratic administraton is about half a century.
Obama doesn't have much resume, at the national level, to run on, or executive, economic or foreign policy experience. And yet, convinced, it seems, that he can win on personality alone (and one anti-war speech) he is cutting ties to his party's history and trashing his party's with the following campaign strategies;
1. Insisting there is no difference, in manner or consequences, between how Bush has governed and how the last Democratic administration governed. Associating the Clinton administration with the failures of Bush II.
2. Using Republican character attacks against the last Democratic President and first lady (who left office with high approval ratings); suggesting that they are and during their time in office were, in terms of policy, deceptive, ruthless, corrupt, power mad and dishonest.
3. Time and time again making the Republican argument that the Democratic party and its leaders are hypocritical "bamboozlers" on matters of race.
4. Failing to reach out to women voters, who have been vital to Democratic victories in the recent past, as an important constituency that must be kept in the fold -- in higher than usual numbers -- for victory in November.
All of the above makes sense if your main objective is beating Hillary Clinton and destroying Bill Clinton's legacy and power in the party.
None of it makes sense if your real intention is to win in November.
I say this not as a partisan, but as a marketing executive. I have never seen a more short-sighted political strategy -- one in which Obama (and his supporters) seem intent on destroying not simply the other candidate, but his own party's brand.
I can only think that reason for this is that the Obama camp is, as too many other Democrats have done before them, taking its cues from the media elite -- and over-estimating the long term benefit of their easy approval -- rather than thinking through the long term consequences for both the party and their candidate.
The above should read "trashing his party's brand"
The greatest trick the Clinton's ever pulled was convincing people they were Democrats. They are "Clintonists". They are neither Republicans nor Democrats.
I become more convinced each day that those who are hoping that Hilary will will throw her support to Obama when the nomination battle is over are in for a major shock. I am now beginning to expect that Hilary and Bill will either remain silent or endorse McCain. Everything she has said and done has indicated that if she can't be president, she won't allow Obama to be president.
So what is at the root of this? Clearly her policy positions are closer to Obama's, by quite a bit, than to McCain's. Sure, one could speculate that the Clintons made some Faustian deal with McCain that he gets to win, and then agree to one term, so that she can run again in 2012. That is possible, but I think it goes much deeper than that.
I have been an ardent supporter of both Clintons for much of my adult life, and was in fact favoring Hilary until around December. It was in fact largely Bill's behavior that gave me pause, especially around South Carolina, with comparisons to Jessie Jackson, the "biggest fairy tale" and the "Give Me A Break" line. I became increasingly convinced that Bill is deeply, existentially threatened by Obama, and it is only part to do with Hilary. It's always about Bill.
Bill was by many measures a pretty good president, especially in his second term where, despite the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, he was able to get things done. Bush has been so pathetically bad for the country that Clinton nostalgia has been at an all time high, with some people regarding Clinton as "one of the best" presidents of the 20th century. Hilary would surely be good in carrying on the Clinton legacy, and even if she ends up being better than him, it will always be seen as an extension of "their" presidency. Hilary's success would enhance, rather than threaten, Bill's historical record.
But Obama is a game changer, and I think that an Obama administration, especially if even moderately successful, will make Clinton look bad bad bad, for Democrats and the country, in retrospect. Obama will be the New Democrat. Obama will do for gays what Clinton promised to do before throwing them under the bus. Obama will do for Democrats what the Clintons, I believe, desperately wanted to do, maybe even had some success in doing, at least for themselves, but not long term for the Democrats.
Obama is calling the Clintons out and relieving all of us loyal Democrats from the obligation to carry the Clinton's water for them, while they lie, cheat and steal.
Obama is doing what the VRWC could not do, which is make Democrats take a good hard look at what the Clintons really mean.
Correction: 9-point advantage (not 10).
I think "Roy" up there is a HRC campaign confederate. That stuff has no relation to reality whatsoever.
Roy,
Did you just graduate?
Roy,
Did you just graduate?
Roy,
A quick response to your five points:
1. Not true, and I defy you to give a cite for this proposition. He has said that there have been problems festering for the last two decades that were not solved under either a democratic or republican administration. This is undoubtedly true, and one need look no further than health care.
2. Again, I defy you to provide a cite. At most, you may be able to find some with a relatively distant connection to the Obama campaign implying some of what you say. But, the core campaign team of Obama has been much more positive than Clinton's. There's really no denying this, and whatever you think of the morality there are good tactical reasons for the conflicting strategies. Obama is limited by his characterization of his own campaign in how negative he can go. Clinton bears no such limitations.
3. Cite please. It is not to his advantage overall to make race an issue. It only became an issue after a Clinton push to implicitly discount the votes of African-Americans in the primaries -- i.e., that southern states such as South Carolina shouldn't "count" in some sort of meta-primary calculus because they are heavily African-American, and African-Americans would of course vote for Obama due to misplaced racial identity politics.
4. You can argue that he hasn't been successful in attracting women voters but it is through no lack of trying. Are you saying that his campaign is purposely ignoring this constituency?
On to your final conclusion, that Obama is purposely destroying the party's brand. I've heard that accusation leveled against Clinton, and though I'm not sure I believe it at least there is some logic there. If her overriding goal is to become president, her chances are much higher with an Obama loss to McCain than an Obama win. From Obama's point of view, it makes much less difference who would win a matchup between Clinton and McCain. Assuming he wants to be president, he has a lot more time, for one thing.
Look, one probably can go find newspaper articles and quotes from campaign sources, etc. to support your position or mine. No scientific way to determine the "answer" this way except perhaps by tallying some metric of "negativity" our "failure to reach out to women." So, I advise doing something else: look at the logic of each campaign and whether your proposed assertions, or mine, actually make any sense. I would argue that the logic of the Hillary campaign compels her to go negative and hurt the party if she wants to win, while the logic of the Obama campaign has generally pulled in the opposite direction.
Roy, what are you smoking? OBAMA'S using Republican tactics? Are kidding me?? He's "attacking" the Clinton administration because Hillary has made it the centerpiece of her campaign, the reason you should elect her in the first place. He's got no choice but to attack it. And doing so doe nothing to hurt Democratic chances.
Please stop enabling these ridiculous Clintonian arguments.
How about measuring it "fairly"?
Florida:
A) Voted early, violated DNC rules. (Dem. lawmakers voted in favor of the change of date) This vastly improved the chances of the establishment, name-recognition candidate.
B) Did not allow campaigning, negating the advantage Sen. Obama has had in closing large early poll deficits in state after state. (even before he had a large financial advantage)
C) It was well understood by the voters at the time that the primaries would not count for anything. Sen. Clinton herself said that very thing at the time.
D) The Clinton campaign's situational logic is.. typical for them. They were all for disenfranchising these voters when campaigning in IA, NH, SC and NV - and only 'got religion' when it was obvious they were losing this primary battle by every reasonable measure.
Michigan:
- Same arguments as for Florida. Oh yeah, plus SEN. OBAMA DIDN'T EVEN APPEAR ON THE FREAKIN' BALLOT.
You're comparing apples to oranges. Pennsylvania was a closed primary, which means the fair comparison is between Penn. exits and Ohio DEMOCRAT ONLY exits. When you compare 'among Democrats ' to 'among Democrats', the data shows dramatic gains in most all demographics for Sen. Obama. It was the lack of Independent voters, and senior-skewing electorate last night that made the final margin 9 points. Just comparing the raw exit polls from PA to OH is plain lazy analysis.
Roy:
Yes, Obama is a game changer, but he is not trying to destroy the Democratic party; he's trying to bootstrap a generational shift away from "politics as blood sport" to "politics as service".
When winning is the only thing that matters, everyone loses.
As an Obama supporter, he seems to have run the exact same campaign in Penn that he did in Ohio, with the same results. That is crazy. He should be broadening his message, and trying to expand his coaltion; instead he just gives the same speech over and over, like he last night. There are some good messages in it, but when you just keep saying the same thing about "change" and "bringing people together" it makes you seem shallow. People need to fill in the blanks about Obama; he is coming across like a blank slate. He has the voters who want "change" and a "new kind of politics"; how about trying to attract some new ones?
I really like Obama and dislike Hillary, but her speech was about a million times better than his last night. He probably can't blow this thing (the nom, I mean), but he needs to do more than just what he's been doing ...
As many have pointed out already--but apparently to no avail--the Clinton camp's argument for counting MI and FL are specious, as is the argument for offering the popular vote as the primary metric by which to judge the race (not that it will matter after the NC race). They are both based on the "IF the rules had been such and such I would be winning" principle, which entirely discounts the obvious fact that the Obama strategy would have been different had the rules been different. It's almost the equivalent of Peyton Manning complaining he has more yards but Tom Brady has more touchdowns, and at the end of the game claiming that had yardage been the metric he would've won the game! To me that seems ridiculous, maybe it's different for others.
There are a lot of factors that go into determining the outcome of an election, so let's not overly simplify it. It's not that Obama didn't or couldn't reach out to women voters over 40, it's that they are really FOR Hillary Clinton. It's hard to make inroads in certain demographics, and I think the Clinton campaign knows but won't admit that in every contest, Obama always comes out better than he goes into it. Turned the other way around, the more time both candidates spend in a state, the less the Clinton margin becomes. How in the world does that help Clinton's "electability" argument, even if it were a valid one? The mentioning of her winning CA, NY, MA seems a bit silly since they are so reliably democratic and moreover they are big states where name recognition matters. As Clinton herself points out, the Clinton brand is famous. I think a lot of people forget that before Obama became the de facto nominee, not too many people knew who Obama was if they hadn't seen the 2004 speech. I venture to say that he's a big better known now, and the national Gallup poll is a blow to Clinton's argument about electability.
I do not think Barack Obama is perfect. There are things I wish he'd do differently, and some of the campaign's arguments are not without their faults. But let's not make the mistake of equating every suspicious claim from each camp, but attempt to distinguish how far off the mark they are. Lately the Clinton campaign, in addition to becoming staggeringly shameless in their attacks (basically, "I know I'm bad. But he's even worse.") in their attacks, has offered some truly tenuous arguments that boil down to this metric: the person who wins this nomination must be named Hillary Clinton. I find that rather troubling.
My final word: I am a "young" voter. I will vote for Hillary if she somehow manages to get the nomination. But the biggest damage to the Democratic party if this happens is that the party will lose a generation of voters, not because they switch to the Republican party, but because they will not vote. They will not be interested enough, they will be cynical. Because the one time they really tried to make a difference and counter the older people's claim that the youth are just not into politics, we failed in the most unjust way possible. With all due respect, the future of the party is by definition the young voters, not the 60+ demographic that Clinton does well in. I think that's something to consider.
She will try and make him radioactive. You haven't seen anything yet from HRC.
In her mind it is an article of faith that Barrack Obama v. John McCain results in a McCain victory with total certainty. Thus, she does not care if she ends up ruling an empire of ashes to secure the nomination. Despite those actions making almost certain she will lose in the fall.
The Clinton campaign has taken Obama from being a "candidate for president who happens to be black", to a "black man who happens to be a candidate for president". For me, a 66yo white male, this is sad. Fortunately, the younger generations see through this.
I voted for bill clinton twice and defended and admired him for his service.I will never forgive him for signing nafta{if thats not a republican dream come true I dont know what is}.Then when out of office he starts a close relationship with papa bush who is a war profitieer of the first caliber.He gets 800,000. for speaking at pro nafta conferences in columbia{our closest freinds in s. america where killing union leaders is concidered sport}Penn ,clintons top adviser is having to resign because he was working on behalf of his own company that was profiting from nafta.Im sorry but I dont trust the clintons at all anymore.and the way they have behaved during this election only makes them more unpaletable.I think they will say or do anything to get into office and that includes getting john mccain elected so she can run again in 2012.Its really rather frightening.
"You have to admire Hillary's determination."
No, I don't.