Meltdown
- 04.27.2008 - 11:48 AMBarack Obama may have done poorly with working class and rural voters in Pennsylvania but he’s doing even worse these days among liberal pundits. This is from Bob Herbert:
However one views the behavior of Bill and Hillary Clinton - and however large the race issue looms in this election, and it looms large - there can be no denying that an awful lot of Mr. Obama’s troubles have come from his side of the table. The Rev. Wright fiasco undermined the fundamental rationale of the entire Obama campaign - that it would be about healing, about putting partisanship aside, about reaching across ethnic and party divisions to bring people together in a new era of cooperation. It’s hard to continue making that case when the candidate’s spiritual adviser is on television castigating America and scaring the hell out of at least some white people. Senator Obama did his best with his speech on race in Philadelphia, but the Wright story has extremely muscular legs. It has hurt the campaign far more than Mr. Obama’s comments about guns and religion in San Francisco. But more important than the Wright comments - and sundry gaffes by Mr. Obama himself, his wife, Michelle, and campaign aides - has been Senator Obama’s strange reluctance to fight harder in public for the nomination. He may feel he doesn’t need to, that he has the nomination wrapped up. But there is such a thing as being too cool.
Maureen Dowd (who has been on a tear lately, openly castigating Obama’s masculinity) now sees him limping away: “It used to be that he was incandescent and she [Hillary Clinton] was merely inveterate. Now she’s bristling with life force, and he looks like he wants to run away somewhere for three months by himself and smoke.” Eleanor Clift sees the handwriting on the wall- and fears some Clintonian retribution for the media which had been Obama’s stalwart cheering section:
I’m beginning to think Hillary Clinton might pull this off and wrestle the nomination away from Barack Obama. If she does, a lot of folks—including a huge chunk of the media—will join Bill Richardson (a.k.a. Judas) in the Deep Freeze. If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in “The Godfather,” where the watchword is, “It’s business, not personal.”
These bear the tell-tale signs of scorned lovers’ rants. Their once beloved candidate is now reviled, mocked and tossed overboard while they prepare for the possible return of their “ex” with all the unpleasantness that entails. And who is joining them?
Well, none other than Howard Dean, who until recently seemed to pursue strategies designed to either end the race early (Obama liked that) or to encourage delegates to respect the pledged delegate count (Obama really liked that). Yet Friday, for the first time, Dean uttered this: “I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.”
So it may be that these people have something in common: none of them really wants to be on the wrong side when the Democratic race ends. Pundits hate to have guessed wrong–so far better to excoriate the candidate who they will insist was wonderful, but but messed up–and party leaders never want to be on the winner’s wrong side. So better to shuffle over to the Clinton cheering section, however distasteful that might seem. She, at least from listening to all these voices, now appears to be the odds on favorite.
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April 27th, 2008 at 12:17 PM
“She, at least from listening to all these voices, now appears to be the odds on favorite.”
Wow. It looks like someone was drinking a few bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 while the Commentary network was being upgraded. There is still something called the black vote. Only a relatively small handful have to stay home to cause a disaster for the Democrats on election Day. They will be enraged that the so-called white establishment stabbed “Barry” Obama in the back. There will also be violence in Denver.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:30 PM
This long campaign has been good for something. If BO is beginning to wilt, as the media harpies quoted indicate, what does that say about an Obama administration?
April 27th, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Left-wing groups will also be very upset that Hillary Clinton, supposedly the betrayer of the utopian dream, will have kicked Obama off the train. Some will join Ralph Nader’s campaign. John McCain will likely win by a landslide if Obama is not the Democratic Party nominee.
April 27th, 2008 at 1:09 PM
There are a lot of Republicans who despise John McCain, and will either sit on their hands or vote for Libertarian Bob Barr, if Ann-Coulter-endorsed Hillary Clinton is the nominee.
If nominated, Hillary is an even-money bet in November. Obama has one chance in 10, if that much. There’s just too many of us grandma-loving bitter God and gun folks out here.
April 27th, 2008 at 5:53 PM
If Hillary does eventually get elected, I for one sincerely hope she does exact retribution. This is a language the left understands well, and it will be well-deserved.
However, Hillary still has a tall order ahead of her. She needs to win convincingly in Indiana to make up for a decisive loss in NC, and then sweep Kentucky and WV by huge margins, and then win a large victory in Puerto Rico with lots of hysterical Hispanic women and men weeping, etc (the Republicans used to use that backdrop in Miami with the Cubans very effectively), and finally end up with a respectable showing in either Montana or Dakota to prove that she can win small white states too in a primary rather than a caucus. None of this is guaranteed.
My main interest is seeing her and Bill clean up the Democratic Party once and for all. The whole Obama wing needs to be decapitated, and only a Hillary victory in the primaries and a respectable loss or win in the General will allow them to accomplish this.
Carry on, battleship Hillary.
April 27th, 2008 at 5:55 PM
John McCain will likely win by a landslide if Obama is not the Democratic Party nominee.
McCain will enjoy a hefty margin of victory no matter who wins the Democrat nomination. Half of Americans won’t vote for Hillary under any circumstance and after the violence by the Democrat lefty base in Denver, a landslide for Mccain seems more possibe than ever. Heh.
April 27th, 2008 at 7:01 PM
If Hillary has a popular-vote edge at the end of the primary season, she may owe it to her margin in Puerto Rico, whose residents can’t vote inthe general election for President in November. Another problem for the pundits to spin.
April 27th, 2008 at 7:13 PM
Ellen S., love that “battleship Hillary.” She is the new dreadnought of the seven seas. And she’s shown more guts than I’d have believed possible.
Obama looks like a whining loser, and the nutroots bashing of ABC’s Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos only confirms this notion.
However: this is the Democrats’ year to win. Absent a truly violent convention in Denver, they will quickly solidify behind the nominee: either Obama or Clinton. Or, if the superdelegates are clever, Al Gore (he’s tanned, rested, and ready; Nobel prize in hand).
Threats of black voters staying away if their messiah, Obama, is not the one, are just talk. Where else are they going to go? Blacks have voted for Democrats en masse for the past 40 years; that isn’t going to change, no matter who the Dem nominee might be.
My assessment is that while some black voters may stay home if Clinton is the nominee, many more white voters will counteract their loss. Those bitter, clingy working class men and women who used to be called Reagan Democrats? They’re back in the fold, if Hillary is the nominee. For this reason, she appears to be the stronger opponent at this point.
This remains an uphill struggle for John McCain. Talk of a McCain landslide is, to say the least, premature.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Why do all assume that Hillary would throw Obama off the train? She’s not stupid, and so will attach him to the end of the train as the caboose, which would suit his natural indolence. As VP on the ticket, he would bring all his supporters to the polls, and unfortunately crush McCain.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:40 AM
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