Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the ninth and tenth straight time last night, with blowouts in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Needless to say, this means nothing. As Clinton strategist Mark Penn explained yesterday, Wisconsin has a lot of independent voters, so it doesn't really matter. And Hawaii is practically Obama's home state, so it obviously doesn't matter. Anyway, as Penn said recently, "winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election." It's apparently not even a sign of who can win the Democratic nomination — at least not when the victories are Obama's.
The Clinton spin machine has been consistent about this. Nebraska, Idaho and Utah didn't matter because they were deep-red states. South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia didn't matter because they had large percentages of black voters. Maine and Washington didn't matter because caucuses aren't truly representative. Maryland and Virginia didn't matter because Obama was expected to win there. For a moment, it looked like Missouri might matter when the networks called it for Hillary — her campaign quickly bragged about winning a "closely contested toss-up state" — but the networks were wrong. On the other hand, it looked like Nevada wasn't going to matter at all because there were polling stations in casinos, but it ended up huge because Hillary won.
It turns out that the only state Obama won that could have mattered was Illinois, his real home state; unfortunately, home-state victories don't really count, except when they take place in New York. "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states outside of Illinois?" Penn recently asked.
Well yes, in fact, it's starting to look like we could. So maybe all these Obama victories mean something after all. Maybe they mean that voters are sick of the perpetual Clinton spin machine. At the very least, they've made it clear that the machine is broken, if not dead.
Spin is about framing a coherent narrative, and Team Hillary's narrative borders on self-parody. When Hillary was getting lots of endorsements, it showed that she was the people's choice. Now that Obama's getting lots of endorsements, it shows that he's the "establishment candidate." When Hillary was doing better than Obama in head-to-head matchups against Republicans, it showed that she was more electable. Now that Obama's doing better, it shows that he hasn't been vetted. Obama was naive for saying he'd meet with foreign dictators; he was also deceitful for claiming that Hillary would refuse to meet with foreign dictators.
Let's face it: All campaigns spin. They all try to put favorable glosses on tough situations. Back when Hillary was dominating the polls and Penn was churning out inevitability memos declaring that the race had stabilized (3/27/07) except that Hillary was widening her lead (5/7/07) and strengthening her lead (6/18/07) and better positioned than ever (7/9/07), Obama had to argue that he still had a chance — otherwise, why would anyone have supported him? Now that John McCain is the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, Mike Huckabee has been saying he believes in miracles. What else is he going to say?
But at least Huckabee isn't trying to claim that his race is actually neck-and-neck, or that he wasn't really trying to win states where he campaigned and lost, or that one failed prediction after another just proves what he's been saying all along. Spin works best when it's intermittent and plausible; the Clinton camp's has been constant and ludicrous. Is it really wise to dismiss the vast majority of the United States as insignificant? Does anyone believe that the misguided attack on Obama's kindergarten ambitions was "a joke"? Explain to us again why Michigan's delegates should be seated even though Democrats agreed not to campaign there and Obama wasn't even on the ballot? Why are we supposed to ignore Wisconsin when it's got exactly the demographics that Penn has assured us are part of Hillary's "enduring coalition," back when Hillary had a massive lead in the state and just about every other state?
It's strange, because when I covered Hillary's first Senate race in 2000, I felt like she was a pretty bad candidate with some very smart advisors who helped carry her to victory by sticking to a relentlessly disciplined — though frustratingly banal — message. Now she's a much better candidate; she has eight years in the Senate on her resume, she actually lives in the jurisdiction where she's running for office, and she's much less stilted on the stump. And while she's still got the same advisers, they can't seem to keep their story straight anymore.
It's understandable that the Clintonites operate in permanent spin mode; they weathered a constant barrage of attacks in the 1990s, and they came to see politics as a perpetual war room where you say whatever's necessary to win the day. It's hard to know whether their self-justifying and self-contradictory nonsense bothers actual voters, or just the reporters who have it force-fed to them. Strategy and marketing can be overrated in the world of retail; it might just be that a majority of Democratic voters, faced with a choice between two strong candidates with similar policies, prefer the Obama product.
But the Orwellian spin and the silly gotchas certainly could reinforce Obama's message that Clinton is mired in the small-minded, zero-sum, it's-all-a-game Washington politics of the past. There was that classic debate moment when Hillary said her worst quality was her impatience to change the world, and then criticized Obama for admitting he was disorganized. The next day, Obama said that if he had known that was how the game was supposed to be played, he would have said his worst quality was his overeagerness to help old ladies cross the street. Who do you think won that argument?
This morning, after his resounding victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Hillary finally acknowledged the obvious about Obama: "He's had a good couple of weeks, and he's run a good race." It wasn't an admission of defeat; it was an admission of reality. It added a bit of credibility to her larger where's-the-beef argument, which is that Obama isn't ready to be President, and voters have been falling for his fancy speeches without examining his substance. That's spin, too, but it's reasonable spin that tells a debatable but plausible story. We'll see if voters buy it in Texas and Ohio.
And if they don't, we'll find out whether Texas and ohio don't matter either.
I could not possibly agree more with this article.
Hillary Clinton's campaign has struck precisely the wrong note throughout this entire election. As Tev said, her strategists could not think outside the DC Beltway, and are now paying the price for it. Her strategy all along was to make it impossible for anyone to CONCEIVE of beating her. Unfortunately, she thus could not conceive that Obama was a real candidate, and mis-handled running against him from day 1.
Her message should have been obvious, clear, and unilateral. Obama's genius was embracing his lack of credentials and claiming to be the candidate for change. Whether or not that was truth (and I think it is), it was a plausible thing to claim, because it trades on obvious facts like his age, his record, and his (lack of) experience in Washington. Hillary should have traded on similarly obvious facts. She has a reputation as a ball-breaker and an ass-kicker, willing to do anything to win. Instead of the pathetic attempts to hide this fact (remember the crying in New Hampshire), she should have come out like a bull in the China shop. She should have stood up and said: "My name is Hillary Clinton, and I will kick so much ass in the White House on your behalf that the Republicans won't know which end to speak out of. I will drag this country kicking and screaming back into the path of rightness and prosperity, and I will smash the bloodsuckers stealing your jobs and money with my flying fists of fury"
Obviously that's not how I'd have her put it in her stump speech, but you get the point. She should have embraced her cutthroat, winner-take-all approach to politics that EVERYONE knows she has, and instead of appearing sleazy by pretending to hide it, she should have come out and said: "I take no prisoners, and if you elect me, I will take no prisoners on your behalf, and fight like hell until all of the things this country needs done are done." Obama has been called the second coming of John Kennedy. She should have countered it by being the second coming of Harry Truman. "Give 'em Hell, Hillary!" should have been her rallying cry. She should have boasted about her being ready and willing to fight dirty if necessary, in the service of a greater good. Granted, Obama would still hold much of the country enthralled with his message of a new kind of politics and turning the page, but she could at least have co-opted some of his base, instead of him co-opting hers.
But she didn't.
Obviously we don't know why she thought this would work, but I think I know why. Hillary believed so much that she was going to be the president that she forgot to ask anyone else if they agreed. By treating the electorate as nearly inconsequential, she has succeeded in alienating so many people. Her tactics of naked intimidation both of delegates , of endorsers, and even of entire communities (vote for me or I'll get you when I'm the president) has backfired terribly, as it deserves to have backfired. People like the LA Times don't take kindly to being told that they MUST endorse you "or else". People like the State of Wisconsin don't either. I don't know if she has yet gotten that through her head, but it doesn't look like it to me. Every move she makes smells more and more of desperation, fear, and brute-force larceny. There are now rumors circulating that she has hired armies of private investigators to research the private lives of various super-delegates for the purposes of intimidating them into voting for her. More and more the mask is slipping, and she's being revealed as exactly what everyone thought she was, a conniving, win-at-any-costs, two-faced, power-hungry maniac. There was a time she might have converted that image into a winning strategy. That time is long-since passed.
Indeed, her time is long-since passed, and I don't mean that she cannot win the nomination. I mean that if she does win the nomination at this point, it will be due only to backroom dealings and theft, and that even if she does win it, it will do her no good. Since super Tuesday, Obama has won eleven (counting the abroad primary) primaries in a row. ALL of them, he has won by more than 15 points, most by more than 20, some by as much as 50. Groups that were once hers to do with as she wished (working class, elder voters, even latinos) are now looking iffier and iffier. She has woken up too late to the fact that the few good points she has to make against Obama, his lack of experience, his predilection for words rather than actions, do not matter to a huge proportion of the electorate, who are so sick of her kind of politics that they are willing to take a leap of faith on Obama, who speaks to their dreams and ideals and goals. She repeats endlessly that all he has to offer are speeches, whereas she offers actions, but Obama's speeches promise a new day, a new page, to borrow the terminology from another president, a "Morning in America". Her actions do nothing but promise more mud and toil and filth of politics as usual, and victory at any price, including the price of principle and legality. She will steal the election with the super-delegates if she can. Perhaps, in her position, Obama would too, but everyone KNOWS she will, and they loathe her for it.
Her options are otherwise emptying rapidly. She is polling in a statistical tie in Texas, a fact which is more worrisome for her than it sounds, because she was also polling at a tie in Wisconsin, and wound up being beaten by 17 points in a state packed with her own constituents. Her lead in Ohio has shrunk from 21 points to somewhere between 3 and 6 (depending on the poll). Everything she and Bill do seems to make it worse, and her recent actions smack of "How dare you vote against me! You owe me this!" that we all know she believes in her heart (as, in fairness, do many politicians). Unable to count on victory here, she has no choice but to turn to any means necessary to win. She will intimidate super-delegates. She will dig for dirt on anyone and everyone. She will threaten to retaliate against Obama-backers once she is the president, sending the IRS and the FBI after them as Nixon did.
If she wins the primary, and does so with theft and arm-twisting and backroom deals (which is all she has left to her), it will be a tragedy for the Democratic party. Obama's supporters will feel outraged, and they will be right. Many will bolt to McCain's campaign, McCain who also holds a captivating spell over many independents. Many others will stay home, refusing to vote for her. Yet more will vote for third party candidates, protest votes, or write ins. The Green party will see its greatest turnout in history (still single digits, but all is relative), and Hillary, thieving Hillary, will go down to an EPIC defeat. McCain will beat her black and blue across every state that is not so solidly democrat as to be a foregone conclusion. It will be the biggest landslide since Reagan beat Mondale.
On the other hand, if Obama beats her, and becomes the Democratic candidate for president, he will handily beat McCain at his own game, that of appearing the wild-card maverick who can appeal to independents and undecideds. He has the poise and gravitas to stand against McCain (who is not a weak candidate in his own right), and focus all the rage and frustration of democrats and people in this country against the failed Bush policies that, for better or worse, McCain will be saddled with. He will appeal to hope and promise and a shining future for the country, and he has demonstrated that he can galvanize a groundswell of support the likes of which cynics like me thought did not exist any more. He is one of those candidates that makes the United States truly special among the nations of the world, the one nobody REALLY should be supporting, but everyone does simply because in their hearts they know he is the right one to support. McCain will fight back hard, and with valid ammunition, decrying Obama's lack of experience, his naivety, his positions on gun control and Iran and foreign policy, and he will score points with some of those issues, but in the end, I think it will avail him not at all. Most of Hillary's supporters will transfer their support over to Obama, and the time is simply right for a seismic shift in policy in this country. This is 1980. This is 1960. This is 1932. This is a new chapter in American politics. If given the opportunity, I predict Obama will defeat McCain by a wide margin.
The democratic super-delegates have a choice. They can choose to win the general election, or lose it. That choice is becoming more and more stark and clear as time goes on. I did not initially think Obama had a chance in hell of beating Hillary, I even bet money against it, no matter how much I hoped he would win. Never have I been more hopeful of being wrong. I thought that, as the Giants had no chance of beating the Patriots, so Obama had not the slightest prayer of stopping Hillary. The Giants beat the Pats. Obama can beat Hillary.
He must beat Hillary.
My name is General Havoc, and I endorse Barack Obama as my choice for President of the United States of America.
