Friday, March 07, 2008
Pulling the Nails from Hillary's Coffin
So it looks like a mea culpa is in order--to some extent. Hillary indeed did win both Texas and Ohio, as I did not think she would, thus invalidating my premature announcement of her demise. Conventional wisdom is now that she's back. I do have some problems with that. A few points are in order:
The races were Clinton's to lose Look at the compiled tracking data courtesy Real Clear Politics from Texas. Around mid-February Clinton had an aggregate 10+ point lead over Obama in the Lone Star State (as much as 16 pts in one Rasmussen survey). She pulled out the stops, threw in alot of money, placed some effective and perhaps reasonable, albeit scaremongering, TV spots, and won by a mere 3.5 pts on March 4. Granted, she did overcome the statistical tie they were in just a few days before the primary to pull ahead with last minute voters (usually Obama's forte), but all along this was supposed to be a Hillary state. The same holds for Ohio, where Clinton held an almost 20pt lead on February 14, and ended up winning by roughly 10 percent.
Rather than looking at these contests as a Clinton comeback phenomenon, the case could easily be made that all of her effort and smears only prevented Obama from delivering a knockout blow in states that she's totally dominated since the get-go.
The nomination is Obama's to lose Regardless of the outcomes in Texas and Ohio, and even my beloved Keystone state come April 22, there is little chance that Clinton will be able to overcome Obama's delegate lead going into the convention. {Quick aside: I noticed that this very evident meme got little play outside of wonky politics blogs leading up to the March 4 vote, emerging with some surprising frequency only afterwards. To me further evidence that the MSM only wants to keep the storyline moving--which I guess makes sense since it's how they earn a paycheck. But still, I'm left to wonder how either big state would've played out had this been featured as prominently from March 1-3 as it has been since March 5?} We're left with some uncomfortable and contorted tales for the Clinton camp to weave. For her to gain the nomination she'll need to rely on superdelegates. They have recently been defecting to the Obama camp, though they are free to alter their preference at any time until their votes are actually cast on the convention floor. Further, 2/3 of voters in democratic exit polls say that the superdelegates should follow the results of their state's caucus or primary. As John Dickerson noted in Slate:
"Clinton is pleading for time, arguing that voters should be allowed to have their say in future contests. But even in this she comes up against a contradiction posted by Obama's lead. Because she must rely on the superdelegates to beat back Obama's likely lead in the popular vote and among pledged delegates, she is essentially asking those superdelegates to listen to the people—but only long enough to be persuaded to vote for her. Then she expects them to undo the will of the people by voting against Obama in Denver."
Those eager to revive the halcyon days of Clintonism must be enthused. . . that is some serious 'slick willie' style triangulation.
Still, I think it is up to Obama to counter Hillary's criticism about his being 'all hat and no cattle,' as they say in Tejas. Given his strong and disciplined campaign so far I think its likely he can and will do so.
So it looks like a mea culpa is in order--to some extent. Hillary indeed did win both Texas and Ohio, as I did not think she would, thus invalidating my premature announcement of her demise. Conventional wisdom is now that she's back. I do have some problems with that. A few points are in order:
The races were Clinton's to lose Look at the compiled tracking data courtesy Real Clear Politics from Texas. Around mid-February Clinton had an aggregate 10+ point lead over Obama in the Lone Star State (as much as 16 pts in one Rasmussen survey). She pulled out the stops, threw in alot of money, placed some effective and perhaps reasonable, albeit scaremongering, TV spots, and won by a mere 3.5 pts on March 4. Granted, she did overcome the statistical tie they were in just a few days before the primary to pull ahead with last minute voters (usually Obama's forte), but all along this was supposed to be a Hillary state. The same holds for Ohio, where Clinton held an almost 20pt lead on February 14, and ended up winning by roughly 10 percent.
Rather than looking at these contests as a Clinton comeback phenomenon, the case could easily be made that all of her effort and smears only prevented Obama from delivering a knockout blow in states that she's totally dominated since the get-go.
The nomination is Obama's to lose Regardless of the outcomes in Texas and Ohio, and even my beloved Keystone state come April 22, there is little chance that Clinton will be able to overcome Obama's delegate lead going into the convention. {Quick aside: I noticed that this very evident meme got little play outside of wonky politics blogs leading up to the March 4 vote, emerging with some surprising frequency only afterwards. To me further evidence that the MSM only wants to keep the storyline moving--which I guess makes sense since it's how they earn a paycheck. But still, I'm left to wonder how either big state would've played out had this been featured as prominently from March 1-3 as it has been since March 5?} We're left with some uncomfortable and contorted tales for the Clinton camp to weave. For her to gain the nomination she'll need to rely on superdelegates. They have recently been defecting to the Obama camp, though they are free to alter their preference at any time until their votes are actually cast on the convention floor. Further, 2/3 of voters in democratic exit polls say that the superdelegates should follow the results of their state's caucus or primary. As John Dickerson noted in Slate:
"Clinton is pleading for time, arguing that voters should be allowed to have their say in future contests. But even in this she comes up against a contradiction posted by Obama's lead. Because she must rely on the superdelegates to beat back Obama's likely lead in the popular vote and among pledged delegates, she is essentially asking those superdelegates to listen to the people—but only long enough to be persuaded to vote for her. Then she expects them to undo the will of the people by voting against Obama in Denver."
Those eager to revive the halcyon days of Clintonism must be enthused. . . that is some serious 'slick willie' style triangulation.
Still, I think it is up to Obama to counter Hillary's criticism about his being 'all hat and no cattle,' as they say in Tejas. Given his strong and disciplined campaign so far I think its likely he can and will do so.
Comments:
Post a Comment
