David Broder attempts to tackle the great unstated central problem with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He finds “an old friend working in her national campaign”, grants him total anonymity, and gets him to discuss how Clinton thinks she can win the nomination without destroying the Democratic Party.
There are a couple of nuggets in the response Broder elicited. First, the Clintons feel that they have to win Indiana.
To have a chance, the Clinton folks figure, she must win Indiana on Tuesday and do well enough to keep Obama’s lead by the end of the primaries closer to 100 than to 200. She must also find a way to get some votes counted from Michigan and Florida, whose delegations are barred from the convention for violating the party’s primary timetable.
So, even inside the Clinton campaign, they see the loss of Indiana as a knockout blow. Maybe that will motivate you to make some phone calls to the good people of Indiana over the next three days. It’s also important to realize that they are still relying on Florida and Michigan. But this nominating process is going to end before there is any resolution on seating the delegates from those two states. They will never be seated in a way that negatively impacts Obama’s chances because he won’t agree to it. So, even here, the Clintons are engaging in magical thinking.
Broder’s friend then unveils a familiar argument. The controversy over the Rev. Wright has caused some undeclared superdelegates to have some concerns and reservations about Obama’s liabilities and capability in fighting back against the familiar right-wing smear attacks. If nothing else, it has given some people enough pause to remain on the fence.
But, as my friend acknowledged, they have not yet overcome the deep discomfort many of them feel, as they contemplate taking the nomination away from Obama. They know that would break the hearts of his African-American supporters, who have been the most loyal of Democratic constituencies.
Speaking from a lifetime of experience, my friend said that under other circumstances, African-Americans would show their love for Hillary Clinton (if not so much now for her husband). But at the moment, they see her only as a threat to knock out their favorite.
It’s interesting that Broder’s friend acknowledges that the rift between the black community and Bill Clinton is worse than the rift with Hillary. I think that is probably true. But, it’s hard to see how blacks would see Hillary as less of a threat after she knocked out their favorite using a coup by superdelegates than they do now. And the Clinton campaign has an interesting answer for that.
…the Clinton camp hopes that, if he is counted out, Obama, just 46, would think about his long-term future and secure his own status as heir apparent by reconciling his followers to a bitter but temporary defeat and by throwing all his energies behind Clinton.
In effect, my friend was saying that may well be beyond Clinton’s power to win the nomination without severely damaging the party. Only Obama can make her winning seem right.
My first instinct is to laugh out loud at this prospect. But, I actually don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect that Obama would take the high road even if his nomination gets carjacked by a bunch of white superdelegates. It’s less a lack of realism that offends me than the utterly appalling gall of the Clintons to expect Obama to do all the work of repairing what they have broken.
Polling in Indiana is close, with Zogby showing Obama ahead this morning, with heavy early voting, and tons of new voters. It’s impossible to know how the state will go on Tuesday. But we certainly have an opportunity to deal a knockout blow that will eliminate the need to go through any of the painful steps the Clintons see as necessary to their securing the nomination.
If the superdelegates find Broder’s friend’s scenario plausible, they are smoking the pipe. It’s not that Clinton couldn’t conceivably beat John McCain. McCain is a terrible candidate. But Clinton will not win the nomination. And if she did, it would tear the party apart and we’d be dependent on the main victim to put the pieces back together. And even if Obama was willing and able to do that, he could never erase the sting of the theft, nor prevent severe downticket damage from depressed black turnout and decreased loyalty to the party. It’s not worth it. From an electability point of view, there is no comparison between a victorious Obama armed with legions of dedicated activists, and a shattered coalition that is dependent on a grievously wronged Obama to have any viability at all.
From all sorts of little clues and signals, I get the feeling that the Clintons may be overestimating just how much power and influence they still have in the Democratic Party. One thing that;s not mentioned enough is that no matter how strong her effort to go negative on Obama, she is still viewed far more negatively than he is. That was true at the beginning of the camapign, it is even more so now. So how does that make her the preferable candidate? Plus he brings in lots of new voters and lots more $$$ to the party. The Clintons are history.
so why do the media persist in promoting a dream ticket?
Here is the latest magical thinking from of all people Andrew Sullivan’s column in The Sunday Times, UK
He got my mail.
Let Obama = x and Hillary = y. Then x + y would be a great solution. Unfortunatelym they are not algebraic abstractions but real people, and to me a unity ticket of those two would is simply unimaginable. I guarantee she and her crew would spend the whole time trying to undercut him and maintain sas much of the old politics as possible. Plus, who would become president if anything God forbid should happen to him?
I’m beginning to realize that the issue of who would be Obama’s running mate is really crucial (politically), but Hillary? forget about it, ain’t gonna happen.
There exists a precedent in our recent history that would confirmwhat you are saying.
When Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate,my first thought was wtf?
Subsequent events confirmed my misgivings.
First, Lieberman appeared in a so called debate against Cheney and grinned through the entire program as though he was in a hurry to show his agreement with everything Cheney was saying.
His lukewarm support to Gore in Florida where Lieberman’s efforts could have been decisive was the next clue.
He simply was a trojan horse planted by the DLC in Gore’s campaign.He is now being rewarded by Cheney and Bush for his efforts in their behalf.Hillary Clinton could also have been part of this effort.If Gore became the President,he could have interfered with Hillary’s own plans.
Don’t forget – at the time, Gore himself was DLC, one of the original DLC members actually. They just ate their own, that’s all…
A better analogy would be this: let Hillary be lemonade and let Barack be chocolate milk. Each is tasty on its own, and each serves a different set of tastes, but if you combine the two into one glass the resulting concoction is of no use to anyone.
Either-or, but not both, and since it’s time to put Bush’s policies to bed it’s time for some chocolate milk. Cookies for a VP would be nice.
You’re so right that it hurts!
Now, lets look and the O mans’ biggest problem at this time (and the Dems in general) It is the Effing Corporate Media. I just spent the morning swithching betweenthe networks corporate stooges and came away with ta few observations worth sharing.
Hill and george- Not too bad. However something was missing!
Obama and the proker- pigman couldn’t lay a finger on him! However something was missing. The common thread.
Wright vs Hagee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
george- zip!
pigman-zip!
The most obvious omission I have ever seen (and I am well over 60!) If the Dems don’t come out swinging with respect to this horror, they don’t deserve to win in Nov!
Well said.
And if people wonder if these calls really help, THEY DO.
I was on the phone yesterday talking to Indiana voters. One man told me he had been undecided until that morning. He said he got a call from a Clinton supporter, but remained undecided. Then he heard from an Obama supporter, and that did it for him. When I called, I was his third call of the day, and he was happily in the Obama column.
If you like blogging, you really will like calling. I ask people if they are supporting Hillary Clinton what they like best about her, and that sometimes gives me an opening to talk about Obama’s positions.
At least once a session, you’ll get a jerk. One woman I called, when I said I was calling for Obama, said, “Oooh, let me put down my bible and gun.” I fired back “did you know Obama has an excellent rating from the NRA?” Her response? “I’m part of Operation Chaos so I’m not going to be of any help to you.”
After I related this call to others at the call center, one of them said to respond with this: “But if Operation Chaos succees and McCain loses, you’ll be stuck with Clinton for the next eight years. Is that what you really want?” That caused at least one Op. Chaos member to change his mind and vote for Obama.
Make the calls. You’ll meet kind people and rude people. You’ll meet intelligent people and people who are woefully underinformed.
I talked to a woman yesterday who said we were right to go to war in Iraq because of 9/11. I said but they never attacked us! I talked to her for a few minutes to try to correct misperceptions, and I could hear her mind cracking open a bit as we talked.
Here, you make arguments, and you don’t always know how they land. But on the phone, you get the feedback right away. Try it, please. Even if you, like me, are phone shy. I hate talking on the phone and rarely do it in my personal life. But for the cause, I’ll bear any burden.
Join me! Go to http://www.barackobama.com and just click the big button that says “Make Calls.” You’ll be walked through everything. There’s even audio of a sample call. It really makes a difference, and we’re so close in Indiana…!
The idea that Hillary Clinton willwin by a blowout margin is outlandish.Not with revelations coming out day-in and day-out that the Clintons were responsible for the sale of the Magnequench Plant here in Anderson,IN and they were avid supporters of NAFTA.
Even if she manages to win the popular vote, she will not win the delegate count which is heavily weighted in favor of Indianapolis and the Lake Country area where Obama is the prohibitive favorite.
Hope Zogby’s Polls pan out
I’d be thrilled with those numbers in Indiana, but I just have to doubt it’s that close after weeks and weeks of bullshit. And Zogby is, unfortunately, Zogby.
Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Looks like black folks have now passed 40% in NC early voting. Still rising rapidly. Something big could be happening there.
Regarding what’s been going on within the Clinton campaign, Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews says that all the negative stuff thrown at Obama was part of Clinton’s oppo research and in place last December. At:
http://consortiumnews.com/2008/050308.html
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Last December, when I first learned via Clinton insiders that their “oppo” package would include Barack Obama’s associations with fiery black preacher Jeremiah Wright and Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers, I shrugged at what sounded to me like sub-standard fare from the dark side of American politics.
So what if someone’s minister said some stupid things or that an aging one-time student radical had lent some support to a politician’s campaign, I thought.
Besides those two themes, Clinton insiders were plotting how to exploit Obama’s past political ties to indicted real-estate developer Tony Rezko, and they even were hashing over how they might slip in suggestions that Obama’s dead mother had been a leftist. (When I heard the “oppo” about the dead mother, I really couldn’t believe my ears.)
Even then – in December before the first votes had been cast – the Clintons were so caught up in their ambition to return to the White House that they were veering toward the worst aspects of politics, what is generally associated with the American Right and the most ruthless Republican operatives – guilt-by-association, red-baiting, McCarthyism and racial messaging.
The rationale that I heard from the Clinton operatives was that these Obama vulnerabilities would be exploited by the Republicans in the general election, so it was necessary to destroy Obama when there was still time for another Democrat (i.e. Hillary Clinton) to be nominated.
But part of me didn’t believe the Clintons would go through with this War on Obama. I had trouble envisioning people who had been victimized by similar tactics – indeed whom I had defended when they were on the receiving end – resorting to such acts against a fellow Democrat, who by all accounts is a decent fellow and a good family man.
It is now clear, however, that the Clintons did decide to go through with it, “throwing the kitchen sink” at Obama, as one Clinton aide explained to the New York Times.
Plus, in doing so, the Clinton camp struck an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend alliance with some of the same pro-Republican media outlets that Sen. Clinton had dubbed in the 1990s the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
This alliance of convenience made Hillary Clinton an odd bedfellow with right-wing media mogul Richard Mellon Scaife, Fox News and even Rush Limbaugh, who has been urging Republicans to vote for Sen. Clinton in the Democratic primaries as a way to block Sen. Obama’s nomination.
And, with the right-wing media onboard, the mainstream news commentators could be counted on to tag along – which many did.
But the Clintons also got special help from one of their old advisers, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, who reprised many of the anti-Obama “oppo” themes during a key prime-time debate before the Pennsylvania primary. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Are the Clintons Playing Joe McCarthy?’]
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Go there and read it all.
and we’ll have long memories for that. The Clintons ruined their future within the party and not just with the AA community.
Obama is a nice guy who will graciously concede to the Clintons because, well you know, they deserve it. This fits in with their condescending attitude towards him and everyone who voted and supported him right from the very beginning. It’s the flip side of the inevitability tack: you see, even if we lose, it’s inevitable that we have won. Are you so stupid that you can’t get it?
Anyway, I’d consider the possibility that Broder has no source, made the whole thing up himself.
My high road includes holding people accountable for despicable actions. This includes both the Clintons and their entourage.
But the Clinton supporters were stomping on Howard Dean for saying exactly that a week ago, that the loser is more important in bringing their supporters to the winner’s side. They’ve been trying to play the victim yet again while furiously trying to get Obama supporters to unilaterally disarm.
The unbelievable dishonesty some of the Clinton bloggers have been displaying in this primary is making me reevaluate just about everything they’ve written and argued in the past since they’re now proving themselves to be such unprincipled liars.
I agree that Obama would undoubtedly take the high road and do what’s best for the party if he loses the nomination, no matter how that might come about.
So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. If the Clintons damage the party beyond repair and John McCain wins the general, then that means it’s all Obama’s fault?
Make no mistake about it – if the Clintons steal this thing from Obama then Rush Limbaugh’s hopes will be child’s play compared to what actually unfolds, no matter what kind of conciliatory speech Barack Obama might give. Another Luo denied by the machinations of the majority? OK, just try it…
Another part of the Clinton campaign’s argument has been the “popular vote.” The campaign’s touting of the PV is no doubt expedient, considering Hillary’s relative unpopularity with the Democratic Party’s most active members and her campaign’s “big state” strategy, which intentionally placed less emphasis on winning the small states using caucuses. But the PV argument required actually winning the PV in order to be plausible, and an inconvenient fact got in the way — She wasn’t.
The next choice war clear — rather than let an inconvenient fact get in the way of a perfectly good argument, an undeterred Clinton still announced she had taken the lead in the PV after the Pennsylvania primary.
Of course, clever math had much to do with her purported lead in the mythical PV race. And this new form of fuzzy math required even more than simply including Michigan and Florida, because some of the states had never bothered to keep track of the PV. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since they were caucus states, and, as we all know, they shouldn’t count anyway.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9994.html
If Obama were to have his nomination stolen and then actually worked for the thief, it would prove that he was too much of a marshmallow to be President.