How Hillary dunnit, - Democratic Underground

bklyncowgirl

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Wed Mar-05-08 07:03 AM
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How Hillary dunnit,

Hillary Clinton won tonight and won big. She clobbered Obama in Ohio, swamped him in Rhode Island and stood him down in Texas. Barack Obama won big in Vermont--a state where antiwar sentiment runs high and voters despise establishment candidates.

How'd she do it? How'd he blow it?

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO OTTAWA:
Barack Obama was in the process of tying NAFTA around Hillary Clinton's neck and wrapping it up with a big red bow when a memo leaked by the Canadian government indicated that a senior economic adviser to Senator Obama had called his colleagues in Canada to reassure them that Senator Obama's anti NAFTA rhetoric was purely fodder for the rubes--you know--like those people in Ohio who've seen their jobs go the way of the dodo bird ever since NAFTA passed. The Obama camp denied calling the Canadians. Later reports indicated that the Canadians had indeed, reached out to the Obama campaign and that the Obama official was not speaking officially for his candidate. The Harper government in Canada was heavily criticized for intervening un U.S. politics. An apology was issued but by this time the damage had been done. Forget the mitigating nuances, the "rubes" were not amused. Obama's growing strength among white men pretty much evaporated. Worse yet the King of Kool had come off as another conniving politician who says one thing for public consumption and another in private.

POOR POOR PITIFUL ME:
It's a strange thing, but Hillary Clinton always seems to do better when she appeals to voters pity. Tears helped put her over the top in New Hampshire and accusing the media of bias and unfairness made her a more appealing figure here. American voters distrust politicians, they also distrust the media. Hillary was able to play on this distrust with a little help from her friends at Saturday Night Live (not that I'm suggesting any Clinton connivance with the fine folks at SNL who being comedians are, of course, beyond suspicion) whose portrayal of heavy handed anti-Clinton pundits carried enough truth to resonate as they say, with voters, particularly older women. When women of a certain age feel that one of their own is being attacked unfairly watch out!

SLEAZY FRIEND (HIS):
The fact that longtime Obama Supporter Tony Reszco went on trial in Illinois shortly before March 4, was, to say the least, not helpful to Barack Obama.

THE KITCHEN SINK:
Fear trumps hope. Negative campaigning works. If you don't believe it, ask George W. Bush. The 3:00 AM ad did what it needed to do for those voters it was intended to reach. The security Moms put Bush over the top in 2004. The ad may have stopped the leakage of younger women to Obama, I mean who do you want answering that phone, someone who could be your mom or someone who could have been your ex boyfriend. Hillary's oh so coy response to a question on Obama's religious affiliation gave people who had received those viral e-mails (the ones that assert that Obama is a closet Muslim and an unpatriotic bastard who swore his oath on the Koran and refused to put his hand over his heart) a certain latitude to believe them. Add to that the turban picture, the dark face Obama ad and you have an opportunity to reach into the dark side of the American soul.

Obama responded to these attacks, of course and taken alone, they might not have brought him down but combine that with the Clinton campaign's skillful portrayal of the media as hopelessly anti-Hillary, the bad publicity associated with the Reszco trial and the Obama campaign's own (rare) screwup regarding NAFTA, it turned out to be enough to stop Obama's momentum dead in its tracks.

So the wild ride continues. Can Obama win the nomination without being fatally wounded by the Clinton attack machine? If Clinton wins the nomination will Obama supporters, particularly African-American voters, without whose support no Democrat can win, be willing to vote for a nominee whose scorched earth campaign brought down one of their own?

At this point, who knows.