The Progressive: Beware Hillary’s Tactics

[marmar]

Beware Hillary’s Tactics
By Ruth Conniff, March 5, 2008


At Hillary's victory party in Ohio on Tuesday night, supporters chanted "Yes She Will,"--a take-off on Obama's rousing "Yes We Can" theme, pared down from the collective energy of a grassroots movement to the individual determination of one dogged candidate who announced that she will not be stopped.

Obama is still so far ahead in the delegate count that it is virtually impossible for Hillary to catch up without persuading some superdelegates to vote for her against the expressed will of the majority of primary voters.

As Mark Halperin puts it in Time Magazine, "Given the remaining contests — many with electorates favorable to Obama — Obama's existing hundred-plus delegate lead, and the rules by which Democrats apportion delegates, it is almost a political and mathematical certainty that Obama will have an elected delegate lead at the end of the process, barring dramatic, unforeseen circumstances."

Or, as Chris Matthews put it during the Tuesday night play-by-play: "By the normal way we keep score, he has won this thing already." But the Clintons have "enormous clout" within the Democratic Party, as Matthews points out. That's one explanation for why the press--despite its recent bashing for being pro-Obama--switched from drafting Hillary Clinton's obituary Tuesday night to declaring her the candidate with the "momentum" to win the nomination.

"As Ohio goes, so goes the nation," Clinton told her cheering crowd. "Well, this nation is coming back and so is this campaign."

Hillary's campaign has only a few ways to stage its comeback against the numerical odds. First, as spring turns to summer, we will likely see more ads attacking Obama. The "3 a.m. phone call" ad seems to have worked for her in Texas. We have seen other examples of these tactics already: the mocking references to Obama's speeches about hope, the questions raised about his judgment and experience, and the darker intimations about race, religion, and a general sense of unease over whether he can protect us from amorphous fears of terrorism and violence. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.progressive.org/mag_rc030508

[babylonsister]

1. I am so tired of dirty politics and dirty politicians.

She can't win outright, so she'll do any damned thing she can to win. What kind of esteem will this country have for her if this is what she does?

[Diane R]

6. Obama is not playing dirty. He plays by the rules; it's Hillary who needs a heart-to-heart.

[babylonsister]

11. I know; I wasn't talking about him. nt

[BringBigDogBack]

2. kick

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. We're past the "Beware!" sign.

The dog is chewing on my leg.

[MissMarple]

4. Hillary needs to act presidential; mature, intelligent and unflappable.

Right now she is sounding more like an eighth grade girl bully in a cat fight. Playing to the naive and immature among her supporters is not working out and makes her appear insecure. She needs to listen to her better instincts or at least to advisers with more gravitas...much more.

Mocking Obama with "Change you can xerox"? Please. Her daughter knows better than that. I can't vote for someone I don't respect.

[Diane R]

7. Agreed. She's acting like the 'mean' girl in fifth grade.

[Hardrada]

5. She will probably not get the nomination

and if she does she will certainly LOSE in the GE. She could save the Dems a lot of agony by graciously departing the race. It should be very little about here and really it should be ALL about us.

[surfin]

8. For the smart people on here who find eveything

I was wondering if we could find a state that Obama won that no one who did not win it became president to counter this Ohio nonsense.

[MissMarple]

9. Good question. n/t

[Window]

10. K/R.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. I remember when "The Progressive" was progressive,

but it's been a while. I'm glad I didn't resubscribe.

Clinton herself chanted "Yes WE will" at the end of her speech.

She can't be blamed if her supporters chanted "Yes She Will" during the speech and it wasn't easy to tell if they were saying "she" or "we." I played it over three times and wasn't sure. Possibly some were saying "she" and others were saying "we."

Obama stole "Yes We Can" from La Raza, though they chant it in Spanish, and Ruth Conniff surely knows that, or else she's really slipping, must be hitting the Kool-Aid hard these days.


Clinton is more progressive than Obama, not that that's saying much.