Posted on 01/02/2008 10:31:10 AM PST by COUNTrecount
Was I witnessing the last throes of the 15-year-long Clinton political psychodrama in Ames, Iowa yesterday? Here’s my newspaper piece on Hillary’s final plea for support in tomorrow’s caucuses. The case she made was far from compelling – that she’s human (honest) and that she has unrivalled experience. Both propositions are debatable and she was much less compelling than Barack Obama and John Edwards have been in recent days. She seems to have had some kind of speech therapy to create a softy-soft voice that made me long for the grating shrillness of yore.
Hillary Clinton tried to present herself as softer and more human
The Obama campaign is supremely confident that victory is within its grasp. “So what?” I hear you ask. Iowa is a sparsely populated, unrepresentative state in which on the Democratic side only 124,000 people caucused in 2004. Surely it can’t matter that much? Don’t bet on it. If Hillary loses tomorrow, her presidential bid is likely to collapse like a house of cards.
For all the arguments against Iowa having such disproportionate influence – and Christopher Hitchens airs some good ones with characteristic aplomb here – it does mean that pre-packaged, calculating politicians like Hillary are scutinised and exposed (we’ll see if Mitt Romney is too).
All the money and establishment backing she had behind her couldn’t prevent her getting caught out by voters asking her about Iran and Iran, discovered planting softball questions and rumbled for having advisers forwarding smear emails about Obama. She tried to remain aloof and away from the voters but it didn’t work – if anything, the seeds of her demise (if that’s what it turns out to be) lay in that strategy.
When an incumbent-style campaign is built on a sense of inevitability, it comes under huge strain when hit by an early defeat. The bubble is burst – which is what will happen if Hillary loses Iowa to Obama in Iowa (if she loses to Edwards, the picture will be less clear).
Of course, if Hillary pulls through then it’s difficult to see how Obama and Edwards can beat her – this is absolutely their best shot. Adam Nagourney of the “New York Times” argues here that Iowa might mean nothing. That’s possible. But my hunch is that it will end up meaning everything.
chuckle,chuckle, LOL don’t put ideas in a liberals head.
Hillary will never give up. She’ll be an enemy of America until the day she dies.
Dumb premise...Doesn’t matter if she wins or loses this election, they are not “gone.” She’s still Senator-for-Life from NY.
I heard an ad on the radio this morning from Joe Kennedy touting his cheap Venezuela oil deal for low income oil burners in Massachusetts.
We can DREAM (clicking my heals 3 times), can’t we?
There are TV ads on here in NYC thanking Hugo for his generosity.
The only reason Obama has such a good shot at Iowa and N.H. is what is generously and condescendingly (at the same time) called “white guilt.”
Take that away and they’ll vote for Hillary in a heartbeat; gotta keep that money coming in.
Run obama through FR’s spell check and read the suggested list of alternatives.
I had a treatment six days ago and they are still crawling out of the woodwork and turning legs-up, desperately kicking only to end up in the Zip-lock baggie for inspection come next Monday.
This is so good.
Ding Dong the witch is dead!
Suits me just fine. Does she melt?
All the yound dudes carry the news.
Will she wait for Harry Reid to lose re-election in 2010 or will some Clintonista at Justice finally get cracking on indicting Reid for his dirty land deals?
NO, she'll have Joe Pesci take Harry for ride out in the Las Vegas desert to a waiting hole.
Standing beside Obama is the safest place on earth. If something happens to him, she is done.
Way too early to even suggest this before one vote is taken. And Iowa is not a Clinton machine controlled state. But still hope for the best and a third place (and fading) finish.
And then watch the media rally around her. Sadly, the Clinton machine has a lot of pull re: threats over the party machinery elsewhere. And of course cash, endless streams of Chinese low paid waiters in poverty coughing up oodles of it.
It’s over only when the Clintons are dead. And I’m only half joking.
Cool. We pick up a Senate seat.
we can dream but my guess is they will never fade away.
we can dream but my guess is they will never fade away.
Say what you want about Obama, but if there's one thing I admit that I admire a little bit about his campaign are his supporters. I live in NV which has an early primary. We're a red-going-blue state and noted for an independent streak, but I'm sure you know that. I keep getting calls from the Obama and Ron Paul campaign -- pre-recorded messages, push polls, automated polls, the whole works. Morning, noon, and night. If it were up to Nevada, you'd think that the process had already eliminated the other candidates and the general election race was between Ron Paul and Barack Obama. I don't see any other candidates' political signs anywhere, and sure as hell no Hillary Clinton signs or posters. They wouldn't last a minute up here and would probably be torn down by a Democrat first.
Anyway, the Obama 2008 people who keep calling are pretty interesting. I spoke with two at length and both were in fear of Hillary getting the nomination. Both of them agreed that she'd flat get her ass kicked in the general election and that's why we all need to come together to put our support behind Barack Obama. Like I said, I admire them because at least they know that much.
Really, the only political stickers I've seen up here are for Ron Paul and Obama. Those, and a smattering of Romney stickers right under the BYU collegiate sticker in the back window of SUVs. The old Bush/Cheney 2004 stickers are still commonly seen everywhere, of course.
I'm getting a clear sense that Northern Nevada is solidly within the mindset of 'Anyone but the Washington DC insiders' for this election.
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