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Howie column ping

Who knows how, but it ain’t over yet
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com

Ask not for whom the red telephone rings at 3 a.m.

It rings for thee, Hillary Clinton.

Who would have figured it? All the mud that the Clintons threw at Barack Obama - the Iowa coordinators spreading the rumors that he was a Muslim, Billy Shaheen in New Hampshire intimating that he was a drug dealer, Bob Kerrey endlessly repeating his middle name, “Hussein.”

All for naught but, finally, a Hail Mary pass, what amounted to a Republican ad, stressing Barack’s limp-wristed, Code Pink politics. The spot was based on the most unlikely scenario imaginable - that Democratic primary voters actually gave a hoot about national security.

But it worked. Or something worked. And suddenly, she’s back in the fight. She even took Rhode Island. This means that in the states where Gov. Deval Patrick is seen on the local TV news every evening, Barack Obama is now 0-for-3. Ted and Patches Kennedy and John Kerry once again showed that they too have long coattails -for Hillary.

Yes we can - learn from our terrible error in the 2006 governors race!

Hillary Clinton isn’t the new Comeback Kid. She’s the next Freddie Krueger. And the Pennsylvania primary may well be Barack’s Nightmare on the Main Line.

We will have Hillary Clinton to kick around some more. Nobody wants to write the obituaries for the Clinton dynasty quite yet. This has been just too much fun, watching Hillary twist slowly, slowly in the wind. Because she is in so many ways the female Richard Nixon - unlikable, shrill, phony, stiff, self-pitying and more than a little shady.

But when it comes to politics, she’s a regular Timex. Like Nixon, she takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

The presidential election is like a soap opera, and in this next chapter, all the front-running bumkissers in the mainstream media who’ve been ripping her will now try to make their peace with the Clinton machine, by dropping to their knees. After 16 years, it’s a maneuver they’re quite familiar with.

Texas was still up for grabs early this morning, but at least the Clinton-Obama race goes on. If only Obama’s dodgy benefactor Tony Rezko weren’t being tried in federal court, where no TV cameras are allowed . . .

This is all wonderful news for John McCain. The longer this goes on, the better he looks. Actually, the longer this Democratic bloodbath goes on the less anyone will look at McCain, period, and that’s an even better thing.

Will McCain eventually look good enough? Probably not, if he keeps stumbling over his cue cards and calling himself a “conservative liberal Republican” But it’s his only shot, with Bush in the White House endorsing him this afternoon as the stock market swoons and oil prices are at an all-time high.

Barack raised $50 million last month and Hillary $36 million to McCains $12 million. The Democratic turnout in the four states is double and triple that of four years ago. None of this bodes well for the GOP.

McCain needs the Democrats to pull a 1968, tear each other apart, drive each other’s favorable ratings down even further than they already have.

And now Barack Obama is going to be the issue, at least for a few days. The undecided voters broke for Hillary, after the red phone started ringing. Who would have ever thought it? The first time I saw the spot I started wondering, who’s really calling? Monica Lewinsky? Paula Jones? Kathleen Willey?

But the voters bought it. And now I hear the phone ringing again. This time the call’s for Barack Obama.

I think it’s Tony Rezko. Or maybe Louis Farrakhan.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1077867