If Hillary Clinton has lost the Huffington Post, has she lost the Democratic Party? The liberal Web site published one Hillary-bashing piece after another yesterday, all of them tapping into an anger that she dares to remain in the race and criticize Barack Obama. This is the new media narrative that the former first lady is confronting, that she is prolonging the agony and is just being selfish by refusing to pack it in. I’ve read some pieces here and there saying it’s not impossible for Hillary to prevail, or that there’s no reason for her to fold her tent. But if there are commentators strongly pushing her candidacy at the moment, they’ve mostly escaped my notice.
This is a problem for HRC that goes beyond Obama’s lead in pledged delegates. The entire race has now been framed around the contentious question of whether Hillary is mean or just delusional. Very few folks give her the benefit of the doubt as someone who’s battling hard for a presidential nomination and still sees herself within striking distance. How many cable pundits have you heard speculate that if she can’t win, she wants Obama to lose so she can run again in 2012? Who knows if that’s true? After all, this year was the best shot she’d ever have at the White House, and her party has not exactly been kind to previous losers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/03/28/BL2008032801169_pf.html
Tags: 22% hillary, aravosis, ariana, bashing, moulitsas
March 28, 2008 at 10:16 pm |
As for the voters (remember them?): 22 percent of Dems say Hillary should drop out, but, then again, 22 percent say Obama should drop out, according to Rasmussen.
In the New Republic, historian David Greenberg says Clinton is being unfairly accused: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2ae1b82c-0420-4e47-adba-4af115719d47
“The bickering has, troublingly, validated a piece of conventional wisdom among a liberal commentariat that was already tilting heavily toward Obama: that Clinton is ‘ruthless,’ ‘vicious,’ even ‘Nixonian’ — an unscrupulous appendage of her husband’s ‘machine’ (a word seldom used about the far better oiled Obama apparatus). As Obama’s guru David Axelrod would have it, ‘They are literally trying to do anything to win this nomination.’ You hear it said everywhere, from blogs to high-toned op-ed pages. But this virulent meme is untrue, and — quite apart from the current contest — anyone who cares about liberalism and its future should be worried by its spread.
“To begin with, the charge that Clinton is Nixonian is as scurrilous as the smears that Obama is a closet Muslim or that John McCain sired a bastard child. Her campaign, simply put, is not categorically different from any other hard-driving presidential bid, including Obama’s own. . . .
“Take a test: Did you think Clinton’s ‘3 a.m.’ ad doubting Obama’s readiness to handle crises was fear-mongering, rather than a valid, if slightly lurid, gambit? Did you read her ‘as far as I know’ response to a question about Obama’s religion as a shameful effort to stoke rumors rather than an unfortunate verbal tic amid a firm slap-down of those rumors? If so, you probably voted for Obama. . . .
“The demand for heads to roll whenever an aide misspeaks has reached a pitch that is dangerous, not for any singular ugliness but for its pettiness. And the press, to its discredit, lets these campaign-generated pseudo-events shape its coverage. But, as noted recently by James Carville — no stranger to political combat — campaigning is training for governing, preparing candidates to ‘get hit, stand strong, and, if necessary, hit back.’ ”
Ah — a Hillary supporter taking a stand! “I’ve had it with media trying to kick Hillary Clinton out of this race,” says Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine. http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/03/26/obama-has-not-won/
“It is not over. And Barack Obama has not won, not by a long shot.
“Obama, just like Clinton, will depend on the super delegates to get the nomination. Obama, just like Clinton, stands virtually no chance of getting to the convention the winner from elected delegates.”
Big Tent Democrat blames both sides for hurting the cause:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/3/26/133350/342
“Too many in the Obama campaign, Obama supporters and Obama supporting blogs believe that their demonization of Hillary Clinton has had no ill effects on Barack Obama’s image among the half of the Democratic Party that supports Hillary Clinton. They are wrong. At this point, without the active and sincere support by Hillary Clinton of his potential presidential run against John McCain, Obama has no chance in November. And vice versa of course.” One poll has Obama up by 15 in North Carolina.
More Bloomberg speculation? I thought we were done with that:
“It was only hours after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg finally made it clear that he was not running for president that his chief political guru, Kevin Sheekey, suggested that he would be the perfect running mate for Senator Barack Obama,” says the New York Times.
“So Mr. Bloomberg’s highly orchestrated introduction of Mr. Obama at a speech at the Cooper Union on Thursday quickly resuscitated speculation that the billionaire mayor might end up in the White House after all. But despite a few jokes and a stiff embrace, the men seemed nothing like two peas in the same political pod, destined to share a ticket.”
Bloomberg says no one’s going to ask him to be vice president. So we’re back where we started: He says no and the press says yes.