What Pennsylvania Means: A Dose of Realism for Obama and For America
April 23, 2008
When I checked my mobile this morning, I found a number of worried SMS messages from friends who support Obama and are concerned about what Senator Clinton’s victory last night means for his campaign.
I’m worried, too — but not for Senator Obama. He’s going to be just fine. Even the pundits admit that the race for pledged delegates is over and Obama has won:
I’m not worried for Senator Obama, I’m worried for America.
The race for the Democratic nomination is rapidly becoming all about Hillary Clinton’s delusional sense of entitlement. She seems to think that she deserves the presidency because she hitched her wagon to a star, put up with his philandering, and sat through sixteen years of public humiliation on multiple fronts. If I had to bet, I’d say that this campaign has become more about compensating for her gross sense of personal inadequacy — how else do you explain her touchiness when criticized? — than any sense of what is right for America.
The result: attack ads worthy of Republican mastermind Karl Rove. Attempts to win the “beer test” — that elusive metric of everypersonness that played a huge role in making George W. Bush president. In short, the politics of personal destruction. Make no mistake, she has proven herself willing to bring down the brightest new star in her party in order to secure the nomination for herself. If she can’t win, then no Democrat will. As Tucker Carlson said, “she is in full kamikaze mode.”
As my good friend, comedian and vigilante pundit Baratunde Thurston put it:
I’m tired of Obama showing insane amounts of restraint (because he’s better than her) and being rewarded with more of the same bullshit, being told he can’t close the deal because he won’t show an ad implying he won’t let bin Laden walk into the country and kill little white babies silently in the night…
…
[All this has] shown me just how strong both Barack and Michelle Obama are. They are full of more fight, more hope and more faith than I can muster right now, and I say more power to them. For those of you feeling down right now, take heart that our candidate has and continues to weather so much more.
I found myself feeling just the same way, and wondering just how Senator Obama can possibly put up with this venomous person attacking him repeatedly without lashing out. That is until I read Andrew Sullivan:
I’ve been struck by how calm Obama seems in the face of all this Clinton drama. It helps to recall that he never expected this to be easy or anything but extremely close. And he’s still ahead. And still the overwhelming favorite. Against the biggest brand in Democratic politics as a freshman senator. With a little perspective, the calm makes more sense.
Sullivan cites an article scheduled for publication in the May 7 edition of The National Review that demonstrates just how close the Obama campaign expects this whole thing to be. They’ve predicted pledged delegate counts thus far with eerie accuracy. Obama expected this. He knew this was coming.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign continues the spin game. Just recently, they posted an article on their “Hillary Hub” saying that, if you count Michigan and Florida, more people have voted for Hillary Clinton than any other candidate. Never mind that Barack Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan and Florida. Never mind that her name wasn’t supposed to have been on the ballot either, because she promised the Democratic National Committee that it wouldn’t be, and then reneged on her pledge when it suited her electoral aims.
So, to all my worried friends, I have this to say to you: don’t worry about Obama. The question isn’t if he will win the Democratic nomination, it’s when. But the more important question is, what will Hillary Clinton have done to him — and to the Democratic Party — with her desperate, irrational, delusional tactics by the time he does?
I find Hillary’s claim that Obama is unelectable funny. She makes the claim because he didn’t win Ohio or Pennsylvania and the Democratic candidate will (perhaps) have to do so to win in November.
But if that logic holds true, then shouldn’t the same be said of Hillary? After all, Obama pummeled her in Philadelphia County, and that’s a county Kerry won big. if she can’t win the urban areas, then by her logic she wouldn’t have a chance in November as she won’t beat McCain with the rural crowd.
Teresa,
Brava! Seriously, well said.
I’m a huge Obama supporter, and feel much of you’re feeling. But I do think the calm he’s projecting is just that — a projection. From the profiles I’ve read about him (Newsweek and The Atlantic), he’s just as much of a fighter as Hillary (or John McCain, for that matter). This is a man who has tenaciously fought Chicago machine politics, which as a local I can tell you are brutal. I think he’s just as furious as the rest of us, but he’s keeping it channeled and focused lest some idiot from the opposition start a meme that he’s “uppity” or “an angry black man.” Most of us in America circa 2008 are so done with those kind of racist polemics, but he knows that there are still too many people buy into that crap.
I’m not kidding. Why else did the “It’s 3 a.m. in the White House” ad work so well? It spoke to the fear that many feel that … *gasp* … a black man could win the White House.
T —
I like Obama, a lot. I don’t dislike Hillary. And I’m Canadian, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
I don’t care which Democrat wins the White House this year, as long as a Democrat wins. Becuase I too am worried about America.
Everyone knows that whoever wins is going to have to deal with extracting us from Iraq and fixing a broken economy; neither will be easy, and the lack of progress s/he makes on both will likely mean that the next President will be a one term wonder.
But that’s not what worries me. I’m worried about the balance of power on the Supreme Court. Thanks to W, the Court is now basically moderate, but leaning right. The next President is going to likley goign to have the opportunity to seat two new justices as two left-leaning incumbents retire.
If that President is named McCain, the Court will turn so far to the right, the damage to civil liberties and women’s rights (to name but two issues of great import to me), will shape (or is that dent?) the American landscape for the next generation.
That — and not the pros and cons of Obama v. Hillary — is what keeps me up at night. Either candidate, at least to me, is exponentially more acceptable than a third term Republican.
But then again, I am a Canadian, eh?
Dan:
Not to mention that running an “experience” ticket against McCain would be suicide. He clearly wins that race.
Michael:
Add that to the list of reasons why Hillary Clinton has permanently lost my respect.
Rick:
I respect your opinion, but I disagree. Here’s why: McCain isn’t a typical Republican — at least not by the standards of this past administration — any more than Obama is a typical Democrat. They both skew toward certain core constituencies, but their approach to everything is significantly more nuanced than Senator Clinton’s.
I’m not voting simply on the issues this election, I’m voting on competence and character. And in that department, I see Senator Clinton as coming in dead last, for reasons I wrote about here.
Thankfully, I won’t have to make a choice between Clinton and McCain in the fall because Obama is going to win this thing. But if I did have to make such a choice, I’m not sure which way I’d go.