Road to Perdition

As this campaign meanders along on the road to perdition, the two candidates are tired, the campaigns are clumsy and the supporters of both candidates are making the race increasingly personal. My friend Peter, a passionate supporter of Hillary Clinton, runs a Facebook group called “Gays for Hillary.” On Saturday, he sent out an email to the group entitled, “I will not be Silenced,” where he declared, “For the good of the COUNTRY and WORLD Hillary Clinton WILL STAY IN THE RACE! Join me in rebuking the anti-democratic voices calling for Hillary to leave the race by making a contribution today!” He went on to decry Obama’s association with his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and said that it pointed to Obama’s “massive lack of conviction and morals.” As he put it, “I was starting to warm up to the idea of Barack Obama as the possible nominee. But as I learned this week how he spent years sitting silently in the pews of his church while his pastor went on anti-gay, anti-jew and even anti-Italian (lol) rants I decided enough was enough. I question the principles of anyone who sits silently while this bashing goes on and you should too. It's not tolerable. I will not be silenced.” He continued, “I believe passionately that its a woman's turn to run things and I'm not about to pass up the most qualified woman in our lifetime for the job. I'm really quite over the media trying to steer this race ... Obama's campaign has taken the bullying tactics they used in caucuses, as evidenced by countless complaints from all over the nation, and are now trying to use the voices of mildly significant people (Pat Lahey) to bully Hillary out of the race.”

To this, I responded with the following:

This is exactly the kind of vitriol that will destroy the party. Calling for the candidate who is clearly in second place to drop out of the race after 42 states have cast their ballots is a perfectly legitimate and above-board tactic of a campaign, even if you disagree with it. They were public statements which the Clinton campaign could and did easily and publicly respond to. Let's put this into perspective. Fact: Obama is leading in the popular vote. Fact: Obama is leading in the delegate count. Fact: Obama has won twice as many contests as Hillary. Fact: Hillary agreed going into the primary season that Florida and Michigan would not count. Fact: This is a race for delegates, not the popular vote and not the hypothetical electoral college vote. The primary rules, which all candidates were aware of and agreed to going into the primary season, allot delegates to all 50 states, including small and red state. That's why they hold primaries and caucuses in those states, even though they are allotted fewer delegates than more populous or traditionally blue states. Fact: Obama has not cheated or bullied; he has run an aggressive, solid, successful campaign that has simply outmaneuvered the Clinton campaign. That's not cheating, it's winning. If the roles were reversed, we would be hearing the same calls for Obama to exit the race as Hillary is hearing now. And, arguably, Obama would be right in refusing to do so.

Making this primary about Reverend Wright, questioning whether Obama would be where he is if he were white and saying that "it's a woman's turn" are grotesquely negative, divisive and personal attacks against a person who may very well be the nominee of our party, and they are arguments that have no place in this campaign when we confront issues such as war, 47 million uninsured Americans, and the immanent collapse of our economy. To be fair, "Bosnia-gate" should play no significant role in this conversation either. Everything I ever hear emanating from the Clinton campaign and it's surrogates are negative attacks against Obama. And all it does is drive up Hillary's negatives. Can you not, instead, say something positive about Hillary Clinton that would convince Democrats to support her? As an Obama supporter who happens to think that Hillary would also make an excellent president, let me help you:

She is exceptionally smart, politically adept and passionately devoted to the people of our country. She has a distinguished career as a lawyer and as a United States Senator. As First Lady, she championed causes that helped women, children and families, and she had the opportunity to interact and engage with leaders of state, science, business, education and culture from across the globe. In the Senate, she worked with Democrats and Republicans to help rebuild lower Manhattan and to provide better equipment and healthcare for our troops. She has an extraordinary grasp of the issues, and is uniquely prepared to confront the challenges that the next president will face. Obama, you could say, would be a good president, but Hillary would be a great one.

There are a lot of positive things to say about Hillary, none of which have anything to do with her gender. What's wrong with making the case for your candidate on the issues and based on her experience and ideas, instead of bashing Obama with ridiculous, petty and unfair statements like the ones contained in your emails? Has it occurred to you that your words against Obama are more hateful than any words I have heard any Democrat use against McCain? That this primary season has reached this level should make any Democrat shudder. You know, at the end of all of this, no matter who the nominee is, all of us Democrats are going to have to put aside whatever disagreements we have had in the past and work towards defeating the Republicans in November. Would you really prefer to have 4 to 8 more years of a Republican dictatorship? The stakes are too high to allow that to happen. Clinton and Obama and all of their respective supporters need to tone it down, focus on the issues, keep the bull-shit factor down to a minimum and ultimately respect the will of the voters and respect the primary rules as they were originally set up. Aggressive tactics do not constitute cheating. A person's gender does not make it "her turn" to be president. Calling for a candidate to step aside for the good of the party is not bullying, it's being smart.

Now, if you'll excuse me, this whole exchange has made me want to send another $100 to Obama.

Flashback: March 6, 2008, the day after Ohio and Texas

So what if Obama seemed a little chastened after his Ohio and Texas losses? He lost! He missed the mark. He spent a lot of other people's money to finish her off and he didn't. Being a little fazed is understandable. I think Obama will do another day or two of penance for losing these contests. The pundits will hem and haw over what went wrong. Hillary will gloat. But then there will be another news story (i.e. Obama wins Wyoming and Mississippi) that will change the conversation. In truth, I don't think Obama did that badly. He closed a 20 point gap in Texas and 10 points of a 20 point gap in Ohio. He's winning the Texas caucus. He has won more delegates in Texas than she did. The two factors that I think contributed to his less than stellar performance in Ohio were (1) Hillary ran out the clock and held the line and (2) he got slammed with two pseudo-scandals at the most inopportune time, the day before the primary. Perhaps that says something about his campaign's lack of foresight, but I think it had a lot to do with bad luck. If he had had more time to explain (see factor 1), factor 2 would not have had such an impact. It did not push them onto the shoals as much as it tripped them up at the finish line, just as he was going to overtake her.

Obama usually is organizationally stronger than she is, as he's proven to have been in just about every one of the other 35 states that have voted so far, and which says a lot for a guy who has never done this before against a candidate with "35 years of experience" running national campaigns. (Goes to show what experience teaches you.) Hillary put all of her eggs in Ohio because she apparently wasn't very electable in the 25 plus contests Obama has won. She decided to make Ohio and Texas her firewall, devoted tons of money and resources, in Ohio had the support of the very popular governor (who knows the state very well), went balls to the wall and took some really cheap shots. All of these factors, plus her husband's and the governor's popularity, made Ohio ideal for her. Sure, it paid off, she has bragging rights, but her argument for continuing now is completely out of context. It was an uphill battle for Obama to fight. If he fell short due to a trip up, it's unfortunate but not the end of the world and not an indication of what lies ahead, I don't think. The dynamic in Pennsylvania, unfortunately, is the same: similar demographics, she has the support of the popular governor and Philadelphia's mayor, her husband is popular there, etc. Hopefully, Obama won't fall into the same traps he did in Ohio.

The bottom line is this, no matter how you do the math, there is almost no chance that Hillary will win the nomination. She would have to win by 20 points or more in every single state from here on out, including repeats of Michigan and Florida. Even if Michigan's and Florida's delegates were seated as is (where she wins all of Michigan's delegates because Obama wasn't on the ballot), she would still be behind Obama by about 50 delegates. Neither candidate at that point would have enough to reach the 2025 required to win the nomination, so the super delegates would have to decide who wins. If they thwart the will of the delegates or the popular vote, they really run the risk of tearing the party apart (if it's not already torn apart, once Hillary and Obama have finished the primary race). So, Obama would have to either have a major stumble, withdraw from the race in the interest of the party (and run again in 2012 against President McCain) or be killed in order for Hillary to win the nomination.

Against this backdrop, Hillary's campaign came out of Tuesday with arms swinging. Her campaign today compared Obama to Ken Starr (undertone: poor Hillary suffered through the vast right wing conspiracy of the 90s and now this!). They're claiming that only she can win the big states while Obama only wins states that don't matter. Their saying that, because of a few thousand people in Ohio, Democrats have shown that they want the race to continue. They promise to pillage and burn their way to the nomination.

Here's why she's wrong. First, the math makes it virtually impossible for her to win the nomination, though I'll concede there are those long shot circumstances I referred to, which she is apparently banking on. Second, there is no reason to believe that absent a Hillary Clinton on the ballot that Obama could not win the reliably Democratic states or the votes of people who live paycheck to paycheck. Third, Obama has shown that he can win more than just the reliably Democratic states, which is sort of the goal! Fourth, Obama may very well be the nominee of the Democratic Party, of which she is a part. She is on very thin ice if she chooses to tear him apart and provide more ammunition for McCain to use against him in the general. And if she does anything that seems to be unfair or underhanded that ultimately wins her the nomination, she can kiss the African American vote good bye. Therefore, she too will not be president. Imagine her epitaph: HRC, the person who robbed the nation of the opportunity to have the first woman or the first African American president of the United States and, instead, gave us another white guy. RIP

What does Obama do now? First, he needs to solidify his support in Mississippi and Wyoming and win, which would change the news coverage. The new message, "Was Ohio just an anomaly for Clinton?" Then he moves on to a Pennsylvania. Second, he needs to answer some of the questions she is raising. Some are legitimate. He needs to tell or demonstrate that he is ready to be commander in chief. He has done things, not just talked about them. He does understand the issues, he doesn't just offer lofty poetry. People need to see that they can get a fighter, a wonk, an inspirational speaker, and an historic figure, all in one package. Third, he needs to dump his baggage. He needs to dump his skeletons now, 7 weeks before the next primary. The press may be bad at first, but he'll have more control over it, it won't come out in dribs and drabs, it won't be released the night before the voting begins, and once hay has been made of it, the story will shift to something else. Fourth, he needs to better anticipate the shots that are going to be fired at him and neutralize them before they even get fired. If they get fired, he needs to dodge them or absorb them quickly and let the story move on. Fifth, he needs to start acting like the front-runner and leader. So far, she is getting away with staying in this race by winning only 2 out of the past 15 contests. She is being allowed to stay despite the fact that she has virtually no chance of winning. She is defining states like Ohio and Pennsylvania as the only states that count among 50 states. Unchecked, in her victory speech she is including Michigan among the states that she won despite the fact that the delegates there don't count and she was the only one on the ballot. She is the loser in all of this, yet she is getting away with defining the terms of the debate, defining the rules of the game and defining Barack Obama. If, after winning 30 states and being ahead in every measurable way, he does not take control, then maybe he deserves to lose. Finally, he needs to start delivering harder punches to Hillary. I think he has been playing all along as the guy who really does want Hillary to leave this race with her dignity and integrity intact, even while Hillary doesn't seem to give a damn about her own dignity or integrity. This is a difficult position for him to be in because if he seems like he's bullying, he's labeled a sexist pig. If he acts too chivalrous, he's seen as a sexist pig. If he doesn't fight back at all, he's seen as weak. Meanwhile, she's going on TV looking like a mad woman, screaming at Obama, calling him names, spreading innuendo and lies, and people think it makes her look like a fighter. But does it make her look presidential? This whole argument about how difficult it is to run as a woman is crap. Try running against one! Maybe he needs to deliver hard punches while prefacing everything with, "with all due respect, madam." It may take a little of the shine off of him, but he really has to end her and move on to the general.