"Everyone keeps declaring it over, and she keeps winning." - Terry
McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, after her landslide victory
in Kentucky's presidential primary
By now the media's establishment has all but given the Democratic
presidential nomination to Barack Obama - many times over. Note this lede on
Wednesday's front page of the New York Times after the (very) junior senator
from Illinois scored a solid victory in Oregon:
"Sen. Barack Obama took a big step toward becoming the Democratic
presidential nominee on Tuesday, amassing enough additional delegates to
claim an all but insurmountable advantage in his race against Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton."
Sen. Cinton's blowout in Kentucky, where she outpolled her rival 66 to 30
percent, was treated as an afterthought. But not by the senator herself, who
vowed to fight on till the nomination was decided - not on the front page of
the New York Times, but by the voters. She acts as if this were an
electoral, not an editorial, decision. How old-fashioned.
Agree or disagree with Hillary Clinton, and Lord knows I've done both over
the years as she's undergone all those changes of name and personas, but
this much has always been clear: The lady fights. And in a free country has
every right to - till the final bell rings. Or afterward.
Politics ain't beanbag, as the fictive but astute Mister Dooley pointed out
long ago. Sometimes it's a fight even after the finish. See Bush v. Gore,
2000.
Even if the lady loses this fight, it won't have been in vain. For one
thing, she's begun the overdue job of vetting Barack Obama, who until
recently remained the unexamined candidate. Thanks in large part to Hillary
Clinton's relentless battering, the chinks in his now tarnished armor have
widened into gaping holes.
She's not only softened him up for John McCain, she's wiped out the aura of
invincibility that used to accompany him everywhere. The once untouchable
candidate now has been not only touched but hit hard, and not just above the
belt. Who now speaks of Obamamania?
The cheering throng is still there, but the magic isn't, at least not beyond
the well-organized campaign rally.
Barack Obama is no longer Mister Beautiful but just the candidate who's
almost got this thing sewed up but can't quite close the deal. After all,
how long could he be expected to repeat that unchanging line about Change
before it became the same old thing? Familiarity breeds, well, familiarity.
The novelty has worn away.
It wasn't any particular rough spot in the road that did it. Not the
Jeremiah Wright thing. Not his vague association with Bill Ayers, an
unrepentant terrorist from the violent '60s who's now, of course, a
Distinguished Professor of Education. (Same ideology, different tactic. If
you can't destroy the system with bombs, undermine the next generation.)
As for Barack Obama's suspect dealings with one Tony Rezko - restaurateur,
political fund-raiser, land developer and general wheeler-dealer who's now
under indictment - that connection doesn't seem to have made much of an
impression, either. (Hey, it's Chicago.)
What's diminished the once bright young star of American politics has been
the slow, gradual realization that, however elegant and appealing his
manner, and it's both, he is the greenest of U.S. senators. Not that there's
anything wrong with being young; his youth is attractive. But to be young
and inexperienced; that's not assuring in a
prospective president and commander-in-chief.
And the inexperience keeps showing, especially in foreign and military
affairs:
He speaks as if setting an arbitrary deadline for American withdrawal
from/surrender in Iraq wouldn't risk calamitous consequences.
In one breath, he criticizes Jimmy Carter for opening negotiations with a
terrorist outfit like Hamas, and in the next he comes out for negotiating
with Hamas' puppetmasters in Syria and Iran without preconditions - before
backing away from that early incautious stand. Although not nearly far
enough.
It's all enough to make him sound not only naive but indecisive about it.
More and more, he comes across as less the bright new hope than the ordinary
backing-and-filling pol.
One result of Hillary Clinton's unending tenacity in this race, even if she
fails to win her party's presidential nomination, is that she'll have made
the choice in November appear less between the new and old than between the
vacuous and the authentic.
No wonder so many Republicans are rooting for her at this contentious stage.
So far she's been a lot more effective than John McCain at revealing Barack
Obama's weaknesses.