A Clinton Victory Scenario (Seriously)
I have learned to be very respectful of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. Throughout last year I thought her campaign was a paper tiger. I figured the political media, compelled to do full time campaign coverage despite the fact that nothing was actually happening, needed something to talk about and that once the fur started to fly it’d collapse. I was wrong about that. The opposite has proved true; things that would’ve been fatal to just about any other bid for president have been endured through sheer force of will.
This was originally going to be last Sunday’s post, but as I try not to repeat my mistakes I pushed it back to see how things went in Wisconsin and Hawaii. It turns out, I needn’t have waited. Barack Obama racked up two more crushing defeats, though Clinton did at least manage to break 40% in Wisconsin, a first for her since Super Tuesday (which now seems like a very long fortnight ago). John McCain ignored her in his victory speech last night and the question now is whether Hillary’s campaign juggernaut is in its death throes, or if it’s still got some fight left in it. Just for fun, let’s assume the latter.
What would a(nother) Hillary comeback look like? What scenario can be conjured in which she stands triumphant on the stage in Denver? To, briefly, state the obvious, she’s got to start winning and winning big. Hillary has lost ten straight and nobody likes to be associated with the candidate who has the word “Loser” following her around like a thought balloon. But how can she accomplish that when Obama has solidified his own base and begun co-opting hers? Two words: Attack McCain.
She’s tried campaigning on her supposed experience advantage by saying that she’s better suited to face the Red campaign attacks and, once in office, better prepared to govern immediately and effectively. That hasn’t worked. She’s tried attacking Obama by pegging him as a ditz who gives a good speech but doesn’t know all the political facts of life. That hasn’t work either. The only major strategy that remains untried is to go all out on the attack against McCain. If she can score more hits on McCain than Obama can it could go a long way toward proving that she really is better prepared to face the Republicans, during the campaign and afterward.
At this point Clinton has no realistic shot of catching Obama in pledged delegates. Proportional delegate assignment cuts both ways and his lead of roughly 150 is probably insurmountable even if we start by spotting her huge wins in Texas and Ohio. Dan Balz did just that in the Washington Post last Friday and the math is pretty grim. Going with best case assumptions he figured that a 60-40 win in Ohio would net her a gain of 30 on Obama, and a 55-45 win in Texas would net her about 19. Even that rosy scenario would still leave her about 100 pledged delegates behind.
She’s going to be behind in the pledged delegate count and in the popular vote so no matter what she’s going to need a bigger share of the - ahem - automatic delegates than Obama. Fighting him tooth and nail the way she did in Wisconsin might reduce his margin of victory, but it will not alter the outcome. The only way she can prevail is to convince all those Democratic Party stalwarts that she stands a better chance against McCain.
The first order of business then is to immediately cease fire on Obama, train her sights on McCain, and open up with everything she’s got. Attacking Obama, especially while John McCain is doing the same thing, alienates the automatic delegates. She can only win in the loving embrace of those people and if they think she’s damaging Obama out of stubbornness, she’s cooked. If, on the other hand, she can really lay into McCain, run ads all over Texas and Ohio calling him a flip-flopper and comparing herself favorably to him, she can show the automatic delegates what she’s been talking about all this time.
Attacking McCain, not Obama, would have two immediate benefits. First and foremost it would quiet talk that she’s running a dead-end campaign. The image of her and Bill as willing to burn down the house before they let someone else have a party in it is fatal to her. The automatic delegates will not come running if she’s using scorched earth tactics against a fellow Democrat. Second, it shows off (instead of talks about) one of her supposed strengths: fighting toe-to-toe with the Republicans. Show, don’t tell. Taunting McCain into attacking her would be ideal, but if she and Obama are going after McCain at the same time and she does it better, then that’s a legitimate point in her favor.
Could it work? Hey, anything’s possible. I know one thing for sure though, if Hillary Clinton keeps going the way she’s been going the last couple of weeks, taking potshots at Obama while talking up her ineffective positives, she’s done for. Attacking McCain is the only strategy fresh enough to really shake up the campaign. Doing what she’s been doing amounts to little more than running out the clock.
