Saturday, March 22, 2008
Suedetenland Cougars for Clinton
The Politico's Jim VanDeHei (cap?) and Mike Allen tried their best yesterday to drive a garlic-rubbed silver railroad spike through Hillary's Stalingrad-like campaign. Borrowing from such journalistic landmarks as "When it Comes to Building Intimacy, Men Prefer Sex to Talking, study shows," their argument goes, "the candidate with the most votes wins." Roughly speaking:
1. Hillary can't pass Obama in pledged delegates
2. Obama can't win enough pledges to clinch the nomination
3. Superdelegates won't vote against Obama because it would decimate black turnout
4. Therefore, no matter how good Hillary's arguments for the nomination are, she can't win
The only good thing I can say for it is that it perfectly encapsulates the present moment's everybody-knows-that unquestioned assertion that severe depression of black turnout is the axis on which all of these gears turn. My reading as a fairly dispassionate observer (I dislike both candidates roughly equally, though for very different reasons) is that Clinton's supporters--particularly among older white women--are going to be just as ready to file for divorce should the unthinkable (a Clinton losing) happen.
Exhibit A.
In reading comments on Clinton-leaning sites, what floats to the surface are the middle-aged and older women who project all the setbacks and challenges of their own lives onto Hillary's campaign, in whose post-racial gaze Obama is just another damn man running for president. For their Gen-X and younger sisters and daughters, who entered the game as many of the great battlefields of feminism were being cleared of bodies, there isn't the same sense of "Hillary now or a woman president never!"
Had Chelsea been something other than who she is, i.e., a pitch-perfect example of an upper-middle class young woman climbing into the upper branches of the tree before shifting off into nanny-assisted pseudo-professional domesticity, perhaps she could have provided a symbol to link the generations. But when you look at her campaigning with her mom, you wonder if she feels like the Microsoft guy in the Apple ads. I can't think of anything more miserable than being a Hillary supporter in your 20s right now--it's like getting an invite to the greatest party in the universe and having to leave town to go to some obscure relative's wedding. Some day you're going to wake up and feel like Joni Mitchell, whose managers kept her away from Woodstock so she'd be ready for the Dick Cavett show. But I digress.
Obama could still put a fork in Hillary by winning in Pennsylvania. Likewise, Bush could announce that Osama Bin Laden, I'l Kim Jong, Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, and the Dalai Lama will all join him at a summit meeting in Orlando next month. They are about equally likely. As it will likely stand, the gap between the two in pledged delegates will represent no more than five percent, assuming that no re-vote occurs in Florida or Michigan, which, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio, arguably represent the axis on which the general election will most likely turn.
How these two states might have voted had an actual election been held is completely unknown. What is for certain is that because they offered a believable win for Hillary, they now provide an Italia Irredente for her supporters. "Let Florida and Michigan vote, and Hillary would take the pledged delegate lead," the story goes. Obama's opposition to holding such a revote is a critical concession to necessity because it provides a basis to tar him as being just as bad at smoke-filled politicking as Hillary come Denver. It is going to be a long, hard summer for the Democrats. ¶ 2:16 PM
The Politico's Jim VanDeHei (cap?) and Mike Allen tried their best yesterday to drive a garlic-rubbed silver railroad spike through Hillary's Stalingrad-like campaign. Borrowing from such journalistic landmarks as "When it Comes to Building Intimacy, Men Prefer Sex to Talking, study shows," their argument goes, "the candidate with the most votes wins." Roughly speaking:
1. Hillary can't pass Obama in pledged delegates
2. Obama can't win enough pledges to clinch the nomination
3. Superdelegates won't vote against Obama because it would decimate black turnout
4. Therefore, no matter how good Hillary's arguments for the nomination are, she can't win
The only good thing I can say for it is that it perfectly encapsulates the present moment's everybody-knows-that unquestioned assertion that severe depression of black turnout is the axis on which all of these gears turn. My reading as a fairly dispassionate observer (I dislike both candidates roughly equally, though for very different reasons) is that Clinton's supporters--particularly among older white women--are going to be just as ready to file for divorce should the unthinkable (a Clinton losing) happen.
Exhibit A.
In reading comments on Clinton-leaning sites, what floats to the surface are the middle-aged and older women who project all the setbacks and challenges of their own lives onto Hillary's campaign, in whose post-racial gaze Obama is just another damn man running for president. For their Gen-X and younger sisters and daughters, who entered the game as many of the great battlefields of feminism were being cleared of bodies, there isn't the same sense of "Hillary now or a woman president never!"
Had Chelsea been something other than who she is, i.e., a pitch-perfect example of an upper-middle class young woman climbing into the upper branches of the tree before shifting off into nanny-assisted pseudo-professional domesticity, perhaps she could have provided a symbol to link the generations. But when you look at her campaigning with her mom, you wonder if she feels like the Microsoft guy in the Apple ads. I can't think of anything more miserable than being a Hillary supporter in your 20s right now--it's like getting an invite to the greatest party in the universe and having to leave town to go to some obscure relative's wedding. Some day you're going to wake up and feel like Joni Mitchell, whose managers kept her away from Woodstock so she'd be ready for the Dick Cavett show. But I digress.
Obama could still put a fork in Hillary by winning in Pennsylvania. Likewise, Bush could announce that Osama Bin Laden, I'l Kim Jong, Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, and the Dalai Lama will all join him at a summit meeting in Orlando next month. They are about equally likely. As it will likely stand, the gap between the two in pledged delegates will represent no more than five percent, assuming that no re-vote occurs in Florida or Michigan, which, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio, arguably represent the axis on which the general election will most likely turn.
How these two states might have voted had an actual election been held is completely unknown. What is for certain is that because they offered a believable win for Hillary, they now provide an Italia Irredente for her supporters. "Let Florida and Michigan vote, and Hillary would take the pledged delegate lead," the story goes. Obama's opposition to holding such a revote is a critical concession to necessity because it provides a basis to tar him as being just as bad at smoke-filled politicking as Hillary come Denver. It is going to be a long, hard summer for the Democrats. ¶ 2:16 PM
