|
by BooMan
My theory on the campaign is that the Clintons cannot limp all the way to April 22nd when the logic/narrative puts them strictly in the role of party wreckers. The poison that will eventually erode Clinton's poll advantage is the cold hard truth that she cannot win a brokered convention. But, before that poison can work its way through the body electorate, the media must begin reporting the truth. This started yesterday when Ben Smith of The Politico reported that members of Clinton's staff privately acknowledge that she has no more than a 10% chance of winning the nomination. Mark Halperin continued the trend today when he listed Fourteen Painful Things Hillary Clinton Knows — Or Should Know. Tomorrow is Maureen Dowd's turn to push the narrative.
It is a tribute to Hillary Clinton that even though, rationally, political soothsayers think she can no longer win, irrationally, they wonder how she will pull it off. That's a typical Dowd construction and ordinarily it wouldn't be worth the paper it is printed on. But she closes her column with a valuable insight.
If Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi are the dealmakers, it won’t take Hercule Poirot to figure out who had knives out for Hillary in this “Murder on the Orient Express.” The Clintons are looking around and realizing that they don't have as many friends as they thought they had. But it isn't really important what Maureen Dowd says. What matters is that the media is now giving itself permission to write the Clintons' epitaph. There is no way for the Clintons to stop the momentum of this narrative once it catches on in the press. Once Tim Russert starts quoting Halperin and Dowd, then everyone will start echoing the new common wisdom. It was too long in coming, but it's too long to the Pennsylvania primary for the Clintons to maintain the fiction that they have a chance. Now, one of the strongest articles of faith in the business is that the Clintons will never give up and they will do anything to win, even if it hands John McCain the White House on a silver platter. But even the Clintons need the support of a certain baseline percentage of the political establishment. There is no way that Hillary will be president or vice-president, but she might be able to negotiate something of value. Some people have suggested that she could be made Majority Leader of the Senate. I think that's a long shot, mainly because of logistics (how do you get 50-plus senators to agree in advance?). Others have suggested a seat on the Supreme Court. That would be possible if the Democrats pick up a few seats in the Senate (and maybe even without it). And it would be a priceless spectacle to watch the right-wing howl in agony as she took her place on the court. A lesser prize could be attained if Teddy Kennedy would offer her his chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. From that perch she could be instrumental in pushing through Obama's health care reform (although, they'd have to get the Rules Committee to give HELP jurisdiction over the bill). I can't really think of another prize that Clinton might want. But cabinet positions could also be up for grabs. In any case, I hope that the Clintons are taking a moment over this Easter weekend to take a realistic appraisal of their prospects and options. The media narrative isn't going to get any friendlier, and any attacks on Obama from this point on are going to be met by increasingly resistance from the party establishment (including superdelegates).
Media Drip: The Way this Ends | 42 comments (42 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Media Drip: The Way this Ends | 42 comments (42 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
|
Login
We listened to PEN American Center's "State of Emergency" and found 1940s books by Curzio Malaparte only at Alibris
|
|||||||||
Booman Tribune Homepage admin@boomantribune.com powered by Scoop 
More blogs about Blogs at Technorati.
|
|||||||||||
