Hillary's worst week

"Even if she doesn't realise it", David Brooks claims in his New York Times column today, Hillary Clinton has "just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign".

Despite conventional wisdom - and Hillary's increasing opinion poll lead in advance of the 22nd April Pennsylvania primary - suggesting that her campaign is finally getting back on track after months of ineptitude and failure, Brooks' three key arguments as to why her campaign is effectively over are fundamentally sound.

1. Team Hillary may well have been almost giddy with excitement at the negative press generated by video footage of Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright making allegedly anti-American remarks but his artful response to the controversy, a speech in which he addressed issues surrounding his faith and racial tensions in the United States, appears to have strengthened rather than damaged his campaign.  A poll conducted by CBS News shows that 71% of voters think Obama did "a good job explaining his relationship with Wright" with the number of people agreeing that Obama would "unite the country" increasing from 52% to 67% in the past month.  Nationwide polls show Obama continuing to hold a slim lead over Clinton.  Clearly, no lasting damage has been done.
2. Attempts to force a re-vote in the Hillary-friendly states of Michigan and Florida have stalled.  The Democratic National Committee has barred delegates from the two states from attending the Presidential nominating convention after violating the committee's rules on the timing of their primaries.  As a result of this, Hillary can kiss goodbye to securing the delegates of the country's 4th and 8th largest states.
3. Given that it is almost impossible for Hillary to win the nomination on the strength of primary votes even if she does win the remainder of the primaries by convincing margins, her campaign has become reliant on the support of ex-officio "superdelegates" (mainly party bosses, Senators and Congressmen).  As Brooks notes in his article, "superdelegates" have now coalesced around the view that "that the winner of the elected delegates should get the nomination". 

Give it up, Hillary.  It ain't going to happen.

You can view the whole piece here.

Comments

[Buckinghamshire Tory]

1. Obama's speech might have been nice listening too, but a whole lot of what he actually said was rubbish, for example how he compared his white grandmother to reverend Wright.
The Wright-case is not going away until Obama actually condemns Wright, and not just a few of his statements.

2. Indeed.

3. "her campaign has become reliant on the support of ex-officio "superdelegates" (mainly party bosses, Senators and Congressmen). "

You can say the exact same thing about Barack Obama. He can't win solely on his pledged delegates either.
In national polls (among Democrats) Obama's average lead is not more than 2,3%.
His lead in delegates is only 130 (of 4000).

So, nothing is over.

[John Leonard]

This article is hardly convincing when the it focuses solely on the pro Obama New York Times and the equally Obama favourable, Democrat friendly CBS polls.

It seems to me that the Democrats and their two remaining candidates are about as competent and honest as their UK equivalents, New Labour.

First we have the 'Pastor Disaster' where Obama first ignores it, then obfuscates, then attempts to mislead ( he never heard the Pastor say anything contentious) and finally when none of this works he finally wraps the truth (he did know what his pastor was saying) up in a dubious justification about unity that clearly shows where his loyalties lie (and it's not with some of his family members).

Then we have Hillary telling how she ran from Serbian snipers until the video appears showing nothing of the sort and she then says she misspoke (sic) and 'made a mistake'.

Then we have all the juvenile name calling ("Hillary's a Monster", "Bill's like McCarthy", "Ferraro's a racist", "Obama's not a patriot").

Then we have the Democratic Party tying itself in knots over the Michigan and Florida primary debacle and repeatedly denouncing the rational for having Super-delegates at all (by saying they must vote the way the voters indicate). Meanwhile Obama and Clinton manipulate, obstruct and machinate to gain the most delegate advantage with scant regard for the voters involved.

During all this time they have been spending the GDP of a small country only to get to the point that John McCain has already reached at a quarter of the cost.

As a result whereas Clinton and Obama were tied with McCain two weeks ago. McCain now leads Clinton by 5% and Obama by 9% (Rasmussen). Pastorgate obviously has had a significant effect.

No wonder Democratic supporters want to get this highly amusing, somewhat ridiculous (to outsiders and Republicans at least) but equally self-distructive nominee campaign over with. If they carry on the way they are going, they will, as Republicans point out, 'Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory'

Consequently, Keep fighting Hillary! This 'mud wrestling' between her and Obama is highly entertaining and could well ensure that the best candidate of the three remaining (McCain) wins the Presidency!

Hillary may not have a good chance of winning the nomination but judging by Obama's generally weak performance over the Wright debacle she can still do it. It could be all change round by August.

'Hillary's Worst Week'? I doubt it, but certainly the Democrat's worst fortnight so far!