Obama lacks knockout punch in Dem race that won't end
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By Greg Hinz
Crain’s Chicago Business
March 05, 2008
In politics, as in any blood sport, he who fails to knock out his opponent when she’s on the ropes risks being soon knocked out himself.
That’s exactly where U.S. Sen. Barack Obama finds himself after Tuesday’s fiasco. Once again, he had the opportunity to pretty much end Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. And once again, as was the case after going into the New Hampshire primary and the Super Tuesday contests, he fumbled the opportunity.
The Chicagoan who would be president still holds a crucial lead of 130 or so in terms of elected delegates to August’s Democratic National Convention. Despite her big wins Tuesday in Ohio and Texas, Ms. Clinton closed that gap only by, perhaps, 20, pending final results from the Texas caucuses, which Mr. Obama appeared to be winning.
Because Democrats award delegates proportionately — the Republicans mostly have winner-take-all contests — Ms. Clinton may not be able to close that gap even if she wins all of the remaining Democratic contests. And while she clearly has momentum going into some of them, notably Pennsylvania, she won’t win them all.
That leaves the balance of power in the hands of those 795 “superdelegates” — the members of Congress, governors and other party poohbahs who have received so much notoriety of late. And there’s where Mr. Obama is threatened by Ms. Clinton’s revival.
Team Obama argues that those superdelegates ought to go with the man who’s won more states and a bigger share of the popular vote. Why turn over the people’s decision to a bunch of suits in a smoke-filled room, it argues.
But the legitimacy of that argument was considerably weakened by Tuesday’s results.
Clinton forces now can fairly assert that Mr. Obama has failed to carry any of the big states that will determine the presidency, except for his home state of Illinois, while she’s prevailed in New York, California, Ohio, Texas and, arguably, Michigan and Florida.
You can argue that any Democrat would do well in most of those states in November. But it’s equally fair to point out that, while Mr. Obama clearly does well among African-Americans, young people and college graduates, Ms. Clinton has held her ground among women, older voters and working-class folks — the traditional base of the Democratic Party.
In the run-up to Ohio and Texas, Ms. Clinton finally found a way to connect on her basic argument of experience. She did it in a particularly low-class way, with a TV ad featuring the red phone ringing in the White House at 3 a.m. But GOP hitmeisters surely will slam Mr. Obama with far worse this fall if he wins the nomination. On pure toughness, Ms. Clinton’s inner alpha male finally triumphed.
She also benefited from some uncharacteristic stumbling by Team Obama on whether or not economic adviser Austan Goolsbee told a Canadian official that the senator’s speeches about revamping Nafta were just political rhetoric. Obama aides denied that such a meeting ever occurred. They were wrong, and that fact undercut denials that Mr. Goolsbee had effectively typed his candidate as just another double-talking pol.
Then there was Ms. Clinton’s suggestion to a TV interviewer that she wasn’t sure if Mr. Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, is Muslim or not. Despicable as a punch below the belt. And perhaps just as effective.
With the big Pennsylvania primary likely to go Ms. Clinton’s way in a few weeks — like Ohio, it’s a big, hurting industrial state with a vigorously pro-Hillary governor — the ultimate decision goes to those superdelegates. And to the potentially messy question of whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida, which held contests in early winter despite orders from the national party not to do so.
Bottom line: Mr. Obama still has math if not momentum on his side. But it could get messy, very messy. If you want to fight, you better have a knockout punch.
John McCain and Karl Rove must have big smiles on their faces. |
