Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, who writes a column he calls The Fix, looks at various near term Obama/Clinton scenarios.
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"Bitter-gate": Where Do We Go Now?
Critical mass has been reached. "Bitter" and "cling" will forever be tied to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the same way that "Tuzla" and "the laugh" will always evoke Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when a political junkie thinks of the 2008 Democratic race.
The important question -- in the immortal words of W. Axl Rose (an Indiana native) -- is where do we go now? The story is everywhere -- television, talk radio, the Web -- for a fourth straight day and it seems extremely unlikely that it will go away before the two Democrats debate on Wednesday night in Philadelphia.
But, amid the talk-a-thon that Obama's comments -- suggesting that many small town voters cling to their religion and guns because of bitterness about their economic hardships -- have set off, one has to begin to contemplate what the story will look like in a week or even a month's time.
Broadly, the story can go one of two ways: it can disappear and join thousands of other blips on the campaign radar screen to date or it can persist and become a larger narrative about the problems with Obama's message ala Clinton and the driver's license issue earlier this year.
Below we outline the major developments that could drive the story down one path or the other. Did we miss anything? If so, leave your own thoughts in the comments section below.
* Ads: This is one of the few elements that will determine the direction of the controversy that is within the control of the candidates. Obama went up with his first post-bitter spot yesterday -- an ad featuring Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D) in which the junior Senator from Pennsylvania makes only oblique reference to the controversy. "Barack Obama knows Pennsylvania is hurting," says Casey. "He can unite America and bring change."
Clinton, on the other hand, took the issue head on with an ad that went up last night.
Not only does the ad repeat the questionable quote but it also features Pennsylvanians condemning it not Clinton. "The good people of Pennsylvania deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said," says one man; "Hillary does understand the citizens of Pennsylvania better," a woman insists.
What's clear from the first two ads after the initial thrust and parry over the bitter comments is that Clinton is going to do everything in her power to make sure every voter in the state has heard Obama's remarks before the primary next Tuesday. Does Obama respond -- a strategy that could escalate the debate over what he said? And does Clinton take this ad to Indiana and North Carolina?
* Polls: Polling holds the key to understanding which direction this story is headed. Everyone in the political world is waiting expectantly for some good data from states --Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina in particular -- and national polls that ask voters what their impressions were of Obama's words. (Quinnipiac University will be out with Pennsylvania numbers tomorrow although it's not clear how much of the poll was in the field prior to Obama's comments were made public.) Until then, the political class and punditry (including, sigh, the Fix) is flying blind.
If a series of polls come out in Pennsylvania that show Clinton with a far wider lead over Obama than she enjoyed the last few weeks, it will further drive the idea that this is a seminal moment in the campaign and questions will start to be asked about whether the Illinois Senator can weather the storm.
On the other hand, if polls come out in the next week that show little (or no) movement in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, all of this will quickly be relegated to the dustbin of history as much sound and fury signifying nothing.
* Superdelegates: For the last two months or so, there has been a story circulating just outside of the public view that there are a large number of superdelegates who are privately committed to Obama and waiting for the right moment to pledge their allegiance. Do Obama's comments freeze these superdelegates in their current undecided pose? Or, more problematic for his campaign, do some significant number of undecided superdelegates side with Clinton -- citing Obama's comments as their prime reason for choosing the New York senator?
The Clinton campaign is circulating an Associated Press story that notes that Yellowstone County (Mont.) Commissioner Bill Kennedy has endorsed the New York senator after hearing Obama's remarks to a group of donors in San Francisco. (Kennedy IS NOT a superdelegate; the three Montana superdelegates that have endorsed have all chosen Obama.)
* Pennsylvania: Heading into last weekend, as the controversy was festering, the general consensus was that Obama was closing the gap with Clinton in the Keystone State. If Obama loses by a significantly wider margin in next Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, it will almost certainly be ascribed to his ill-advised San Francisco comments. That's because of Pennsylvania's considerable blue-collar population, many of whom live in small communities dotted across the central part of the state.
If that scenario comes to pass, Pennsylvania could be the domino that triggers a broader problem for Obama. A blowout loss in the state could provide Clinton a bounce headed into Indiana (a must-win for her) and North Carolina two weeks later.
* The Pope: Pope Benedict XVI arrives in the United States today -- spending three days in Washington before heading to New York City. The arrival, the procession from the airport and the Thursday mass at Nationals Park are red meat for daytime cable television. The more attention the Pope gets, the less time cable television will have to devote to Obama. There are VERY few things that can crowd out a story of this magnitude in the presidential race, but a papal visit happens to be one of them. If Obama winds up emerging relatively unscathed from this current controversy, he may just owe the former Joseph Ratzinger a solid thank-you.
* X-Factors: In a story drawing this much media attention, there are bound to be side stories that crop up that could -- if played right -- turn into main stories and take away time and attention from the initial comments. Case in point: Rep. Geoff Davis (R) telling a group of Kentucky Republicans that he recently participated in a national security simulation with Obama: "I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country." (Hat tip: Ben Smith.)
That comment could -- and we emphasize could -- turn Obama into a sympathetic figure in the eyes of many Democrats who might otherwise have been offended by what the Illinois senator had to say. There is no quicker way to rally the Democratic base around a candidate than for that candidate to come under attack from Republicans. If those sorts of remarks persist, the story could drastically turn in Obama's favor.
By Chris Cillizza | April 15, 2008; 7:00 AM ET | Category: Eye on 2008
blog.washingtonpost.com |
