Political Wisdom: Clinton's Win and Obama's Needs
wsj.com
In Political Perceptions
Here's a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Gerald F. Seib
Sen. Hillary Clinton's big victory in West Virginia's primary "brings a sharp focus on the new coalition" the loser, Sen. Barack Obama, needs to build, writes Politico's Ben Smith. West Virginians went against Obama "by a roughly two-to-one margin, one of the widest margins of the primary season," Smith writes. "The outcome was the predictable result of familiar demographics: West Virginia's relatively poor white voters have been Hillary Rodham Clinton's base since February." Almost half said they'd vote for Republican Sen. John McCain in November rather than Obama, exit polls showed. The Clinton win, Smith says, shows Obama's need in a general election to do well with two groups where he's strong — independent voters and better-educated whites — in hopes of "making up for his deficit with working-class."
Associated Press
Hillary Clinton with supporters in Charleston, W.Va., Tuesday night.
Salon's Mike Madden didn't see much in Clinton's victory rally to suggest she's getting out of the race. Instead, she seemed to target her remarks at the undecided Democratic superdelegates who still could give her the nomination. Clinton said she wanted to speak "to everyone still making up their mind," which amounted, Madden writes, to "speaking directly to the rapidly dwindling number of uncommitted Democratic superdelegates — the only people in the United States who still have the power (if, almost certainly, not the inclination) to make her the party's nominee for president instead of Barack Obama." She declared herself "the strongest candidate to lead our party in November of 2008." Which prompts Madden to write: "So much for the speculation about which exit strategy Clinton would choose to gracefully leave the race. Instead of kneeling down and letting the clock run out, Clinton threw a 'Hail Mary' pass to the party leaders."
Whether Obama "suffered any damage will be determined by the behavior of the superdelegates in the next few days," says Slate's John Dickerson. "Will any of them embrace Clinton after her victory? Right now, Obama's cushion seems intact. Even after the West Virginia loss, he leads Clinton in all the metrics that matter: He's ahead in pledged delegates, the popular vote, and states won. This week he overtook Clinton among superdelegates, who continue to march toward him at a regular clip." Unless Clinton succeeds in her "big longshot" effort to get delegates from the disputed states of Florida and Michigan seated in her favor, "she must reverse the math by convincing more than 70 percent of the remaining superdelegates to initiate Party Armageddon by denying Obama the nomination."
"Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and John McCain"
Meanwhile, Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post writes that "the sum total" of the Republican message this year is that McCain is more "American" than is Obama. "That is why McCain's first post-primary ad proclaimed him 'the American president Americans have been waiting for.' Not the 'strong' or 'experienced' president, though those are contrasts he could seek to draw with Obama. The 'American' president — because that's the only contrast through which McCain has even a chance of prevailing." But, Meyerson writes, Obama's life story "represents a triumph of specifically American identity over racial and religious identity. It was the lure of America, the shining city on a hill, that brought his black Kenyan father here, where he met Obama's white Kansan mother." |
