« Social Networking Sites | Main | Why Global Warming? »
Hillary–groundhog, cockroach, attack dog
By Jared | March 9, 2008
Hillary just stuck her head out of her political bunker and declared we’re in for six more months of war. She still doesn’t seem to understand, though, that she’s in a catch 22. She can’t win with attack-dog politics, and the way she’s tearing Obama up, she might as well volunteer in the John McCain campaign.
Clinton is now insinuating that Obama would not be a capable commander in chief. (Strange. I agree with Hillary Clinton. This is scary.) In so doing, she’s courting more backfires from the media and her primary voter base, but she just can’t stop. Her strengths are all turned against her, and Obama is absolutely making the most of it.
In any political battle, there are three general categories of weapons—issues, emotions, and attacks. As with most democrat politicians, Hillary can’t win on the issues. The democrats haven’t been able to win on the issues since FDR’s New Deal came crashing down around his ears, leaving wreckage that still clutters our political landscape today. They realize this, instinctively even if not rationally, and they rarely bother trying to fight a war of issues today.
Clinton has always been an attack player. She has used her position as a woman (vulnerable, exploited, sensitive) to carry on a political cat-fight with her opponents. Her latest jibe about Obama’s lack of experience as a commander-in-chief is a case in point. Her MO thus-far has been to throw out insinuations and wait for the liberal media to do her dirty work for her, painting her as the injured party.
One fringe benefit of being female has been that she has the emotions on her side already. (Again, this is thanks to the media painting the democrat candidates as sensitive and caring and the republicans as evil and nasty.)
That is no longer true. Obama is the first serious candidate for president ever who is black. He has now preempted all emotional issues to his side simply by virtue of who and what he is. The country and the media are programmed to love him. (Being an amazingly good public speaker doesn’t hurt either.) Hillary never intentionally picked up the emotions as a primary weapon anyway. She simply got them by virtue of being who she is.
So what does that leave her with? Cattiness and snide attacks. That’s all. But there’s a problem. As I detailed in “The liberal worldview comes home to roost,” being black has put Obama in the protected sector. Any attack Hillary makes is going to backfire on her. If she was campaigning for the republican vote, she might be able to squeak by. Republicans vote on issues (and do not pay as much attention to media whining about attacks on their candidate). She simply can not win.
Obama himself is, perhaps, in the luckiest spot he could be, and he’s taking full advantage of it. He’s painted himself as the “reasonable” politician who isn’t used to dirty fighting. Now all he has to do is hunker down and smile. The worst he can be criticized for is “not hitting back” (which is part of his appeal anyway).
At the same time, the democrat party is split very nearly in half. Hillary isn’t going to quit. She’s told us so repeatedly.
The one thing Hillary has on her side is that the Clintons are political cockroaches. You can kick them, step on them, smash them, blow them up or even cut them in half and they still just won’t die.
It’s nearly impossible to say whether she actually has even a chance at the nomination. (The math against her is steep, especially after the above factors. It would take a miracle.) Buckle up folks. This could be one spectacular political season.
Topics: Current Affairs, Politics |