March 5, 2008--Hillary Big Night

Though it hurts me to acknowledge it, yesterday Hillary had her best night ever. And be sure I intend here no double entendre.

Simply put--she whopped Obama’s proverbial ass.

But before Clinton supporters get too puffed up, her victory came with a considerable price. Since she is far from clinching the nomination—in delegate terms she and Obama came out about dead even, which means he still has at least a 100 delegate lead—the nature and tone of her campaign will leave hard-to-heal wounds.

To be sure all the negative campaigning and Karl-Rovian ads “worked,” but like the Republicans at their worst they drove deep wedges between the natural constituencies the Democrats need to hold together to win in November, no matter who becomes the nominee. I feel certain that John McCain’s political advisors took many notes. The big winner last night may turn out to be John McCain. And not because he won the nomination.

I few early thoughts:

Clinton won big in Ohio by making it look as if Obama was more in favor of NAFTA than she and the Clinton administration. Though the reverse is closer to the truth. And this was a huge deal there since 81 percent of the voters said job loses from “international trade agreements” cost the country jobs and that this was thus the cutting edge issue for them.

Obama didn’t help matters when his chief economic advisor got caught, or so it was alleged, winking at Canadian officials, telling them not to worry because Obama wasn’t being sincere when he said he would work to amend NAFTA if he were elected.

To show leadership qualities, as soon as Hillary’s people revealed or planted the story he should have said, “This is a serious charge. I will investigate it immediately since this does not represent my views. If I find that one of my advisors in fact did what is claimed, I will fire him immediately.” End of story. And good politics for Obama. But instead he hemmed and hawed and sounded like the traditional politician he represents himself as not being. Result—Clinton won Ohio by 10 points and Obama began to look like just another pol.

Also in Ohio, Clinton’s victory was the result of her being able to retain the vast majority of white votes. A full 20 percent of voters there, when polled after casting their ballots, unabashedly said that “race was a factor” in voting for Hillary Clinton. This is Ohio, not Mississippi!

So the Race Card both she and her husband have dealt from the bottom of the deck is finally “paying off” for them. If one can call it that.

Black leaders, concerned that Clinton may wind up winning the nomination using such tactics, are already suggesting that if this happens there may be a “Blackout” come November.

Feeling that the nomination may be either stolen from Obama by party leaders or the result of racist campaigning, they are suggesting that African-American voters may opt to stay home in November rather than casting a ballot for Clinton. No wonder so many “mainstream media” Republicans as Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough have been humping recently for Senator Clinton. They can smell unelectability when it presents itself.

Perhaps worst of all, the Clinton campaign has contributed to turning the race back into one mainly about fear. I thought that had begun to dissipate when Giuliani (remember him?) dropped out after his dismal showing in Florida. Which left us with just the echo of George Bush’s only political strength now embodied in the campaign’s Dr. Strangelove, John McCain. But if Hillary Clinton somehow wends her way to the nomination we will have the Tweedledum of Fear running against her Tweedledee twin.

But we’ll see. Obama has some recovering to do and some midcourse correcting is necessary. There is time and there is still the opportunity to vote our hopes rather than our fears.

For one of the few times in our history, America is a very frightened place right now. At those times we have become either xenophobic or roused ourselves to greatness. Again, we’ll have to wait and see.