Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to the Pennsylvania Primary results
Pennsylvania's results prove that despite the howls of protest about our ex-president playing the race card, and the bloviating about his legacy being sullied and sundered, Bill Clinton cannily rescued Hillary's campaign from complete collapse by his pointed but not accidental statements during the Super Tuesday run-up.
By raising the issues that Obama is a superficial and untested meteor (and media phenomenon) -- pretty much everything Geraldine Ferraro said without the literalness of "he wasn't black" -- Bill did what he needed to do.
I believe this was all part of the Clinton plan: Bill would inject the ugliness that the sinking campaign had to do to get into the dialogue. They would spin it as the Big Dog being unleashed and on his own, handler-free. Patent nonsense. And then he would disappear for a while into a contrived state of penance for his undisciplined rants.
Without those rants, though, Hillary would be finished because they provided the context bed for Obama's current problems with Reverend Wright and Bittergate. Seen through the lens of the white, Roman Catholic voters who gave Hillary Clinton her advantage, the "fairy tale" means this: It's a fantasy to think that this charismatic, young, inexperienced Senator isn't go to come crashing to earth as we learn more about his radical background and associations. He's not what he seems to be or claims. He's just a less overtly incendiary Jesse Jackson. Fairy tales might be comforting for a while, but dangerous if you actually believe them and act on them. And a fairy tale could actually bring about the election of John McCain, in what should be the party's year of years.
It was a clever and potent use of language. You don't have to be an expert in Bruno Bettelheim, or to have read his Uses of Enchantment, to know that fairy tales strike a deep, primal chord. Someone pretends to be what they're not, lures you into a dangerous situation based on your "hope" and naivete, and next thing you're Hansel and Gretel baking in the oven. Fairy tales have fatal consequences.
Having sowed the seeds of doubt during the Super Tuesday campaign, Bill didn't need to do much more. Circumstances changed, including the ascendancy of McCain, who the Democrats see as a tough and wily opponent who can attract independents and make the election a real horse race. And suddenly, there's a flicker that says might actually want Hillary and Bill on your side.
Obama did the best he could with the Wright mess - turning it into a brilliant rhetorical moment. Obama handed Hillary Bittergate, and she ran with it. By the way, I am convinced that her consistent use of the word "elitist" is a clever code word in certain working class circles for "uppity." It was a smart, judo move, a way to bring back the race issue in a different context, playing off the archetype of the over-educated, over-reaching black man (who's trying to tell white folks what they think and why), as opposed to their other strategy, referencing the Al Sharpton archetype.
And of course, the recent, post-SNL media self-consciousness was behind the much-deplored debate focus on Obama's triple baggage of Wright, Bittergate and Ayres. This early spring Pennsylvania harvest comes directly from seeds planted by Bill Clinton.
Obama is likely to prevail, but the fact that he has been unable to get it done, to "get it over with" as so many journalists, commentators and even superdelegates are now asking, does two things. It creates a context where anything can happen, where Hillary Clinton's incessant drumbeat about the two "e's" -- experience and electability -- could create a meaningful level of superdelegate doubt.
Negative advertising works, no matter what voters reflexively say in focus groups. For Obama, there is a way to go negative while maintaining his dignity and stature, to make her seem small while making him feel big. But his campaign hasn't found that voice yet.
Meanwhile, she has grabbed the campaign's baton and is now leading the orchestra, defining him. What worked for Obama in the beginning, and what so frustrated the Clintons and their praetorian guard, was how successful and how much voters (and yes, the media) wanted to believe in him. So she tried to emulate him, convince voters that she, too, embodied what Obama represented.
That's gone now. She's dropped the horrific, parody language, the transparent posturing of herself as the candidate of change and hope, and has also stopped trying to warm herself up, the charm triangulation. That's been what's kept her viable. For Hillary Clinton, coldness is life.
She has re-connected with her inner Attila, and it's working. Lots of voters don't seem to mind, and in fact I believe they curiously relish this gloves-are-off battle. Everyone loves a real show. Barack may be the post-millennial, post-modern candidate of ideas, but Jerry Bruckheimer lives in a bigger house than Wes Anderson. Hillary may inhabit some distressing archetypes: the scolding mother, the mirthless nag, the calculating hack, the heartless opportunist. But she's winning over a lot of voters who were once believed to be in a state of terminal loathing. Who would never willingly venture into her den, because you can't put your feet on the coffee table, and you can only watch the game if you've seen your C-Span.
Bill Clinton made all this possible. Virtually no one credited his political skills at the time, but what Hillary Clinton and Harold Ickes are attempting to sell to the superdelegates is the same fairy tale story that her husband floated out into the super-charged, Super Tuesday ether.
The campaign has entered a new narrative. She created it. She knows it. She's driving it. Indiana is next. Obama needs to show that he can take her down in the most elegant form of hand-to-hand political combat we've seen since Roosevelt and Kennedy. It's what the superdelegates want to see and hear, because they know that's what it's going to take to win in November.
Obama needs to go back to the very language that worked so well against him. He needs to return to the fairy tale language, but re-angle it in the current context. He needs to say "Bill Clinton called my campaign a fairy tale, and now, Hillary Clinton is telling you fairy tales about me. That I support racist and divisive views. That I hang out with radicals who want to overthrow the United States. That I'm an elitist - when I've known and lived personal struggles that she's only seen from the inside of a limousine. She plays with words to create fear, carefully saying that 'as far as she knows' I'm not a Muslim. Give me a break...what kind of weasel statement is that? And she's spreading the myth that I can't win against John McCain. She's inventing a Barack Obama that doesn't exist because she's holding on by her fingernails and that's the only way she can stay in the game."
And Barack needs to send out his surrogates to talk about the ways in which Hillary is appealing to our "worst instincts' or "worst demons"; nice echo of Lincoln's "better angels. Or some other language that is proxy for the race card. Bill and Hillary have been progressive forces for most of their lives, but now their joint "stop-at-nothing ethic is turning them into the same kind of sleaze as Karl Rove and the Republican attack machine. Rock her and Bill back. Not just because it is politically expedient. But because they deserve it.
Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to the Pennsylvania Primary results
*Anything BUT an absolute Obama majority will merely cause Hillary to move the goalposts again and recommence announcing that Obama just can't close the deal. It's closed.
The people who are moved by intelligent, thoughtful discourse, the people who want something better than gutter politics--and politicians--are already aboard !
Find some down and dirty snakes like Carville, send them out as "unaffiliated" surrogates and start the attack. There is more to be truthfully argued against Hillary and Bill Clinton than imaginable. Start telling the unvarnished truth about them with no holds barred.
This is simple schoolyard bully strategy. No one ever stopped a bully by appealing to logic or reason.
Fight fire with fire.
Good that your Parents did NOT wash your mouth out with good old ivory soap for lying... You would be a bubble machine...
Document that "Fairy Tale" had anything to do with Race... The comment, well documented, was Barack's "Fairy Tale" about "always being against the War"...
As to Jesse Jackson, again nothing about Race... That was about winning the State and losing the Nomination...
More MSM and Huff Post LIES and spin... Is Barack so weak he has to Play the Race Card? And his supporters do also?
Grace2008..... (Quote) "WHAT IS WRONG WITH WHITE WORKING-CLASS AMERICA? "
WHITE? So you make your choice by Race? You too, play to Race and Color? Someone who thinks and believes different than you is "WRONG"... What arrogance! You know all and WHITE WORKING-CLASS AMERICA IS WRONG ? Such arrogance!
( Quote ) "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for White fear and bigotry." Because you say so? That is your Belief... Do you get that? Fear comes in Race and Color now?
Do you think a 90% Vote of people with black skin for a "Black" Candidate is Racial? Is it OK for white skinned people to Vote by Race ( or skin color ) also?
"All this presents a problem for Barack Obama because he is a worthy man who recoils from sh*t. The Clintons bathe in sh*t. It sustains them. And it sustains their hack mouthpieces. Witness Fast Eddie Rendell basically saying on Meet The Press that the Clinton campaign, unlike Obama's, never claimed to be honest. Watch in Indiana as Evan Bayh puts reality through a fun house mirror of vice presidential ambition. Name one officeholder supporting Obama who is even one tenth as vile ... To witness that quasi-human drone, to hear lie after lie after lie, all the while the head nodding up and down, up and down, is to truly know what faces Obama. He is Richard Benjamin in Westworld, fleeing the remorseless robot Yul Brynner. Clintonism is nothing if not remorseless. Let us hope, for the country's sake, Obama can find a way to obliterate it."
Nuff said.
Clinton and Obama had split the black vote basically 50/50 before S.C. It wasn't until after their tactics in that state, that blacks flocked to Obama.
If Hillary is able to gain enough superdelegate support to win the nomination, how does she ever expect Black Americans to support her? How can we forgive her if she wouldn't apologize?
I think its too late now...
You also point out the most fundamental flaw in Clinton's destructive strategy. Even if Clinton slimes her way to the nomination, African-American voters are highly unlikely to forgive her. White folks might not be willing to acknowledge that her tactics are racist, but black folks aren't fooled. And without strong African-American support, a candidate who is viewed as negatively as Clinton is doomed, even in the "big states" that she claims she'll be so good at carrying. In the end, Hillary knows she'll probably lose the nomination this year, so her strategy is to destroy the Democratic Party's chances of winning the White House in the fall. Then she'll run again in 2012.
All I can say is, I'm a lifelong Democrat, and Hillary's racism has cost her my support.
Everyone close to Mr. Obama needs to tell him this and then tell him to take it to the bank!!!
The 1-2-3 punch... the "fairy tales" thing and the "just words" thing and the "plagiarism" must have hurt. But the source of courage and wisdom that inspired the Race Speech was not.
Fairy tales and myths are powerful tools used by great orators. Plain and simple... Mr. Obama needs to turn up the big speeches... and tell the story.
Mr. Hanft you've made my day with your article.
A subtle brand of rope-a-dope - voters have become so disgusted by Clinton's negativity and ready for the process to end and aware of mathematical impossibilities - that stepping on the campaign's neck will be called a fair response perhaps minimizing the number of her supporters that reject him. With the epic litany of Clinton nasties and gelling conventional wisdom that she's responsible for the campaign's negativity (see NYT editorial and negatives), he'll wield that Ali-esque grace you describe - much different than a Tyson move.
He's shown himself to be the properly restrained gentleman - not the angry black man the Clintons were trying to bait him into being. When she's 'gently' shoved from the ring, it'll be seen as a measured response. We saw this tactical change at the end of the PA primary w/ sharper return jabs and seismic waves of money.
Just like his stellarly-run campaign predicted near exactly all wins and losses (see Russert's inside campaign notes - but for one), they anticipated the depth of their opponent's negativity potential and had this strategy . They only failed to predict how poorly run the Clinton campaign would be -- and also how transparent their ugliness and thereby how quickly they'd be called on it.
I used to hold this man in very high esteem, more so for his strong intellect and command
of public policy, notwithstanding his personal foibles and predilections. He has sadly,
become a very pathetic figure.
Is he a racist? NO. Is he above using race to advance his personal agenda? NO. With each passing week, he intones some incredulous, profane, pronouncement and attempts to deflect and project his words away from himself, then skulks, away like some school boy
who has just pulled the fire alarm, and fecklessly proclaims, "what, it wasn't me."
Were it not for my previous affection for this man, I would say his mental state mirrors someone suffering from advance stages of dementia of the mind of a prolific nihilistic cabalist. His actions
are otherwise inexplicable. But his favorite student, Hill, has learned her lessons well. She possesses some of the characteristics of Desdemona; strong, bright, progressive, but also flawed. ”the weakness in her character emerges, for she cannot see the monster that her husband is becoming."
Speaking of Monsters, all of the feigned indignation of an Obama advisor's characterization of Hill as monster, and the demands which followed, for Obama to renounce, reject and expel a brilliant and utterly decent woman; in the form of one Samantha Powers may have been impolitic, but we can assuredly agree, the characterization to be frightfully close to the truth.
Despite her desire to be wish to be viewed as a sort of the Energizer Bunny,
her demeanor, deportment, and conduct is more likened to Freddie Krueger;
and the Horror of the Nightmare on All Streets continues. Even as we cover our
eyes with our hands, peering through the gaps of our shaking fingers, waiting
for the scary part to end, we remain unnerved by the prospects of the "coming
soon sequel", from which we can not grab our popcorn and walk out. The
screaming continues.
Further, do you ever stop and consider how hateful and pathetically small-minded you sound when you post inflammatory statements like "For Hillary Clinton, coldness is life," and "She has re-connected with her inner Attila, and it's working"? You're the one who's pandering to people's worst fears and instincts by using that sort of language, not Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Shame on you. What kind of Democrat are you, that you would so casually demonize two eminently decent people who have heretofore been friends of the progressive / liberal movement, simply because you've lost all perspective in your lust for your candidate to prevail? You're the vicious stereotype of a liberal -- those judgmental, snobbish sorts who actually despise those persons and causes they claim to support, and who almost always send our progressive movement into extended remissions whenever they characterize in such disparaging personal terms those persons with whom they disagree.
We knew what mr. Hanft means when he says Hillary has connected with her inner Attila. You obviously don't. For you to say that Hill andBill are two eminently decent people doesn't hold true and it never has. In fact it is such a pathetic comment on your part, that I almost feel sorry for you and I ask myself, how can anyone be so ignorant? But then I'm sure that people have said the same about me from time to time---and they were usually right.
Many of us Obama supporters were originally Clinton supporters; once we realized that the Clintons were systematically manipulating the tired and huddled masses, and once we realized the Clintons had crossed over to the dark said, we said, 'enough is enough'.
Michelle and Barack Obama are role models for young people. Bill and Hillary are not. Do your homework and spend time with people who are smarter than you. You might learn something.