New Campaign Thoughts

First of all, sorry for having not updated the blog recently. I had an unfortunate incident with my laptop and had to order a new one, temporarily cutting me off from the world. I am also just getting over a nasty case of the flu which put me out of commission for the past 5 or so days.

Sitting on the couch yesterday drinking orange juice and sucking on cough drops, I got no shortage of election coverage to watch and piece together. After seeing the results come in, a few questions came to mind. Are HRC's negative attacks finally working (as disgusting and inaccurate as they may be)? What do the results say about the direction of the race? Does HRC really now had the momentum, as she claims? To some degree, there are no definitive answers to these questions, but I'll take a crack at finding them

Overall, I don't see last night as nearly as big of a victory as the HRC campaign proclaimed it. Granted, she won three out of the four primaries in play. However, when this all pans out, she will be behind in the delegate count by about the same as she was prior to March 4th. And in a race that is this close, this is what matters. Not to mention the fact that the Obama campaign predicted that they would lose the states they did (in addition to their strikingly accurate predictions throughout the rest of the campaign). Also, there is no denying that, as has been the case in dozens of other states, HRC had a huge early lead in the Texas and Ohio polls and was forced to hold on in the last few weeks as Obama closed the gaps. So what do the results say about the race? Quite simply, not much. HRC held serve in the states she was supposed to do well in, yet she still remains behind in the delegate count. After the WI primary I said that HRC had to win big on March 4th to have a chance. I stand by that prediction, and I don't believe she did what she had to in order to have a realistic chance to pull ahead of Obama.

One thing that last night did tell us is that HRC, for better or worse, will not go down without scratching and clawing for every vote. While I certainly admire her drive and persistance, at some point she has to stop being such a typical Clinton and see the picture beyond her own candidacy. What I mean by this is I worry that because her incredibly high personal ambtion (as well as Bill's), she won't see the damaging effect that going to the DNC Convention without a nominee could have. Her unwillingness to accept defeat (which is often a good characteristic) will cause the party to fracture, and the progressive movement as a whole will suffer in November.

My last point is that in the coming weeks I hope that the candidates don't continue to beat the hell out of each other. Now who knows, maybe HRC will remember how "honored" she is to be in this race and stop with the bipolar campaign strategy that came after the Texas debate. Or perhaps someone will explain to her pitbull Communications Director, Howard Wolfson, that although her viscious attack strategy may prove to be useful in the short run, eventually people will catch on and realize the mud she has been throwing has no substance to it. Either way, I really hope the weeks and months leading up to the DNC Convention don't provide more of what we've seen in the past few weeks.