Let's face it: Hillary Clinton needs help. She is trailing in
the delegate count, is on the receiving side of atrocious media
coverage, and faces a rock star opponent who seems to have captured
the momentum.
Many conservatives share a common cause with her: slowing down
or stopping Barack Obama. Yes, he has considerable weaknesses which
John McCain will be able to exploit, but the prospect of losing
Clinton (with all of her baggage) as the potential opponent in the
general election is making conservatives queasy. She is not used to
taking advice from vast right-wing conspirators, but, frankly, her
own side has been doing a lousy job.
Her new message needs to be "Yes, you can DO WHAT?" She
has timidly suggested Barack Obama is more sizzle than steak, but
this should be the focus of her counteroffensive. His great
weakness, particularly in the eyes of working class Democrats, is
that his campaign is far more about him and his charismatic style
of politics than about any policy.
She can make this point resonate with Democrats who are not as
entranced with rhetoric and style as the elites in the media.
Democrats who are dreamers (e.g. Eugene McCarthy and George
McGovern) tend to lose elections while Democrats who are doers
(e.g. Harry Truman and Bill Clinton) get elected and may even get
something done. Put differently, her best pitch is "Yes, I
can; He can't."
Senator Clinton also needs to be clear on foreign policy: John
McCain will paint Obama as a lefty dove, unaware of the dangers
America faces and unfit to go toe to toe with the world's
dictators. She can credibly say that McCain won't be able to tag
her as the one willing to have tea with the despots. Democrats are
tired of being labeled as weak on national security, so why give
the Republicans an inviting target?
Specifically, she needs to talk about the advisors who surround
Obama. There is Zbigniew Brzezinski who visits Bashar Assad and
issues a statement assuring the world that Syria shares an interest
in regional stability. Then there is Samantha Power, Harvard
professor and journalist, who contends that the real problem in the
Middle East is our excessive devotion to Israel. Her solution is
for the U.S. to invest billions in the Palestinian state complete
with a "mammoth protection force," presumably to guard them from
Israeli anti-terrorist forces.
Clinton's message should be: He is dangerously naive and
surrounds himself with flaky advisors, facts which McCain would
quickly exploit.
Finally, she needs to bat down two media story lines: he is more
electable and the race is over. The only evidence that Obama would
do better against McCain is current polling, six months in advance
of the general election and taken without the benefit of a full
exploration of Obama's record and views.
If you look at actual voting in relevant states, she has won
narrowly in New Mexico and solidly in New Hampshire which are key
swing states in the general election. She is running strong in
the key state of Ohio. So if the question is who can get
to 270 electoral votes, she is arguably in the stronger
position.
As for the race being "over," the delegate math is indisputable.
Neither candidate will get to 2025 votes by June. So all the talk
of an Obama coronation only proves her point: he has no idea what a
real political dog fight is all about. And Michigan and Florida?
Democrats believe every vote should count, so any victory premised
on excluding millions of voters is illegitimate and
unsustainable.
Well, that is a start. It may not be possible to make Clinton
any more likeable, or hide her husband from public view, or make
her own resume more impressive than it is. Nevertheless, she could
do worse than to take some of this advice. She certainly has so
far.
topics:
Foreign Policy, John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Israel, NATO
