By Steve Thomas
Observer Nevis Editor
To win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton needed to do two things Tuesday: Win decisively in Indiana and come very, very close to winning in North Carolina. That kind of performance would have given her argument about her electability some traction, at least in some corners.
That didn’t happen. In fact, what did happen was that Barack Obama did what Clinton needed to do: He got within two points of winning in Indiana and trounced her in North Carolina by 16 points. His performance re-energized a campaign that had been lagging in recent weeks and more importantly, it increased his lead in the all-important delegate count in the race for the nomination.
How big were these results?
Tim Russert of NBC News, one of the top political observers and commentators in the country, said this Tuesday night on MSNBC:
“We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it. Those closest to her will give her a hardheaded analysis, and if they lay it all out, they’ll say: ‘What is the rationale? What do we say to the undeclared superdelegates tomorrow? Why do we tell them you’re staying in the race?’ And tonight, there’s no good answer for that.”
The answer is really about getting inside the head of Hillary Rodham Clinton. A year ago, she was the presumed nominee and many people felt the Republicans were in such bad shape that the presidency would be hers. Now, she’s running behind a man who has been on the national stage for a much shorter period than her, a man she claims lacks the experience to be president and, perhaps most galling of all, is on he verge of denying Clinton her chance to pick up where Bill Clinton left off.
For all of her ambition, for all of her work, Hillary Clinton might go down as someone who tried hard, but failed – and failing is not part of the Clinton handbook.
Her husband is the most famous adulterer in history. However, when she started on her own in politics, Bill Clinton was the most popular Democrat in the country by an overwhelming margin. Divorcing him would have cost her a great deal of support. So her ambition won that round and has kept winning every other round, even causing her to constantly shift ground during a campaign where voters are asking for straight answers.
And if you are a Democrat, there is something frightening about her determination to stay in the race. Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times puts it this way:
“After the Tuesday primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton now has maybe a 2 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But if she pursues her losing battle, she has perhaps a 20 percent chance of costing the Democrats the presidency in the fall.
So should she soldier on if continued campaigning is 10 times more likely to benefit John McCain than herself? . . .Mrs. Clinton does have a plausible route to winning the election for Mr. McCain. The most terrifying numbers for Democrats in Tuesday’s exit polls should be those showing how many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters are planning to vote for Mr. McCain in November. In Indiana, only 49 percent of Clinton voters said they would cast votes for Mr. Obama in November if he were the nominee; in North Carolina, the figure was 47 percent. In both states, a majority of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters said that they would either vote for Mr. McCain or stay home.”
Of course, should Obama lose and McCain win, Clinton would be in a position to run again in 2012.
Is her ambition so great that she would wreck her own party to get another legitimate shot at the presidency?
If it is, she is too awful a person to ever be given the most powerful office in the world.
It’s time for Hillary to tell Hillary: Turn out the lights, your party’s over.
