Predicting A Train Wreck
Peggy Noonan, like me, is thinking that Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire victory was likely a combination of many different factors. It wasn't tears, sneers, media antics, odd turnout factors or comfort levels. It was a combination of that and much more. But that is setting up a serious collision that will likely be very tough on both Clinton and Obama in the long run. Because while Clinton may have "found her voice" in New Hampshire, she is still a Clinton – as the nutroots have suddenly figured out.
While everyone beats the hell out of the media, which is never wholly a bad idea, one should point out what everyone in politics and journalism knows: Hillary Clinton's own people knew she was going to lose. Major supporters and fund-raisers thought so and said so, for weeks, off the record.
And they were not heartbroken about it. I saw no tears. They were shocked, not saddened; shaken, not stirred. One told me the problem was the campaign had been so obsessed from day one with showing she was a commander in chief that they never thought to urge her to be a woman among women. She used her sex–the boys are picking on me!–but she never assumed her sex. Then, tired and with nothing to lose, she allowed her eyes to well. It was an arresting sight because it suggested the presence of a soul in the machine.
Let's look at the tears before they harden like resin into cliché. Quickly. She was taking questions in a diner, a woman asked how she does it each day, she started talking about how hard it is, and she got misty-eyed, her voice soft for once–conversational, not hectoring.
Exactly 100% of the people who saw it on the news and on YouTube had one reaction. It was to ask a question: Is that real or artifice? With the Clintons you always have to ask, which is the great Clinton problem…..
….And if we are to believe the new voice will be a softer, more conciliatory and more engaging one, how to square that with what is going on at HillaryIs44.com, a Web site that is for all intents and purposes a back door to her war room? There you will see that federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will soon "destroy" Barack Obama in a "scandal" involving an "indicted slumlord" who is Mr. Obama's "friend of 17 years" and with whom Mr. Obama has been involved in "shady deals."
This isn't a new voice, it is the old one, the one we know too well. The item was posted on Thursday, two days after Mrs. Clinton announced her new approach.
Between sobs she is going to try to destroy Mr. Obama. She is going to try to end him. She will pay a price for it–no one likes to see the end of a dream, no one likes a dream killer. But she will pay that price to win, and try to clean up the mess later.
The nutroots appear to be rapidly running toward Obama with Ned Lamont jumping to endorse him. They are, however, entering a target zone. Because Clinton will do her Clintonian best to personally destroy Obama. So we will be treated to a kinder, gentler public image of the ice queen, but her surrogates will become even more rabid in the coming days. Little "slips of the tongue" will become commonplace. Obama will have to respond in some way and his surrogates will also lash out at Clinton.
It is going to be ugly, it is going to be bitter. It is going to be a train wreck.
By Maggie, January 11, 2008 @ 8:46 am
“It is going to be ugly, it is going to be bitter. It is going to be a train wreck.”
Gaius -
Butter and salt … or caramel on your popcorn? I’m buyin’ …
By feeblemind, January 11, 2008 @ 8:49 am
We’ll see.
By Snooper, January 11, 2008 @ 8:59 am
“…she is still a Clinton…”
We at A Newt One have been wondering when she will resume her evilness.
By Mwalimu Daudi, January 11, 2008 @ 10:29 am
The Nutroots vs. Clinton Inc. I love kettle corn, Maggie! Lemmie join the party.
On the other hand…if Hilly the Hun wins Michigan and South Carolina, I would not be surprised to see the MSM yank the rug out from under Obama and do the dirty work of Clinton Inc. Obama’s political career would resemble Hobbes’s famous saying: nasty, brutish, and short.
No matter how much some members of the MSM may long for the fall of the House of Clinton and the rise of the “next JFK”, in the end they hate Republicans even more. A long, protracted fight that ends in the train wreck Gaius described works against the political interests of the MSM, which is why I don’t think it will be allowed to go on.
By feeblemind, January 11, 2008 @ 10:48 am
There is a post at Dinocrat titled ‘Lights, camera, action!’ where he argues the crying scene was likely contrived.
By martian, January 11, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
Maggie, make sure there’s plenty of butter on that popcorn and pass it around! I have to disagree with Mwalimu – I don’t think the MSM can stop it at this point. The train is barreling down the tracks with no hand at the wheel and the crash should be stupendous. It can only help the Republican side – especially when the MSM spends so much time focusing on the Dems that any negatives on the Republican side aren’t getting that big a play in the media.