Analogically Challenged

This jaw-dropper from Hillary Clinton is covered at Politico and Daily Kos so I won’t add much, except to say that after this election year is all over I am going to compile a list of analogies politicians may not use until having a note signed by a history professor.

These include:
“So and so is an appeaser like Neville Chamberlain.”
“So and so is just like Hitler.”
“So and so is just like the struggle to free the slaves.”
“So and so is just like the passage of the 19th Amendment.”
“So and so is just like the passage of the Voting Rights Act.”

Add your own!

The New Number

Can Hillary carry on if she wins PA by ten points? Yes, that seems to be the consensus view, as nonsensical as it seems to me. But, what if she wins by 6 points?

Imagining Denver

This is just too good not to read–take a coffee break and enjoy!

Let’s have a contest to see who can write a better version of the Convention-in-our-Imaginations! Submit 500 words maximum into the comments–we’ll send the winning entry to New York Magazine.

Into the Mind of Michael Nutter

Interesting article in the Philly Inquirer this morning–noting the fact that Michael Nutter’s decision to endorse, and stand by, Hillary Clinton has made some waves.

The Race Chasm

Here’s a very interesting analysis of the Clinton/Obama “race chasm” by David Sirota. His is a pretty strong claim: nobody plays the race card like a Clinton–not sure I agree with that entirely, but it is another way to understand why she is staying in–and how close the Wright “controversy” may have come to fulfilling their plan.

Yes, It’s Ok to Dream

That’s the point of three new websites: I Dream of Barack, I Dream of Hillary, and I Dream of McCain.

The idea is simple, people are out there having dreams of the candidates, and maybe by reading these we will learn something about the collective unconscious.

My favorite thus far has got to be the woman who has a dream where she meets Barack, then her boss wants her to use the connection to get him to write a story about kids’ room storage solutions. Hilarious, weird.

The Audacity of Hopelessness

Ever since “Fightin’” Billy Kristol arrived on the NY Times op-ed page I have grown more and more likely to read David Brooks. Yes, I used to call him Babbling Brooks. Yes, I can occasionally be seen “Newman-from-Seinfeld” style walking around saying “Brooks!”

Nevertheless, Brooks nails it in today’s column. With Hillary’s campaign dead in the trenches she soldiers on, surrogates spewing half-truths and Ickesian logic all the way.

As Brooks says: “She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.”

The Spitzer Fall-Out

Will the Spitzer mess distract Hillary? There’s a good article in the Nation that looks at the angles.

Roadmap to the Nomination: Part 1

In a two part series I would like to offer my “expert” advice to both Democratic candidates on how they can secure the nomination. In a departure of my normal routine, I have avoided the comments, suggestions, “analysis” of our fine pundit colleagues following Super Tuesday II (Ohio, Texas, Vermont, Rhode Island). Instead, I am going to rely on some realistic strategery that both Obama and Clinton can employ to turn the tables.

First, the hard one…Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Situation: Today Wyoming is having their caucus and the incoming results appear to be a complete blowout for Obama (43% of Precincts reporting: 66% Obama, 33% Clinton).

Here’s the cold, hard truth. She can continue to plant doubt about Obama’s bona fides and run a negative campaign until Pennsylvania, which is what I expect her people to be telling her to do, or she can listen to me, the newsfox. The Nafta-gate story is way too complex for people to grasp as is the Rezko affiliation. Continuing to press these things will open the flood gates for Obama’s surrogate support organizations (Unions) to go negative on all of her unsubstantiated corruption charges (Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate). Nobody wins in this mess…except John McCain.

I’ve got a better idea. She should have been doing this from day one, which is to merge experience with hope. I think she tried it for a week, but didn’t like how it felt. Too wishy-washy. She believes voters are rational actors and she has the logical argument to win. Unfortunately for her, we have seen the success of Obama’s movement and the failure of John Kerry’s “it is illogical to vote for Bush” strategy. Obama is right in that you have to give people something to be for, not just against. She has captured the experience card, but she can really run that up by disclosing her daily calendar when she was First Lady. She can be even more detailed on exactly how she helped bring peace to Northern Ireland or what steps she took to assist the Children’s Health Insurance Program. By being even more specific on her record she will draw greater credence to her experience card and people will stop questioning her actual role as First Lady. What has she done in the Senate? Where exactly has she worked in a non-partisan fashion? Take this talking point away from Obama by avoiding platitudes and give people the wonk talk. 5 point bulleted lists are quick, clean, and seem authoritative. In sum, she should continue to run positive on her experience.

Second, and this is the part she really needs to work on, is to demonstrate why she wants to “work so hard.” The line that she sees so much disparity in the world is probably very genuine, but it doesn’t come off as strong as Obama’s. Her story is reactive and it makes her out to be the lone hero of the story–vote for me and I’ll give you what you need. He has a vision for where he wants to take the country. He has provided a set of values from which he builds his agenda. She has a laundry list of policies and we don’t know how she came to them or why they are important. Why is it important for every person in this country to have health insurance? Why must we end the war in Iraq? She’s gonna have to get idealistic and draw on some real, raw emotion here. And change the politics of the pronoun from “me” to “we.” The times when she has shown a softer edge it has worked in her favor (New Hampshire tears, Austin Debate). She needs to tell people what America can be and how it can get there–like the general she wants to be. The folks who are the most worried about their economic future really want to hear a specific plan for security, one that Obama has been unable to close the deal on. They like hope, but they are scared of going bankrupt–these are the blue collar citizens of Ohio, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.

The reality on the ground is that she cannot convince Obama supporters to jump ship. Suppressing the vote by going negative will only delay his ability to finally claim the nomination after taking away every metric of success (fundraising dollars, states won, pledged delegates, votes, and eventually superdelegates). So what can she do? Bring new people into the process like Obama has done. We saw huge numbers in Texas and it was not just Obama bringing them to the polls, she had a great deal of support that Democrats did not have in 2004. Scorched earth is not the roadmap to the nomination. Competing for the hope card and strengthening the experience card is her only hope. She must continue to maintain her positive position in the media, she cannot become a sore loser or appear desperate or remind people of the bunker-mentality 90’s Clintons.

If she can win Pennsylvania by 10+ points and attract more superdelegates then it may force the Democratic Party to redo the Michigan and Florida primaries. She will have a strong showing in Michigan and can compete in Florida. I argue this is her only hope to turn the tide before Denver.

Delegate math is a problem for her, but the only way to persuade undecided voters that she has a “moral claim” is to have a stronger message. It may be too late to retool her strategy, but there are few better options at this point after not getting the delegates she desperately needed in Ohio and Texas. In fact, she might have won those battles and may win others, but the war for delegates may already be lost.

Thoughts?

Give it another day . . .

I may be the only person in America still waiting for Clinton’s concession speech; but I think she might still deliver it–if she hasn’t by tomorrow afternoon then I’ll pack that theory away.

Hear me out. For several days before the March 4 voting Team HRC was already preparing a victory narrative that would have applied in every scenario–except for a big Obama win in all four states. They had lowered expectations for her successfully so that when she did win Ohio by ten points, and won the Texas primary (NOT the caucus), they hit the jackpot–front page stories, adoring media–her third big comeback!

Problem is, as Jonathan Alter and really anyone who can count can see, there is no realistic way she can beat Obama in the pledged delegate count between now and Puerto Rico. He will finish with more pledged delegates pure and simple. I suppose Obama could commit a titanic gaffe, but I doubt even that would give her the 60 point wins she needs in every remaining state to catch up.

Her only argument for the nomination then is to the superdelegates. If she somehow wins the overall popular vote, but loses in the delegate count, then she has an argument to make. But, again, I just don’t see how she can do that short of Obama just not campaigning at all from her onward.

So, back to my theory. The moneymen and superdelegates–these are the people TEAM HRC has been on the phone with non-stop since Tuesday. IF they are hearing negativity from too many quarters, then she may decide that rather than spend another three months and 100 million dollars, maybe it’s better to make the play now, either for a vice presidential slot, or simply for “party unity”–a move that might very well earn her the Senate Majority Leader spot.

I’m not convinced YET that this won’t happen . . . but time is ticking away on this theory.