Debate #8: Blood On The Floor
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | 10:14 PM
The debate has concluded and there is blood on the mat. Hillary Clinton opened up some cuts and made her case for the nomination with the tough determination she knew she would have to display in what many are calling her last chance. Clinton has always performed better under pressure than as the front-runner. One spin is that this has now served to vet Senator Obama, in other words, if he can take Clinton's blows then he can certainly handle the GOP. She lost on one major point, being forced to state that she did think Obama could beat McCain (though not as easily as she could). Obama has shown an uncanny ability to survive attacks so these wounds may heal by North Carolina and Indiana but his labored answers tonight are not going to help him in Pennsylvania. Clinton is in her element here. The hometown crowd was cheering her on. She had the premonition that she would be like Philly's famed Rocky some weeks ago. The amazing feat Clinton will have to pull to stay in this race now and not upset the party loyals is to get in enough blows to debilitate but not gravely injure Obama.
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"The amazing feat Clinton will have to pull to stay in this race now and not upset the party loyals is to get in enough blows to debilitate but not gravely injure Obama."
to what end? by most accounts, there is no way clinton can beat obama in the numbers game (total votes, states won, and pledged delegates). taking the nomination to the convention and letting the superdelegates decide is, in my opinion, a foolish move. if clinton is going all out, then why not 'gravely injure' obama? does she plan to ask him to accept the vice presidency were she to win the nomination? there seems to be no indication of that. it is simply unconceivable to me that the Republicans, who are coming off one of the most controversial presidencies in recent memories, can rally behind a nominee and the Democrats are unable to get their house in order.
To your point, it's almost impossible to conceive of Clinton wresting the nomination from Obama... almost. Stranger things have happened, as past conventions demonstrate http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/conventions/democratic/features/convention.history/index.html. Even if she managed a popular vote lead and/or won over more superdelegates, it would fracture the party and the 2008 convention could end up resembling 1980 and 1972. Barring a catastrophic event taking her opponent out of the race, she cannot win without collateral damage to the party. I think the Clinton campaign really believed the Rev. Wright issue would be Obama's downfall and it might have been for a lesser statesman. She cannot afford to gravely injure the darling of her own party- it would cost her too much. She has to leave herself enough wiggle room to be able to endorse him and preserve her future in the party. She can only make the case that he's not ready yet or hope for a major scandal. The GOP came together eventually to rally around McCain. It's amazing to see how effective Romney is in his role as economic surrogate for his recent nemesis.