Hillary's Last Stand (The Independent - London, England)

[Apollo11]

This feature article was filed before last night's debate in Cleveland.

THE INDEPENDENT - London, England - Feb 27, 2008

Hillary's last stand: The battle she can't afford to lose

Her back's against the wall – and the contest just got dirty. After 11 straight defeats, and amid signs of panic in her campaign, the former First Lady is pulling out all the stops to stay in the race for the White House. David Usborne reports from Ohio

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It was not meant to play out like this. For ever – really since the day husband Bill left the White House in early 2001 – Hillary Clinton has considered the taking of the 2008 Democratic nomination her birthright. She had the name recognition, the big donors to ensure a reliable flow of cash, and the party grandees were all behind her. When her field of rivals came into view early last year, her confidence grew even greater. John Edwards would put up a fight. As for that upstart Obama, she would swiftly put him away.

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Whether or not the media has been unfair to her, Hillary Clinton must also know that her campaign has made some baffling mistakes. It is not that she herself is a bad candidate. Even many of her detractors will admit she has been better on the stump than they might have expected. She is great in debates. Her main shortcoming is really beyond her control. That is, she simply doesn't have that connective quality that both Bill used to have and Barack can also draw upon. Voters can't quite feel her.

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Now the Clinton campaign faces perhaps the most crucial dilemma of all. The rush to negativity that we have seen in recent days – as Charles Gibson so pithily reminded television viewers – is widely seen as highly risky. As Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist, told The New York Times: "There's a general rule in politics: a legitimate distinction which could be effective when drawn early in the campaign often backfires and could seem desperate when it happens in the final hours of a campaign."

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This new tone also reminds Raphe Sonenshein, a political scientist at California State University, of the predicament of Bush the elder, 16 years ago. "Front-runners who fully expect to win... often get really nasty when they lose," he said. "I think the Clinton team is getting into that zone, mixing frustrated entitlement with bafflement at their apparent fate. I remember George Bush the elder marvelling that he was losing to this inexperienced 'kid' from Arkansas in 1992. It really hurts."

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You can read more here:
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillarys-last-stand-the-battle-she-cant-afford-to-lose-787799.html