from The Nation:
Good Night and Good LuckBy Eric Alterman
May 15, 2008
One of the oddest aspects of this extremely odd extended primary has been the entire press corps to indulge its fantasies of victory long after they lost any basis in reality. As one unnamed Clinton official admitted recently, "We lost this thing in February." Well, yeah. Politico's Jim VanderHei and Mike Allen pointed out in mid-April, "One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning." They cited a Clinton adviser putting her chances of success at 10 percent. Somehow, the punditocracy pretended not to notice.
Of course, it was possible, but hardly plausible, that some combination of events might throw the nomination Clinton's way. Sure, she might have won 70-plus percent of the remaining popular vote. Sure, the superdelegates might decide en masse to ignore the will of voters, insult the party's base among African-Americans and deny the nomination to its first black presidential candidate. Sure, party and elected officials might decide to reject the candidate who has proven able to rejuvenate the party by raising mountains of money on the Internet, appealing to independents and Republicans and exciting young people in a manner unseen since John Kennedy, in favor of one whose negative ratings considerably exceed her positives and who energizes the other side's base as no one else on earth... but, um, why?
The tendency toward faith-based analyses had many causes. Reporters relish conflict, however hypothetical, and fear drawing conclusions. The Clintons control a lot of purse strings. But it can hardly be a coincidence that the punditocracy swung behind the Clintons and against Obama just as her campaign began to rely on the same set of right-wing talking points that Republican presidential campaigns have employed against Democrats since 1968. Obama was too liberal. Obama was too effeminate. Obama was too elitist. Obama could not win the votes of "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans."
It was an amazing turn of events. Recall that in 2006, the late Jerry Falwell opined, "I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate. Because nothing will energize my
like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't." David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union, added, "Hillary is a left-wing Democrat, a collectivist, who is hostile to most of the values we conservatives hold dear." ........(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080602/alterman
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
