[mukto-mona] Hillary Clinton's Pyrrhic victory in Pennsylvania

Hillary Clinton's Pyrrhic victory in Pennsylvania

 

A.H. Jaffor Ullah

 

Technically, the primaries for the Democratic Party will not be over before June 3, 2008 but for all practical purposes it will end when Pennsylvanians would cast their votes on April 22, 2008.  The demographics of this state with diverse urban and rural electorates won't allow either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama to have a lopsided victory. 

 

Quite a few political pundits in America now agree that the contest will be a tight one and whoever wins the election would have a razor-thin margin of victory.  This means that the margin of difference in pledged delegates will hardly change between Obama and Clinton.  The Obama campaign will have the bragging rights to say that thus far they have won in popularity contest, pledged delegates, and number of states.  This however cannot be said of super delegates who indeed will decide the nomination when Democrats meet in Denver, Colorado, sometime in August 2008 to nominate their candidate for November 4, 2008 presidential election.

 

There are altogether 842 super delegates of them about 354 are still uncommitted.  Among 488 or so committed super delegates, Senator Clinton has the edge but by only 26.  Therefore, all eyes are on the uncommitted super delegates.  In the last week about 8 super delegates have expressed their desire to endorse the candidacy of Senator Obama.  Prominent among them were Senator Sam Nunn who is a veteran foreign policy and Pentagon expert and Dr. Robert Reich, the 22nd Secretary of labor under the Clinton Administration.  A day before the Pennsylvania primary an AFP report from Jerusalem had indicated that the 39th American President, Jimmy Carter, is leaning towards Obama camp. We are yet to see any movement lately for nationally reputable super delegate to move towards Clinton's side.  This hardly bodes well for her candidacy. 

 

In this regard, the worst news to hit America came a day before Pennsylvanians would go to the polling stations.  In Jerusalem Mr. Carter, who is wrapping up a Middle East tour in which he drew criticism from both Washington and Israel for meeting with leaders of Islamist Hamas movement, said, "As a super delegate, I think I ought to stay as flexible as I can, but I obviously observe what goes on around me. My little town of Plains voted for Obama, and as you know my state of Georgia voted for Obama, and all of my children, all of my grandchildren and all of their spouses are for Obama... That's as far as I've gone." Carter is astute enough to say that he will go public with his decision to support either Obama or Clinton only after June 2, 2008 when all the primaries will conclude.  But he gave enough indication through his recent talk to reporters on which side his support rests.

 

It is expected that after the Pennsylvania primaries many of the undecided super delegates will gravitate towards Obama.  The reasons are the following: Obama is expected to win big in North Carolina where primaries will be held on Tuesday, May 6 2008.  Also, the Illinois senator is supposed to win the primaries in Indiana, which is next door to Obama's home state, on the same day.  Then, there will primaries in West Virginia a week later on May 13, 2008 and two primaries in the states of Kentucky and Oregon a week after West Virginians cast their vote.  On June 1, 2008 the Puerto Ricans would cast their votes in the primaries and two days later on June 3, 2008 when Montana and South Dakotans made their selection would the primary seasons be over for Democrats.  In the previous years the primaries normally do not drag this far.  On Super Tuesday (the first Tuesday in February) whoever gains the most pledged delegates, gets the momentum and ends up being the candidate of choice.  But in this year the Democratic Party came up with a list of fine and accomplished candidates.  From the list of 4 possible candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson), voters in subsequent primaries get to choose between Obama and Clinton.  After the Super Tuesday's vote Obama had a string of victories in 10 or so states and that put a damper on Clinton campaign.

 

The other factor to be considered is the flow of money into the Obama and Clinton campaign.  At one point after Super Tuesday the Clinton campaign had the money squeeze when Hillary opened her purse to loan 5 million dollars to her campaign to keep it afloat.  However, the case was a complete reversal in Obama campaign since it was awash with money in March and April.  It is to be noted here that Obama was receiving donations from common and ordinary electorates; however, donations for Clinton were coming from a select few who opened their wallets to pay the maximum.  Therefore, in time of the need those diehard Clintonites could not donate anymore money due to ceiling placed by the election rule.  In April 2008 while Obama campaign was flushed with cash (over 50 million dollars), Clinton only had about 12 millions.  Therefore, Senator Clinton had to make do with one-fourth the sum her rival had.  The Obama campaign because of their cash position was able to run more TV Ads in various cities and towns allover Pennsylvania to narrow the 20% gap in poll numbers to only 3-5% 3 days before April 22 primaries.  If by the stroke of a genius Obama wins the state by a razor thin margin, all the credit should go to almighty dollars, which his campaign had in its war chest!  The latest poll, however, indicates that Senator Clinton may come out victorious in Pennsylvania even though she might have a Pyrrhic victory in this populous state.

 

The Clinton campaign's decision to go ballistic on Obama to stop his momentum in Pennsylvania had certainly backfired.  Polls taken nationally by various reputable polling agencies in mid April 2008 had indicated that Hillary Clinton's scathing attack on Obama had earned her a bad reputation.  Over 58% Americans now think that she portrays a negative image and many voters do not trust her anymore.  Her campaign had thrown the proverbial kitchen sink to Obama hoping that something negative will stick to her opponent and that will surely tarnish his image and bring him down.  But that hardly happened.  The mean-spiritedness in Hillary Clinton thus came into foray and American electorates had sensed that and they did not like the look of it.

 

Senator Clinton had this idea in her head that she is the superior and well-liked candidate among the Democratic contenders for the White House.  But the ground realities were very different.  The lynchpin of her candidacy was her experiences in Washington.  Senator Obama however preached a very different sermon.  He canvassed for the hope for a change in the way politics are being done in nation's capital.  His ardor for bi-partisanship and loathing for lobbyists influencing public policies in the Congress had struck a chord among electorates.  Senator Clinton and her campaign officials are yet to fathom out the power of that message emanating from Obama campaign.  Thus, all the negativities surrounding Obama's "association" with African American preacher Reverend Jeremiah Wright and 1960s revolutionary activists, Professor William Ayers, hardly made any dent in the senator's growing popularity.

 

When everything is said and done in the aftermath of June 3 primaries, Hillary Clinton will seat with her husband cum adviser, Bill Clinton, and she will passionately ask her dear spouse what went terribly so wrong with her candidacy.  The blame game will start in earnest in her home and in the end Hillary Clinton will have to bear the brunt of the accusation that she started a very vicious and nasty fight to assert her "entitlement" to become the nominee of her party.

 

There are some lessons to be learnt from Hillary Clinton's exercise in futility.  Never become so ambitious, bold, and never underestimate the power of one's opponent.  Perhaps the Clintons still live vicariously in their glory days of 1990s.  That world does not exist anymore.  With the agony of Iraq War, a looming danger of deep recession, and the long-term impact of globalization, the American electorates are not ready to accept Hillary Clinton's candidacy.  The sooner Clintons accept this harsh reality, the better it would be for them and their loyalists.  In the meantime, the divided and injured Democratic Party needs time to heal the chasm and get ready to fight the election against Senator McCain who did splendidly to promote his candidacy finding his Democratic challengers engaged in a bitter internecine fight.  Come November, his Democratic challenger and a united Democratic Party will give him a fight never seen before in recent presidential elections.  All the geniuses of Karl Roves will not be able to mar the character of McCain's challenger.  The beacon of hope and change is a mighty one and to slay it will be a Herculean job for which McCain is ill-prepared, to say the least.
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A.H. Jaffor Ullah, a researcher and columnist, writes from New Orleans, USA            

 

      

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