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Hillary Comes AliveThe conventional wisdom says Clinton is doomed. Don't believe it.

By John Dickerson
Posted Monday, Feb. 11, 2008, at 7:23 PM ET
Hillary Clinton. Click image to expand.

The best news for Hillary Clinton's campaign may be that it's headed over a cliff. In a campaign season where conventional wisdom has been so wrong so often, she can take heart that the current view among the political class is that Obama is marching unstoppably toward the nomination.

Obama has won the last five contests by wide margins and looks on course to win all three primaries on Tuesday. The Clinton campaign predicted this would be a good period for Obama and that they could take this in stride, but their nonchalance crumbled when Clinton replaced her campaign manager this week. (We're winning; time to fire the quarterback!) Obama is also ahead of Clinton for the first time in a national poll and outperforms Clinton in head-to-head matchups with likely opponent John McCain. Obama has more money, can raise it easily, and still draws those blockbuster crowds. (He should travel with his own overflow room since they are so often required at the venues he uses.)

But all is not lost for those who support Hillary Clinton. Here are a few reasons to keep hope alive (why let Obama own that word?):

1. Clinton has a floor: Despite Obama's successes, he has been unable to make significant inroads with key voting blocs. Women, Latinos, and less-prosperous voters all have continued to support Clinton. Obama is the candidate who is supposed to have the crazed supporters, but when the Washington Post recently asked Democratic voters how adamantly they supported their candidate, it was Clinton whose troops were more committed.

These are the groups that helped sustain Clinton in big states on Super Tuesday after Obama won in Iowa and South Carolina. Obama has had a few scattered wins among them (leading with women in Iowa and Maine), but he has not had great success reaching into these still-for-Clinton groups.

Clinton's support among these key demographics also provides her with her electability argument as she tries to make the case that Obama is a modern-day George McGovern—the pet rock of the party's wealthy liberal wing. "How can we have a nominee who can't win the votes of working-class people?" says one Clinton strategist. It's a good question.

Clinton is banking on her loyal constituencies for her comeback day on March 4, where she hopes working-class whites in Ohio and Latinos in Texas will give her victories. An early test of whether blue collar voters are holding for Clinton might come in pockets of Wisconsin, which votes next week. The college towns will go for Obama, but much of the state resembles Ohio. These areas should back Clinton. If not, she's in trouble.

2. Front-Runner Blues: Who would want to be the front-runner in this race? Every time someone is thus anointed, he or she falters. This isn't just superstition. There are specific pressures that come with being at the front of the field. Buyer's remorse can set in. As more Democrats look at Obama in nominee focus, they might start to worry over his general election liabilities. He may have experience, but he's never really been tested. (These unresolved qualms may explain why voters who make up their mind on Election Day go with Clinton).

The press might start pushing harder on Obama, too. The stories that weren't followed up on during the galloping horse race stage of the early primaries might get a second look. Plus, there are more reporters covering fewer candidates, and perhaps the press will feel compelled to extensively vet a candidate who looks like he's on his way to the nomination.

3. Cynics for Clinton: The Democratic nomination may come down to the 796 superdelegates. How these Democratic elected officials and party insiders will vote is a mystery. They could back a candidate based on their own independent judgment; they could opt to follow the will of the voters; they could split on that question. If Obama scores some upsets in states he's not supposed to win, he may be able to convince a big chunk of superdelegates that he's the candidate, and that'll be the end of it. But if the race remains close, the backroom battle seems to favor the Clintons. They have more ties to these party insiders, and they know how to play the game (that's in Part 1 of the arguments Obama is making against them). Obama can stir a crowd of 20,000, but it's the Clinton team that can make the insider case. For example, when Clinton talks about being able to fight the Republican attack machine, party insiders who have seen the combat up close may be apt to buy the argument that despite Obama's inspiring language, only the Clintons understand what's necessary to combat the GOP.

In a race where so much that seemed certain has not been, any struggling candidate can find a reason to persevere, especially perhaps a candidate who was once seen as inevitable. Of course the race's switchbacks have now become such a predictable part of conventional wisdom that it may be time now for the undulations to stop and for momentum to start playing a role again. In that case, Clinton is doomed.

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Hillary has actually run a very mild campaign against Obama. She has really fought him in an almost hands off way.

Remember Mondale and how he eviscerated Gary Hart with his "Where's the Beef" campaign? Nothing like that is happening in this campaign, but it could and it probably should. Obama needs to be challenged hard on the issues before the Republicans get a crack at him.

If Obama's supporters are going to be mainly blacks and well off whites, then he's vulnerable to a social issues campaign in the fall. McCain, if he's the nominee, could try to peel off working class Democrats by exploiting class tensions among the Democrats. He could run on 'hiphop' and affirmative action. He could run against 'green' issues as well, another play for the working class. Yet another issue could be 'comparative worth,' an issue that both Obama and Clinton have unfortunately endorsed.

2008 could turn out to be a replay of 1988, with Obama playing Dukakis and McCain Bush the First. In that year, everyone was tired of Reagan and the Republicans. Everyone wanted 'change' in that year as well. And like Obama, Dukakis didn't want to run on basic bread and butter Democratic issues but instead wanted to make the election all about 'competence.' But Bush ran on every nasty social issue in the book and won in the end.

--nerdnam

(To reply, click here.)

Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and California are the large states that she won by large margins. The margins just weren't large enough. Obama won many more smaller states by larger margins. Clinton could win Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas by 15 points, but that would probably cut Oboma's lead by half. It isn't that the states left over in February favor Obama it's that the res of the calender leans in his favor.

Hillary needed to win big on super Tuesday and by all accounts it was a tie. Now she is left with three stopgap states that are just not big enough to erase Barack's lead.

The key in a delegate race is margin of victory and that is where Obama is building his advantage.

Hillary will most likely make a strong push, but it is most likely too late for her to win the pledged delegate race.

Time to start sending Valentines to the Superdelegates!

--cridge

(To reply, click here.)

Why does Hillary still hold on so well with working-class voters? Is it a matter of differing policy? While the minutiae of their plans - minutiae commonly lost on people who don't seriously study politics - differs, their general ideas are similar.

Is it their views on Iraq? The general public is falling more and more against the occupation, and Obama is generally the more serious candidate about pulling out, so it's hard to see the war as the defining factor.

Is it the "experience vs. change" argument? Given the serious dislike for the current president and Congress, you'd think that this argument would favor the "change" side amongst the working class, unless Hillary has secretly been winning the idea war for change.

If I were to answer the question as to why Clinton is still winning among the working class, my answer would probably start with the words, "Name Recognition."

--dreamshade

(To reply, click here.)

(2/11)

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