Slate's Bizbox
politics: Who's winning, who's losing, and why.

Eating Her LunchObama sweeps the night by winning over Clinton's core supporters.

By John Dickerson
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008, at 9:46 PM ET
Barack Obama. Click image to expand.

Bill and Hillary Clinton often say that you can learn more about people from their failures than you can from their successes. If that's true, then boy, are we getting to know Hillary. Tonight she lost primaries in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, extending her losing streak to eight states. Overall, Barack Obama has won 23 of their 35 matchups. He now leads in the total delegate count for the first time since Iowa.

Clinton lost in Virginia and Maryland by more than 20 percentage points. Obama maintained his coalition of young voters, the well-educated, and African-Americans. More importantly, he added to it by eating into the durable coalition that has been Clinton's bulwark against Obama's momentum. Obama won among all income groups, including the lower-income voters he's had trouble attracting even in states he won. The only voting bloc Clinton held onto was white women.

When the bad news was announced, Clinton was in Texas trying to change the story. Never mind these losses, her aides say: Focus on the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries and the April 22 Pennsylvania one. The Clinton team's argument has narrowed to this: Obama cannot win in big primary states where large African-American populations don't dominate the electorate.

The puzzling thing, given this claim, is that Clinton isn't fighting hard for the Wisconsin primary next week, a state that should fit the Clinton model. It doesn't have a big African-American population, is home to lots of working-class voters, and was won twice by Bill Clinton. Independents and Republicans can vote in the Wisconsin primary, which favors Obama, but it's hard for Clinton to argue that winning with the aid of independents and Republicans is a bad thing. They'll be key to a general election matchup against John McCain.

With each previous Obama victory, the Clinton team tried to attach an asterisk. He won because the electorate had too many African-Americans or because the contest was a caucus where party activists dominate. These were attempts not only to explain away Clinton's losses but also to suggest that Obama could never win in a general election in which broader coalitions are required. As he makes inroads into Clinton's base, those asterisks fall away. If Obama wins the key general election swing state of Wisconsin, he'll be in an even stronger position to argue that he can win among working-class whites. These victories give Obama ammunition for future states because they show he can build a coalition across race, gender, and income for the general election.

After the Obama sweep, one Democratic strategist who backs him speculated (salivated) that a big-name Democratic official would call on Clinton to pack in her campaign. Do it for the sake of the party, such a pooh-bah might argue, so that Democrats can avoid an ugly and protracted primary fight and unite against John McCain. Such a person probably won't be able to make the case. The party isn't in peril—Democrats tell pollsters they'll be happy with either nominee—and with Huckabee interfering with McCain's cakewalk, the fear of an organized GOP offensive is diminished.

Clinton is going to have to endure lots of this kind of speculation in the next three weeks before the Texas and Ohio primaries, as well as recriminations and finger-pointing from erstwhile supporters, anonymous quotations from within her campaign, and the daily publishing of her obituary in the newspapers. Oh, and there will be a drumbeat of superdelegates bailing on her. This is the bounty that comes from political setbacks, and Hillary knows it well as a veteran of her husband's tough campaigns and his administration's scandals. She's gone from inevitable to embattled, and now she'll have to grind her teeth as she did during those past fights, waiting three long weeks until she has her best chance to get another win. Now she just has to hope that voters give her some credit for it.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photograph of Barack Obama by Rick Bowmer/AP.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

If Hillary has adopted the firewall strategy of ceding the field to Obama for three weeks, she is making a mistake of Giulianian proportions. Three weeks in a primary campaign is a lifetime. The Arithmecrats may have doimnated the Momentumators, but having Obama continue to win primary after primary makes Hillary look like a loser, or worse, completely irrelevant. By the time Texas and Ohio roll around, her base will be white women (which she did not win by much in Virginia) and Hispanics (with whom Obama may begin to make common cause over three weeks). And she will run out of money -- nobody wants to give to a losing or an irrelevant candidate. After Rudy's miserable campaign, I believed that, when they write a textbook about how not to run a Presidential campaign, he would be on the cover. If Hillary continues to move in this direction, the textbook cover may have two faces.

--djg1229

(To reply, click here.)

Obama's candidacy is transforming how Americans view themselves and others and challenging us to redefine our sense of what is presidential. Obama is clearly inspiring black Americans, 80% of whom vote for him. This is an incredibly positive thing. So why do we uphold the myth that Obama 'transcends' race?

It is a tool of persuasion aimed at white voters who want to believe that they can transcend racism. It's also a way of casting doubt and shame on white women who support Hillary. It's not evil, but neither is it an honest approach to the race and gender issues in this campaign.

Dickerson, the MSNBC crew and many other journalists have abused race in order to tear down Hillary Clinton's campaign.

If Clinton is Tracy Flick, is Dickerson Jim McAllister? Maybe it's not such a bad analogy after all.

--nyc reader

(To reply, click here.)

Yes, Obama is doing well. But there is no reason for Hillary to leave. She should sun this out even if she has to drive around a rented car to make her case. It worked for McCain. Just because you're down doesn't mean you need to get out. It sure doesn't mean you need to get out for the sake of party "unity".

Hillary owes Obama nothing. No one was calling for Edwards to get out because he was never a serious threat. But Hillary continues to represent a threat to Obama. The threat: her staying in the race means his nomination is continually in doubt AND his eventual nomination (if he gets it) won't be "pretty".

Hillary owes her millions of supporters to stay in the race until she decides to get out--not when Obama or a party poobah suggests she should. Gore owed it to his millions of voters to demand a recount in Florida in 2000 and to fight for it despite GOP demands that he let go. And/but the day after Bush v. Gore, it didn't matter how Bush won. It only mattered that he won. Democrats didn't like it, but in the end, you win or you don't.

The fact that your win isn't "pretty" is irrelevant, as is the fact that you anger your opponents by making them work hard and fight some.

--Richmond

(To reply, click here.)

Obama articulates my core values better than any candidate has in my lifetime, by which I mean to say, liberal without the hackneyed pseudo-Marxist "haves and have nots" bromides which sunk Edwards (whom I otherwise respect a lot). He has that "thoroughbred" candidate quality that Reagan and Clinton had--but will his natural abilities translate into the ability to summon political capital from the ether?

Hillary, on the other hand, is probably politically closer to my moderate self, but I have some doubts about her leadership skills and her health care plan. Will she be too polarizing (even if not her fault)? She has the connections, but will she be able to build coalitions when her party seems to be turning from her? Won't her presidency bring the de facto return of a GOP congress?

I am old enough to remember 1976, when a decent, honest outsider with a winning smile came to power on the winds of "change" in a climate of disenchantment with Republicanism. Things went sour shortly thereafter, because this honest, smiling outsider was actually an autocrat who lacked connections in his own party, and who, maybe due to his decency, failed to appear strong in the face of hard problems. And this man, at least, had both military and governing experience going in. But he was a scold, and a foreign policy naif, and he turned out to be one of the least effective presidents in recent memory--even if you did share his views.

Put Obama or Clinton up against a moderate Republican who has shown ability to compromise sensibly, who does have undoubtable experience and who promises to stay "tough" in foreign policy...who's my candidate becomes not such an easy question.

--Hellzapoppin

(To reply, click here.)

(2/13)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
A Grand Tour
David Broder | While the stars align for Obama, McCain is looking like the odd-man-out on foreign policy.
Annette Heuser: A Honeymoon