Hillary's victories are credited to an effective attack campaign strategy and string of last-minute media ads directed at Obama, questioning his authenticity, his ability to lead and his strength when it comes to issues of national security.
Sports analogies dominate the media response; mostly boxing analogies as in, "Does Obama have a glass jaw?" "Can he take a punch?" Hillary is portrayed as a fighter and is admired for it while Obama is portrayed as being afraid to fight and characterized as a sissy. Obama is even referred to as a "bunny."
Meanwhile the "super delegates" are frozen waiting to see what happens in Pennsylvania, an industrial state like Ohio where Hillary has done better among white workers and where people have lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA-permissible corporate globalization initiatives that enabled them to make decisions to move jobs overseas. Interesting in that Hillary is the candidate who supported NAFTA from the get go while Obama questioned the implications and structure of NAFTA as to how it would affect the U.S. workforce from the start.
Most pundits agree that Hillary's campaign has been successful as of late in putting Obama, who was in the frontrunner position, in the defensive mode and they suggest his weakness has been in having to exhaust so much energy responding to a steady, ongoing barrage of attacks from Hillary.
It's thought that Hillary's been successful in taking him off his message. She seems to be getting through in making a case that she is the candidate of solutions while Obama is just all talk. Many think that Obama will be forced to fight Hillary on her terms in a way he is not accustomed to; dirty politics and misleading advertising campaigns that prey on people's fears and that spew out misrepresentations of the truth and accusations, putting their opponent on the defensive.
In the last few weeks, Obama's been shown wearing native attire while visiting Africa, been accused of having secret conversations with Canadian officials regarding NAFTA, been portrayed as a far left-wing liberal and even having Communist sentiments, been accused of lying in his literature about Hillary's platform positions, been characterized as a hysteria-raising, false-hope promising orator who's only strength is making good speeches and getting people excited. He's criticized for making people believe and for those who never believed or who long since stopped believing, it's discrediting their belief as delusional. Hillary's on her game.
The Clinton legacy has always been to come out of the corner throwing every punch you can get away with, whether below the belt or not and knowing that the referee may not always be watching and that in the end, people seem to be more impressed with who can beat up their opponent which people see as the kind of strength we need in the White House. They don't care whether it's a dirty fight or not. It's all about who wins.
It's all been reduced to a kind of TV realty show. It's sunk to the level of street fighting and viewers tune in hoping for a good brawl. It's the Roman Coliseum. It's who's left standing after the blood has spilled.
Obama has won more of the popular vote, more states by far and more of the elected delegates and inspired an amazing grassroots movement across the country, the likes of which we have not seen for more than a generation; some say since Robert Kennedy's campaign of 1968.
What's left and what is now the big issue after who wins Pennsylvania next month is that haunting question of how the super delegates will vote and what happens to Florida and Michigan where Obama was not even on the ballot. There's even talk of running a new primary for these states and Hillary's campaign has favored that versus going to the convention where the original decision to not award delegates from these states would more than likely be upheld.
With wins in Texas and Ohio, now the momentum talk is in Hillary's corner even after all of her losses in previous states where Obama emerged as the clear choice in overwhelming numbers.
It's worth mentioning that Rush Limbaugh in his national broadcast message to listeners, just prior to the Texas and Ohio primary, directed Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary in order to help stop the Obama movement or at least slow down its momentum because the Republican Party has acknowledged that they would rather face Hillary in the November general election than Obama, given the national polls that show Obama with a clear advantage over McCain as the Republican Party's nominee.
National polls also show that if Hillary were the Democratic Party's nominee, that Obama voters would more than likely feel disenfranchised by the process and the millions of first-time voters who turned out for Obama across the nation would feel that it's all over and will have lost faith in the system. Many of them would drop out and simply not vote in an election where either Hillary or McCain were the choices given to them.
Eighty-five million dollars was raised in the last month of the Democratic campaign. The Republican party raised $14 million during the same period. Clearly McCain has not mobilized an inspired or motivated electorate.
Taken from Hillary's speech: "Americans don't need more promises. They don't need more speeches. America needs a President who's ready to work, ready to lead and ready to stand up for what's right. We're ready for health care, not just for some people, or most people but for everyone. America needs a president who's ready to take the call at 3 a.m. to stand up for our country. There's no time for speeches or on the job training."
Hillary is bare-knuckle fighting and the Clinton campaign machine is in motion. Though no one can project how Hillary could come out ahead in the popular vote or elected delegate count, her supporters are making the case that there's legitimacy in the super delegate system and that we should go back and revisit Florida and Michigan. It's pretty much what we could have figured.
The decision as to who will represent us in this country could very well have been taken out of the hands of the people. It's not the first time this has happened and it sends a message to the world that while we preach we do not practice.
Howard Glasser lives in Kelseyville.
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