Hillary Clinton has a problem. The primary election cycle was supposed to be a coronation walk, with lots of money left over to secure the realm against the Republican pretender. Instead, it has turned into a civil war against a determined and resourceful foe and has left the royal treasury bare.
Yesterday Hillary loaned her campaign $5 million.
The Clinton majority was supposed to include most women, blacks, Hispanics and liberal men. But Barack Obama keeps gaining, and the coronation march has become a desperate holding action.
Blacks are going Obama’s way in huge numbers, as well they might, despite efforts of older black Democratic overseers to keep them on the Clinton plantation.
Men generally are deserting Clinton. Not just the liberals – the Kennedy’s, Kerry and others – but also the lunch bucket guys.
Obama was wise to give a nod to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, and Clinton was unwise to heap scorn upon him for doing so, the kind of scorn reserved for George Bush. Ronald Reagan is not George Bush.
More important, a lot of male Democrats voted for Ronald Reagan, twice.
And the Clinton base among women has been reduced to mostly older white women, and that is being offset by the legions of young voters of both genders and all races that Obama has attracted.
What to do?
The first tactic was for Hillary to stay on message, deploy the surrogates to rough up Obama, and then send in Bill to divide Hispanics against blacks.
It didn’t work well enough. The news out of Super Tuesday is that Obama is gaining. The Clinton campaign is short of cash. This has to stop.
What to do?
The answer has been telegraphed by the Clinton campaign. The much vaunted but somewhat suspect Clinton claim to the experience that makes Hillary “ready on day one” needs to be demonstrated. It is no accident that in recent days the experience that Hillary is now trumpeting is her ability to withstand the feared REPUBLICAN ATTACK MACHINE.
The Clintons are about to gear up their attack machine, hoping to bait Obama sufficiently to give Hilary the chance to say, “See? If he can’t take the heat from fellow Democrats and friends, he’ll never survive the general election against the unscrupulous Republican enemy.”
It will be one more demonstration of character on the part of the Clinton’s, and a test of Obama’s character to see if he can finesse them.
