I think it's because negative campaigning works, and not just in this case. I think the flip side of (some) white people swooning at the feet of St. Obama is the lingering racist bullshit - "unless, of course, he turns out to really be like all the other ones". And so now Hillary is feeding them what they fear and half-expect - evidence that Obama really is black (America-hating pastor, consorts with Weathermen, his wife has a chip on her shoulder, he thinks he's better than you, etc. - you all know the script). It reinforces Obama's negatives among overt white racists, and activates the racism of those tempted to join the swooning crowd.
I'm convinced, though, that by now all of this is about 2012 for Hillary. Among remaining primaries, Obama will win North Carolina, Oregon, Montana, and whichever Dakota is voting. Hillary will win Kentucky and West Virginia. Indiana is up for grabs. If Obama wins Indiana it's over. If Hillary wins Indiana then it's a long death match to the convention - which Obama will win. In the meantime (and already), Hillary has written the script that will (probably? maybe?) win the election for McCain. And McCain can have it both ways - distancing himself from the script while surrogates pimp it for all it's worth, pointing out that even Democrats have said this about St. O. Hillary's best shot at the Presidency now is to see Obama go down to defeat in 2008 and then run again herself in 2012 (she'll be 64 - plenty of time).
Except that none of this will matter if the economy goes too far south. Political science presidential election models rely way too much on fitting the model to the data, but the economy in the quarter (or two) before the election is robustly predictive in almost all of them. With a sufficiently crappy economy, Obama wins in November and Hillary's quest is over.
Michael McIntyre
On Apr 25, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Gary Mongiovi wrote:
> Message: 17
> Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:03:57 -0400
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Gallup: Dem race now tied
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID: <8388D2CD-5DD7-42B1-AE0F-F8DBDD418BC0 at panix.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>
> Doug wrote:
>
>> A lead less than the margin of error is a tie. And the larger point
>> is that BHO's 10-point lead before Pennsylvania has collapsed.
>
> Does anyone have a hypothesis about this, because it sure mystifies
> me. Obama did have an off night at the last debate, but Hillary's
> not any more likable now than she was two weeks ago. Nor is there
> any reason to think she'll be better able to beat McCain. She was
> expected to win in Pennsylvania, so the post-Penn-Primary question
> "why can't he close?" strikes me as a non sequitur; yet it seems to
> have got some traction in the media. As far as I can tell, McCain
> would still rather run against Hillary, which indicates that his
> people at least think Obama would be a stronger candidate than
> Hillary, and they're probably right. I note in passing that Obama
> looks & sounds more weary than he did a couple of weeks ago, no
> doubt for good reason, so perhaps that's feeding into the sense
> that he might not pull off the nomination.
>
> But I'd be interested to know what others think.
>
> Gary
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk