January 09, 2008
WH '08: Don't (!!!) Call It A Comeback
"Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice," a relieved and triumphant Hillary Rodham Clinton told a roaring crowd of supporters last night.
Today's campaign news cycle is all about how the media and pundits boo-boo'd so badly, having declared Clinton's campaign DOA heading into the New Hampshire primary and John McCain out for the count for the last six months running. There's a sea of red faces out there but, we contend, for the wrong reason.
Last we checked, journalism was about reporting facts, not predicting them. Some amount of prognostication can be quite useful for contextualizing the news. But when so many talking heads call a close contest well before the first vote tallies come in, what's the point of that, exactly? It seems as if egos, and not the public, are the ones getting served.
Leave it to quirky, independent-minded Granite Staters to tell the rest of the country: Not so fast.
Clinton and McCain pulled the rug out from under conventional wisdom last night, but big-picture-wise, no one should be surprised. Clinton's people erred by underestimating the strength and star power of Barack Obama's candidacy, to be sure, and her camp is already trying to make up for lost ground. But that isn't to say that she, her husband Bill, and their loyal-to-the-death cadre didn't know what they were doing. To the contrary, Camp Clinton has run a solid campaign, making sure those who meet her on the ground come away transformed and those who watch her debate are forced to rethink their notions of her.
Think of it this way: Just months ago, Clinton was seen by many so-called experts as the inevitable nominee. The fact that she's now duking it out with Obama means... what? That the chattering classes were wrong. Turns out she'll have to work for the nomination. (Gasp!) Assuming John Edwards and Bill Richardson aren't long for this race, voters have a choice between two very different but very well-liked-in-the-party candidates. Democratic primary voters, already happy with their options, win.
Following John Kerry's defeat in 2004, there was a lot of talk about the future of the Democratic Party. So it's something of a surprise that the real philosophical-political warfare is happening in the GOP contest.
Anyone who's calling the nomination for McCain based on last night's performance is foolishly tempting fate. A multiply fractured Republican base is splintering off to different -- very different -- candidates. Whereas Democrats will be happy no matter who wins their party's nod, that's not the case for Republicans. There are lots of sharp contrasts in this field, and as Mitt Romney is learning to his dismay, regional differences and personality may win out over platforms in the coming contests.
After the New Hampshire GOP primary was called, CNN's Bill Schneider observed that McCain "didn't win on the issues." The 71-year-old war vet worked his natural constituency (independents, moderates) in the Granite State after his entire organization appeared to fall apart last summer. Romney spent millions whacking McCain with attack ads, but it looks as if Granite Staters have joined Iowans in punishing the millionaire ex-governor for it.
McCain has two other things going for him. None of the field's top contenders has as much experience with military/foreign policy issues, which are hugely important to GOP voters, and McCain appears to have made right-but-difficult calls on the war: first when he criticized Donald Rumsfeld et al. for not sending enough troops, and then when he backed the surge strategy last year. Exit polling shows that he cleaned up among Republican voters who oppose the war. That indicates he is trusted by moderates and independents to lead the country through its next stages.
So, McCain may be able to duplicate his success in states where there are large numbers of moderate-independent Republicans for whom the war is a top concern. He'll be competing with Rudy Giuliani for those votes. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee could continue to peel evangelicals away from Romney. Michigan is up next, and lucky for Romney, he enjoys favorite-son status there. That's how his rivals will spin a Romney win in Michigan, of course. A loss, though, could start drying up donations and morale.
Fred Thompson says he's putting all his chips in South Carolina. He's got 10 days to climb out of third or fourth place as the political press makes superstars of McCain and Clinton (again).
Georgetown's Christopher Hull told us last week that a McCain vs. Huckabee contest would be "a classic" GOP primary battle. McCain is most often hailed as a maverick, but in truth he's more like a relic from the Republican Party of yore. He's a small-government, fiscal conservative, is strong on defense, and has socially conservative personal views but seems to find it distasteful to air them, much less impose them on anyone else.
Huckabee, whose record as Arkansas governor still has yet to be fully vetted in the mass media, represents a force in the GOP that was relatively weak just three decades ago. The rise in independents nationwide is due in part to the growing dominance of social-issues, religious conservatism within the party. President Bush gave that bloc a home in his White House, and those Republicans have only grown more assertive as a result.
Case in point: Romney's nationally broadcast speech on his Mormon faith. He delivered it because his campaign felt he had to, particularly as Huckabee's star began to rise. To "classic" conservatives like McCain, however, it probably looked more like a political striptease had been forced on the former Massachusetts governor.
If this is indeed a fight about the future of the GOP, expect things to get bloody. Various segments of the base are gunning for McCain (anti-immigration, anti-campaign finance reform), Huckabee (anti-taxes), Giuliani (evangelicals) and Romney (the unbelievers). Is it unfair to pin this fractionalization on President Bush? That'll probably shake out by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the media are asking one good question of themselves, which is whether they have covered Clinton and Obama fairly and appropriately. The jury appears to be out on that one.
Posted at 5:58 PM
Posted to:
Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Democrats, Fred Thompson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Media, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, President Bush, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, WH 2008
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