Is Hillary Done?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 8:41 AM

As midnight approached, things were looking worse and worse for Hillary Clinton and CBS.

For Hillary, what had looked like a modest win in Indiana, badly needed to offset Barack Obama's blowout in North Carolina, had turned into a cliffhanger. In fact, let the record show that at 12:11 a.m., Tim Russert awarded the nomination to Obama: "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it." (I suspect the second part of that statement is wrong.)

"PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE" blared the pro-Obama Huffington Post.

CBS, meanwhile, was the only network hanging out there with a projection that Hillary would take Indiana, made at the early hour of 8 p.m. What happened to the caution that all the networks promised us after 2000? Brit Hume wondered on Fox whether "there's some tightening in the blood veins of some of those people over there." That was doubly true when late votes from the Gary area cut her lead from 40,000 to 20,000, and then to 16,000.

Well, CBS dodged a bullet. All the cable networks awarded Hillary the Hoosier state at 1:09 a.m., by what looked like a two-point margin. For most eastern newspapers, the headlines would say too close to call.

In a nutshell: After a month of horrible coverage for Obama, the Jeremiah Wright debacle and the caricaturing of the candidate as an elitist, he nonetheless managed to fight Clinton to a virtual dead heat in a state in which she had been favored. All the media chatter about how Hillary had found her voice, won the hearts of the working class and captured the momentum didn't amount to squat. Whether she won Indiana by a few thousand votes was, by that time, beside the point.

Have I mentioned lately that the commentators have been consistently wrong in this campaign?

Clinton had claimed victory in her speech--indeed, Obama had conceded Indiana minutes earlier--but it may have been a pyrrhic victory at best.

Many of the pundits were in obituary mode. On Fox, Bill Kristol said there would be private conversations to orchestrate "a graceful ending to this race." The MSNBC gang was off on a discussion of who would be Obama's running mate. CNN was more cautious, with Anderson Cooper saying, "It's too early to be talking about Hillary Clinton in the past tense." But Carl Bernstein said two Hillary advisers had told him she would try for the vice presidency.

It was noteworthy that Obama, in his speech, shifted to a unity appeal, saying he didn't believe "the pundits"--everyone's favorite whipping boy--that the race is permanently dividing the party, despite "bruised feelings" on both sides. That suggests he sees the prize as within reach. Even more interesting, after many (mostly unfounded) attacks on his patriotism, Obama talked about "the America I love" and "American values" and "the promise of America" and "the flag draped over my father's coffin." He was sending a star-spangled message.

When Hillary spoke, a dejected-looking Bill Clinton stood to her right. And Hillary made a point of thanking him and daughter Chelsea--giving the air of a valedictory speech--before the ritual incantation that she intends to win in November.

Hillary canceled her morning show appearances, and Matt Lauer led "Today" this way: "Good morning. Is it over?"

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson wasn't saying uncle, telling Joe Scarborough this morning that the Indiana win was "strong and impressive," that Indiana borders Illinois, that Obama outspent his side, and so on. But he did not sound enthusiastic.

The New York Times says Hillary "did nothing to improve her chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination. If anything, Mrs. Clinton's options for overtaking Senator Barack Obama may have dwindled further.

"For Mr. Obama, the outcome came after a brutal period in which he was on the defensive over the inflammatory comments of his former pastor. That he was able, at a minimum, to hold his own under those circumstances should allow him to make a case that he has proved his resilience in the face of questions about race, values and patriotism -- the very kinds of issues that the Clinton campaign has suggested would leave him vulnerable in the general election.

"When paired with Mr. Obama's comfortable victory in North Carolina, a bigger state, Mrs. Clinton's performance in Indiana did not seem to be enough to cut into Mr. Obama's lead in pledged delegates or in his overall lead in the popular vote. And because Mrs. Clinton did not appear to come particularly close in North Carolina, despite a substantial effort there, she lost an opportunity to sow new doubts among Democratic leaders about Mr. Obama's general-election appeal."

The L.A. Times also has Clinton clinging:

"Tuesday's voting in Indiana and North Carolina put Hillary Rodham Clinton no closer to overtaking Barack Obama on the path to the Democratic presidential nomination. That now leaves Clinton with one overriding task: to make the path longer.

And the New York Post pulls out a screaming headline: "TOAST":

"Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered devastating blows to her already-fading hopes last night - she was routed by Sen. Barack Obama in North Carolina, while her Indiana must-win-big primary turned into an early-morning nail-biter that she barely eked out."

But many of the morning papers are in the they-traded-victories mode. I wonder whether that's because they are being cautious or because they largely had to finish their pieces before Hillary's margin shrunk to such meager levels.

"It is like watching two punch-drunk fighters in a slow-motion montage of the glancing blows, the same frames over and over, both wobbly but still standing," says the Chicago Tribune.

"Tuesday's split decision in North Carolina and Indiana makes only one thing clear: The race goes on, with no tidy end in sight.

"But Sen. Barack Obama emerged with a clear advantage."

The Boston Globe: "Senator Barack Obama won a decisive victory in the North Carolina primary yesterday, righting his presidential bid after the rockiest stretch of his campaign, while Senator Hillary Clinton eked out a narrow win in Indiana to keep her campaign alive.

"Obama moved closer to clinching the Democratic nomination, adding to his increasingly strong advantage in pledged delegates and in the overall popular vote with just six contests remaining over the next month - and none likely to radically reshape the race."

Salon's Walter Shapiro goes for the dramatic metaphor:

"Hillary Clinton is one day and two important primaries closer to oblivion . . . Not only is Hillary clinging to the hands of a clock in an old-time Harold Lloyd silent movie, but the clock face has begun to wobble."

Slate's John Dickerson turns some of Hillary's rhetoric against her:

"When Hillary Clinton questioned Gen. David Petraeus last September, she famously said that to believe his description of progress in Iraq required 'a willing suspension of disbelief.' After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the same may now be true about her case for winning the Democratic nomination. It's not that she can't win, but with only 217 delegates up for grabs in the six remaining contests, the scenario for victory has become more fantastical, narrow, and painful."

Roger Simon is practically playing taps:

"Hillary Clinton's strategy for winning the Democratic nomination is now a fond wish wrapped in a desperate hope.

"Her fond wish is to seat the pledged delegates from the rogue states of Michigan and Florida in a way that is advantageous her and damaging to Barack Obama. Her desperate hope is then to persuade the superdelegates to overturn the will of the pledged delegates and make her the Democratic nominee. To achieve this, she needs momentum, spin and fear."

National Review's Jim Geraghty sees a stampede:

"The closeted and not-so-closeted Obama fans in the mainstream media are tired of covering a negative Democrat-against-Democrat race. They've been working more or less nonstop since January. They're ready to declare the race over and move on to their first love, which is trashing Republicans. Thus, if Obama wins North Carolina by any sort of margin (a very safe bet), they're going to tout that as the decisive decision in this primary and do everything possible to drive Hillary Clinton out of the race."

Andrew Sullivan is excited about Obama:

"Wow was he on fire tonight. He will not have his patriotism impugned by the McCarthyites of the far right. Nor should he. He regained that patriotic message tonight. And I'm not in any way ashamed to say it moved me to my core."

Arianna, after reporting that John McCain had told her he didn't vote for George W. Bush in 2000, is steamed about the rebuttal from his top aide to my colleague Juliet Eilperin:

"The way the McCain camp has reacted to my revelation about his not voting for Bush in 2000, immediately moving into kill-the-messenger mode, is further confirmation of what has happened to McCain -- now willing to say or do anything, or sling mud at anyone, to satisfy his hunger for the White House.

"And I'm curious, at exactly what point did Mark Salter decide I was 'a flake, and a poser, and an attention seeking diva'? Was it before or after I hosted a book party at my home for the book he co-wrote with McCain, Faith of My Fathers?

"Was it before or after our many conversations about McCain giving the keynote address at the 2000 GOP Shadow Convention I organized in Philadelphia to underline the failure of both political parties to address major issues, such as campaign finance reform?"

Pollsters are asking: Should she quit? No, not Hillary--Katie!

Forty-six percent said Katie Couric "shouldn't be replaced. One quarter of respondents said she should be replaced," says USA Today. A better rating than some politicians.

Finally: A campaign angle I haven't read before. Salon's Joan Walsh flags it:

"Confounded by the eternal Democratic primary race? Michael Wolff explains it all for you this month in Vanity Fair. It's simple: your feelings about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have a lot to do with your feelings about their sex lives, even if you're not thinking about their sex lives, you think you're thinking about their gas tax proposals. Oh, come on, admit it, you have to be thinking about sex and Barack and Hillary. Michael Wolff is, and he's paid handsomely to think about all this stuff. You're just in denial."

Gee, I never . . . I mean, I wasn't thinking . . . Am I out of touch?