Hillaryland Hits Back

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8, 2008 8:20 AM

It's no secret that Hillary Clinton's top aides have been angry for months at MSNBC for coverage they consider blatantly pro-Obama, including remarks that prompted apologies from Chris Matthews and David Shuster.

But Tuesday night, when Hillary got walloped in North Carolina and hung on for a narrow win in Indiana, was the last straw. Tim Russert, NBC's Wasington bureau chief, told viewers: "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it." A number of other MSNBC pundits--and a few on other networks--agreed that Barack Obama has the thing sewed up. Russert repeated that yesterday, flashing his white board and saying that barring a complete Obama collapse or an act of God, "this race is over."

Jay Carson, Clinton's press secretary, fired off an e-mail yesterday to Chuck Todd, NBC's political director. While assuring Todd that he was "not trying to be a jerk," Carson wrote: "Can you think of one good reason we should continue to cart you guys around the country with us given that your network has declared the entire race over?"

This was not a serious threat to kick NBC reporters off the Clinton plane. Carson noted that he was just speaking "rhetorically," and besides, news organizations pay stiff fees for their campaign travel. But it is a measure of the anger in Hillaryland toward the folks at MSNBC. A network spokesman declined to respond.

In fairness, though, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, CBS's Bob Schieffer and others also said the race is pretty much over.

For the moment, there seem to be two separate media universes out there.

In the mainstream print galaxy, Hillary's "options" are "dwindling," her "path" to the nomination is "narrowing," the "math" is "challenging," Obama is drawing "closer" to the prize.

On MSNBC, the morning shows and the blogosphere, it's game, set, match. The race is finis, the last rites are being administered, and the debate is about Obama's chances against McCain.

It's a fascinating case study: Do the remnants of the MSM that are still treating this as a semi-competitive race believe that Clinton has a serious shot at the nomination, but feel bound by the rule of objectivity not to say so?

Or are the pundits going out on a limb, prematurely writing off Clinton as they have done several times before?

In meeting with reporters yesterday, Hillary certainly didn't sound like someone preparing an exit strategy. Now we learn that she's poured another $6.4 million of her own cash into the campaign. If enough superdelegates--and not just George McGovern--keep defecting, will that change her mind? When does the math become overwhelming?

When a '"senior Clinton official" tells The Post that "we lost this thing in February," is that person reflecting the view of the campaign? Is this the same "senior campaign official" who told Lawrence O'Donnell that "we will have a nominee by June 15" and that Hillary is a reasonable person?

And while that signal is going on, why is Terry McAuliffe making the television rounds saying they're still in it to win it? What's going to turn it around? West Virginia? Kentucky?

If there are a lot of commentators out there saying Hillary has a good chance and should stay in the race, I'm not seeing them.

I don't dismiss the fact that Hillary won Indiana on Tuesday, even by 22,000 votes. But as you've heard ad nauseum, it's all about delegates at this stage. Obama's North Carolina blowout and close call in Indiana means he won more delegates than she did, and that adds to his growing lead.

All that kind of leaves me in limbo, trying to decide in which universe I should reside.

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton struck a publicly defiant posture on Wednesday about continuing her presidential bid despite waning support from Democratic officials and donors, while some of her advisers acknowledged privately that they remained unsure about the future of her candidacy," says the New York Times.

This is sort of like what McCain did to Huckabee: "Barack Obama hasn't managed after months of political combat to force Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the presidential race, so he's about to try another approach: ignoring her," says the L.A. Times.

A Chicago Tribune editorial likens Hillary to the horse that was euthanized after almost winning the Kentucky Derby:

"There's no reason to wait until August to put Clinton, and the rest of us, out of our misery."

Ouch. Do they want someone to break her legs?

Here's a taste of what Hillary might have faced in the fall, courtesy of the Washington Times:

"A decade before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admitted fudging the truth during the presidential campaign, federal prosecutors quietly assembled hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting she concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for a failing Arkansas savings and loan at the heart of the Whitewater probe, according to once-secret documents that detail the internal debates over whether she should have faced criminal charges."

As for the blogosphere, the reaction of Kevin Drum in the Washington Monthly is typical:

"It's been pretty clear for over a month that Hillary's only chance to win was to hope that Obama got hit by a meteor or something. In the end, though, he got hit by several meteors and it still didn't knock him out. Short of Obama literally keeling over from a stroke, I'm not sure what Hillary has left to hope for."

Americablog's John Aravosis is definitive:

"There are simply no more excuses for why Hillary is staying in the race. She can't catch up . . .

"She is in the race to hurt Obama, to make sure he doesn't win in the fall against McCain, so that she can say 'I told you so' and then run again in 2012."

American Prospect runs this headline: "Is Clinton the Last to Know It's Over?"

HuffPoster R J Eskow blames Hillary's whole approach:

"It was a tall order, and she fell short. She threw the kitchen sink at Obama and he came back strong. He refused to pander on the gas tax, instead choosing to bank on the wisdom of the voters. He exceeded expectations, then capped his victory with a speech that was at once inspiring, populist-themed, and generous toward his opponent. (He gave the audience a foretaste of the game he'd be bringing to John McCain, too.)

"So why couldn't she close the deal? Pundits will argue about that in the days and weeks to come, but here's my theory: Voters rejected cynicism. The notion that 'we can play the Republican game, but better' alienated them. In the end, the 'lesser of two evils' approach was less effective. That's a hopeful sign for the future."

At Mother Jones, David Corn at least raises the possibility that it's not over:

"Are Russert and the other pundits penning Clinton's obit prematurely? Does she have no choice but to say good-bye? . . .

"I would not count her out so quickly. Not that she has a chance. As the cable news analysts pointed out repeatedly on Tuesday night, Obama was racking up more delegates and more popular votes--further undermining any argument Clinton might be able to make to the superdelegates. But as I've noted before, the lesson the Clintons learned during the impeachment episode was this: no matter how bad it gets, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and ignore those calling for you to quit. The Clintons have defied the pundits before. They may give it another stab."

How about the right? Obama is no Superman, says Dean Barnett at the Weekly Standard:

"At the risk of stating the obvious, the fight for the Democratic nomination effectively came to an end Tuesday night. Barack Obama has won. My suggestion for grieving conservatives? Deal with it.

"I've been saying all along that the long primary fight was the best thing that could have happened to the Democrats. The process revealed Obama's weaknesses, and he had to address them. Were it not for the long and competitive Democratic race, Jeremiah Wright would have become a household name around Columbus Day (which is a legal holiday in Massachusetts and a paid day off for state workers) instead of St. Patrick's Day (which is also a legal holiday in Massachusetts and another paid day off for state workers, although it's called Evacuation Day). Obama's dithering on the Wright stuff might well have ruined his general election chances if he had won New Hampshire like he was supposed to . . .

"I know many conservatives are disappointed by Tuesday night's results. Perhaps a brief walk down Clinton Memory Lane would remind them that they should not lament the Fall of the House of Clinton. Indeed, instead of fretting this morning about an Obama ascendancy, conservatives should take a bit of pleasure in the fact that we won't have the Clintons to kick us around anymore."

Andrew Sullivan might just miss having Hillary to kick around:

"Here's what now seems obvious: African-American voters killed the Clinton candidacy. It is a fitting end to the Clintons' campaign and an almost Shakespearean coda to their career. The Clintons were exposed in their long-running exploitation and reliance on minority votes. No group was more loyal to them than African-Americans; and in the end, like everyone else, African-Americans realized that the Clintons are frauds, disloyal to the core, cynical to their finger-tips, and finally, finally, returned the favor."

Atlantic's Marc Ambinder rattles off some reasons why Hillary should stay in, including:

" Embarrassment. If she drops out tomorrow and winds up winning in West Virginia and Kentucky, Obama will be mightily embarrassed. Having her in the race gives him an excuse for losing those two states. (I ran this by an Obama adviser who said, "We'll take our chances.")

" The Ask. Does Clinton want to be Obama's vice president? Who knows? But does Clinton want to be asked whether she wants to be his vice president and this be in a position to decline it? Surely. The more Obama is reminded that Clinton cannot not be dispensed with, the more pressure he will feel to at least solicit her views on the subject of the vice presidency."

Unless she wants to be VP--which I have a hard time imagining--why would she care? Besides, she already has a nice house in that neighborhood.

Obama's glow may fade in the fall, John Judis argues in the New Republic:

"The Democratic primary is over. Hillary Clinton might still run in West Virginia and Kentucky, which she'll win handily, but by failing to win Indiana decisively and by losing North Carolina decisively, she lost the argument for her own candidacy. She can't surpass Barack Obama's delegate or popular vote count. The question is no longer who will be the Democratic nominee, but whether Obama can defeat Republican John McCain in November. And the answer to that is still unclear.

"During the last two months, Obama has faltered as a candidate. He has seen his political base narrow rather than widen, and some of his strengths turn into weaknesses. Of course, he has had to deal with the scandal surrounding Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but even so, he needs to remedy certain flaws in his political approach if he wants to defeat McCain in the fall."

One of several suggestions: "In the 2004 election, voters repeatedly expressed their preference for a 'strong leader,' but Obama has yet to establish himself in this respect. He is regularly judged more 'honest and trustworthy' than Clinton, but those qualities have proved less important to choosing a president. In Indiana, voters thought Clinton more qualified to be commander in chief by 54 to 43 percent. Nine percent of Obama voters acknowledged that Clinton was 'more qualified to be commander in chief.' In North Carolina, eleven percent of Obama voters preferred Clinton. Obama appears to be somewhat effete, which will, unless remedied, cause him difficulty against McCain in the fall, particularly among white males."

At Power Line, though, Paul Mirengoff sounds resigned to an Obama administration:

"I consider Obama the favorite. One can usually predict the outcome of the general election, and come pretty close on the margin, by considering just a few variables: how the economy is doing, whether we're at war and how popular the war is, which party holds the White House and how long it has held it, and how popular the president is.

"This year, these 'fundamentals' point to a Democratic victory of at least 10 percentage points.

"Weighing against this outcome is, first, the fact that McCain is a better than average nominee in terms of electability. For one thing, he does not have a close association with the unpopular president. In addition, his appeal to independent and centrist voters is well known. Second, Obama may well prove a worse than average nominee. He lacks anything like the experience voters look for in a president, and he's an extremist as presidential nominees go, a perception that now is reinforced by some of his unusual associations.

"At this stage, though, it seems more likely than not that these factors won't overcome the fundamentals.

"What about all those Clinton voters who say they will vote for McCain? The short answer is, if they're Democrats I don't believe very many of them. Look for the party and its rank-and-file to rally around Obama."

For the first time in modern memory, the New York Times is firing people. Here is Bill Keller's memo:

"While the overwhelming majority of our reductions did indeed come from volunteers, we have been forced to resort to a relatively small numbers of layoffs to meet our assigned goal. (We are not going to discuss numbers or the details of the staff reduction, nor will we be releasing a list of names.) All of those who are leaving will do so with a financial cushion that should carry them to other endeavors or to retirement, but that will not eliminate their sense of loss, or ours."

Was it the shirtless Vanity Fair photo? Miley Cyrus's ratings are down.