Hillary Fights On

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2008 9:10 AM

Liberal bloggers are throwing tomatoes--and a lot worse--at Hillary Clinton.

She's never been a particularly popular figure in that part of the blogosphere, and now that she seems to be making a new push on Florida and Michigan, the former first lady has really got folks mad.

A few days ago, I thought the signal from Hillaryland was that she would soldier on through the June 3 primaries and then bow to the will of the superdelegates, who would most likely settle this thing in Obama's favor. A compromise would be worked out to seat the disputed delegations from the two states that moved up their primaries. But now the Clinton camp is taking a more aggressive stance on Florida and Michigan--even invoking the count-every-vote mantra of the 2000 recount in Florida -- and the endless campaign suddenly seems a little more endless.

The latest round comes as the MSM is in "What Does Hillary Want?" mode--that's the headline I keep seeing on cable shows--endlessly questioning whether she is plotting to be veep and deserves to be veep. I remember some hand-wringing over What Does Jesse Want? when Jesse Jackson was making trouble for Michael Dukakis before the 1988 convention, but nothing like the psychodrama that this has become.

Underlying it all is a media narrative suggesting that Hillary should have folded her cards by now and is prolonging the agony for journalists who have grown sick of the process. Would that story line be as vivid if Hillary wasn't a woman, or, more importantly, if she wasn't a Clinton?

The Bubba Factor is back, big time, with this Karen Tumulty report in Time:

"In Bill Clinton's view, she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama's running mate, according to some who are close to the former President. Bill 'is pushing real hard for this to happen,' says a friend. Hillary is more opaque about what she might want, divulging little even to those who see and talk to her every day."

The NYT confirms the Time piece this way:

"The reports about Mr. Clinton's musings, which come from friends, surface as the Obama camp has quietly begun the process of choosing a running mate . . .

"Anyone who knows the Clintons is well aware that, at times, they come to politics with different motivations. Both of them want to return to the White House; Mrs. Clinton, of New York, also enjoys being a senator, while Mr. Clinton, according to associates, sees the vice presidency as perhaps her best path to becoming president someday if she loses the nominating fight. And Mr. Clinton has his own ideas about his wife's best interests -- even if she sometimes does not share them."

As for the liberal disdain I mentioned, the New Republic's Jonathan Chait serves up a heaping dish, starting with FL and MI:

"It's obviously true that Obama not campaigning, organizing, or advertising in those states hurt him, and helped the more familiar candidate in Clinton. She decided to campaign to change the rules only after it became her interest to do so.

"This gambit by Clinton is simply an attempt to steal the nomination. It's obviously not going to work, because Democratic superdelegates don't want to commit suicide. But this episode is very revealing about Clinton's character. I try not to make moralistic characterological judgments about politicians, because all politicians compromise their ideals in the pursuit of power. There are no angels in this business. Clinton's gambit, however, truly is breathtaking.

"If she's consciously lying, it's a shockingly cynical move. I don't think she's lying. I think she's so convinced of her own morality and historical importance that she can whip herself into a moralistic fervor to support nearly any position that might benefit her, however crass and sleazy. It's not just that she's convinced herself it's okay to try to steal the nomination, she has also appropriated the most sacred legacies of liberalism for her effort to do so. She is proving herself temperamentally unfit for the presidency."

Steal? Isn't that what the Democrats accused George W. Bush of doing?

David Corn of Mother Jones is also incredulous about Hillary's Florida/Michigan maneuver:

"Wait a minute; those states violated Democratic Party rules--rules that at one time Clinton supported. Now she's saying that Dems in those naughty states ought to decide what happens to their delegations. That's just wrong. And it's also wrong for her to vow--as she did--a convention fight over these delegations, if the party does not work something out before then.

"It's almost as if Clinton is grasping for a cause to justify her ongoing campaigning."

Salon's Walter Shapiro puts her on the couch:

"Early in her first-lady years, Clinton described herself as 'a Rorschach test.' But right now the image embedded in the ink blots is as perplexing as it has ever been. There are those who see Clinton staying in the race out of ill-concealed ambition -- whether it is a ploy to become Obama's indispensable running mate or to lay the groundwork for an I-told-you-so 2012 campaign. Others go to the opposite extreme in theorizing about her delusion, denial or even wanton destructiveness.

"But what if -- for the sake of argument -- Clinton is merely doing what she always said that she intended to do, which is to scrap for every last delegate through the final primaries? What if she is actually moved by the you-go-girl enthusiasm she encounters hand-shaking her way along all the rope lines? What if she looks at the electoral map and broods about Obama's potential difficulties in November in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida (all states that Clinton carried in the primaries)? . . .

"These days, Hillary is in it to spin it. Her goal is to come out of the primaries (which end June 3 in South Dakota and Montana) with a popular-vote lead over Obama after toting up all the primaries. While this is an entirely symbolic benchmark (as is Obama's claims to a majority of pledged delegates), it now seems attainable post-Kentucky . . .

"It is not much of a strategy -- and it is hard for the Clinton spin team even to maintain it with a straight face -- but it is hers."

A Daily Kos poster fulminates against a joint ticket:

"We've all gone through the reasons over and over as to why it's a bad idea -- or, as I prefer to say -- a horrible, insane, catastrophic idea.

"But let me throw just this one: Obama will be placed into an incredibly weak position if he is unable to make the VP selection for himself. By being 'forced' into taking Clinton (and no amount of eloquent speech-making on his part would convince anyone that he was anything other than forced), he will instantly seem smaller, less presidential, and a less powerful figure."

Which will happen if the media play it that way.

Meanwhile, no sooner did word of John McCain's Sedona barbecue/veep audition surface than the Obama team let it be known that, hey, we're vetting running mates, too! Jim Johnson, who seems to have a lock on the job, is tapped again. The secrets that this guy must know.

At Red State, Erick Erickson opines about three of the Sedona invitees:

"Bobby Jindal -- I expect he'll say no, but you can ask. Louisiana needs him and he needs more time in office. But good choice.

"Mitt Romney -- absolutely, but he really doesn't get you as much as a few others could. But he'd be great.

"Charlie Crist -- are you kidding me? Seriously? Let me be blunt yet again: I will bolt so fast from supporting you if you pick this well tanned squish and all his baggage. Charlie Crist is totally and completely unacceptable. That's not even negotiable. I do not think I could say anything positive at all about the GOP ticket if that guy were on it. Go with Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee, but do not go with Charlie Crist. Senator, your problem is with conservatives, not with squishy moderates."

Dick Polman looks at results of a focus group where people keep saying Obama is a Muslim. It's a very real question how Barack can dispel that falsehood, and whether the media have done an adequate job.

Back to the question of political spouses, New York's Daily News unearths a new angle on Ted Kennedy as he battles a brain tumor:

"Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family - with his wife, Vicki.

"Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long been his choice to continue carrying the family flame in the Senate. Kennedy won the seat in 1962; his brother John held it from 1953 to 1960."

I wonder how that would go over, given her lack of a particularly public role. But a number of women have succeeded their late husbands in Congress, including Lindy Boggs and Mary Bono.

The Huffington Post is having an impact on this campaign. First there were the "bitter" comments, and now this post (cited here yesterday) on the Rev. John Hagee's outrageous remarks about Hitler and the Jews, which essentially forced McCain to denounce him.

"After winning the backing of an influential Texas televangelist," says the Boston Globe, "presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain yesterday abruptly rejected the pastor's endorsement after more of his controversial remarks became public -- including a sermon in which he says the Nazis 'operated on God's behalf' to drive Jews from Europe to Israel.

"McCain had distanced himself from the Rev. John Hagee's anti-Catholic remarks describing the church as a 'great whore,' a statement for which Hagee apologized earlier this month.

"But the Arizona senator, who wanted Hagee's support to shore up his uncertain standing among evangelical conservatives, had not repudiated the endorsement until yesterday. 'Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them,' McCain said in a statement yesterday. 'I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.' "

McCain doesn't have a great vetting operation, does he?

The AP gives McCain a clean bill of health:

"Three-time melanoma survivor John McCain appears cancer-free, has a strong heart and is in otherwise general good health, according to eight years of medical records reviewed by The Associated Press."

Not sure why the campaign gave the wire service the records early after announcing that selected reporters would be allowed to review them (but not copy them) this morning.

The one thing I thought Democrats would leave untouched in this campaign was McCain's military service (then again, I initially thought the same thing about John Kerry's military service). But National Review's Jim Geraghty sees a pattern:

"One: 'McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit,' Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. said. 'What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.'

"Two: 'Republican presidential candidate John McCain's family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, 'and he has a hard time thinking beyond that,' Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday. 'I think he's trapped in that,' Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. 'Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous.' Harkin said that 'it's one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up.' "

After a third example, Geraghty asks: "Which is worse -- that Democrats across the country are spontaneously choosing to cite McCain's military experience as a drawback or weakness, and a reason to not vote for him? Or that this is some sort of coordinated message effort?"

The man was a POW for 5 1/2 years. Is this politically astute?

Finally, an interesting backstory to the Karl Rove subpoena, via Politico's Crypt blog:

"In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), Karl Rove's attorney declines to make his client immediately available in response to a committee subpoena.

" 'Contrary to your letter of May 14, 2008,' begins Rove lawyer Robert Luskin, 'I do not misunderstand either the Committee's procedures or the scope of its interest in Mr. Rove; nor, in light of your reported remarks about the need for 'someone' to 'kick his ass,' am I the least bit confused about the Committee's motives and intentions.'

"After uttering the remarks to which Luskin refers -- first reported here in the Crypt -- Conyers suggested that he would use his authority to arrest Rove if he failed to comply with a subpoena and appear before the committee."

Sounds like someone's ready to rumble.