Wolfson, Morris & Obama
Salena Zito’s column quotes team Hillary Communications Director Howard Wolfson as saying that Pennsylvania is “absolutely critical to this campaign.”
Don’t go too far out on that limb, Mr. Wolfson.
Still, that’s nothing to the ‘advice’ that Dick Morris is dispensing to Sen. Obama. Here’s what he said in his column titled ‘It’s Still Over For Hillary‘:
The real message of Tuesday’s primaries is not that Hillary won. It’s that she didn’t win by enough.
The race is over.
The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.
Not wanting to leave a base uncovered, he then writes this in his column titled ‘It’s Time to Call In Hatchet Men Against the Clintons‘:
[The] Clintons are trying to steal the nomination from Barack Obama - and he can’t let them. The Clintons’ campaign attacks put Obama in a bind.
If he doesn’t answer in kind, he’s toast.
It sounds like Dick Morris is attempting to do his best impression of John Kerry. Morris is essentially saying that Hillary’s toast…except that she isn’t toast. the good new for Obama is that she still might be toast…if he accepts this pearl of Morris wisdom:
But if he does, they’ll have forced him off his winning message of hope and change from the bitter politics of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush eras. If they pull him off his game and onto theirs, they can wrest away the Democratic convention victory that he’s earned.
The solution for Obama is clear: Reply in kind, but do it through surrogates.
The truth is that it’s essentially over for Hillary. That’s why there’s been so much infighting at Team Hillary’s HQ recently. I agree with Morris’ statement that the Democratic superdelegates won’t tilt towards Hillary if she isn’t leading in committed delegates. Barring something totally unforeseen happening, the nomination fight is over.
Still, the Clintons persist. They’re continuing to push a Hillary-Obama ticket during their stump speeches:
Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama, this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady.
In talking up a joint ticket, the Clintons may be seeking the upper hand, attempting to put her in consideration for the top of the ticket when she so far has failed to win the votes necessary to assure that she would face Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election.
The maneuver may also be aimed at countering an image in voters’ minds of Obama as presidential material and at helping restore an aura of inevitability as the party’s nominee that Clinton had early in the campaign but lost.
Pennsylvania is a state that Hillary should do well in. The truth is that winning Pennsylvania won’t be nearly enough for Team Hillary. That said, I hope she keeps attacking Obama, softening him up for this fall’s election.
Technorati Tags: Hillary, Bill Clinton, Howard Wolfson, Obama, Dick Morris, John Kerry, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
March 10th, 2008 at 8:08 am
HA!
This could get more delicious than the law allows. A backlash from the young libs to Bill’s typically arrogant attempt to shmooze Obama into running second fiddle to Hillary and surrender a victory he has clearly one is something the Dems cant afford. There are too many McCainocrats that would be only too happy to leave the party, and too many Obamicans to loose if Hillary wrested the nomination away from Obama.
Stay tuned.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
The general election is going to repeat McGovern/Nixon in ‘72. The war is not and will not be the issue the Dems need and both Hillary and Obama are going to be established as left-wing liberals by the time there primary battle is over. November 2008: the “silent majority” rides again?
March 11th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Is it too much to ask that this @%#$& government to just leave the hell alone, those of us who want to be left alone to make our own retirerment, pay our own medical bulls????
What the F- is so hard about that??
March 20th, 2008 at 8:23 am
and, today, Hillary’s numbers are getting better than Obama’s……….after this Rev Wright fiasco.
Two lib Dem have whispered to me and a friend “I can’t vote for Obama or Hillary..I’m voting McCain”. Liberal Democrat women. I wish it was October 25..we’ve got a long way to go.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Just came across your blog on Google. Interesting post, you bring up a few good things to think about. Good luck with the blog.