For one thing, Bill Clinton lost his “charm” and showed the mean streak that was carefully cloaked during his first presidency. Combine that with the fact that Hillary by herself is has all the rhetorical skills of a high school valedictorian; when the Deadly Duo hit the campaign trail and exposed themselves to the American people the response was “anyone but Billary.”
So why not Edwards? Simple, on a national level, class warfare really does not sell well. It may rock the rubes in the backwoods hollows and urban slums where poverty is always someone else’s fault. But on the national stage where most people consider themselves middle class, putting it to “the man” does not get majority support, especially when the message comes from an oily trial lawyer with a band new multi-million dollar mansion and a $400 haircut.
So the race for the nomination is being lost by Billary and Obama is the improbable beneficiary of this self-immolation.
And this is a danger for the Democrats, because they are about to nominate an empty suit. I could not be more happy about this because no matter what happens, the MSM is going to go all out to support whoever gets the Democrat’s nod. The hit job on John McCain in the NY Times today is only an example of what the general election will be like.
The Belmont Club has a good, even poetic, analysis.
The Barack Obama phenomenon is probably a compound of three things. Mr. Obama's own considerable talents as a politician and speaker; the reaction against the Clinton Machine and the absolute dearth of new ideas in the Democratic Party. It has nothing to do with renewed excitement in the Democratic Party message; it is intensely personal. The enthusiasm is generated by Him; the hope is engendered by the Face.
And to Barack Obama's credit he has carried a near-empty hand to triumph. That alone is testament to his political skill. But he has done it at the cost of not talking about the platform of his own party, which truth to tell, consists of a collection of rotting planks left over from the 1960s and which no one is safe treading upon. Instead of embarssing himself by talking about higher taxes, more appeasement and more special interest politics, Barack Obama has done the smart thing. He's talked about himself; about "us"; about the future, about Hope and most of all, about Change. The subliminal message is that we want to Move On. And part of what the electorate wants to Move On from is all the fermenting baggage that Hillary Clinton keeps hauling along. It's as neat a piece of conjury as has been seen for the last fifty years.
Thus the Obama "bubble" isn't his personal problem, it's his party's problem. He's throwing a personal force shield around a decrepit core agenda and if it fails sometime in the next few months it will be no fault of his. He's already done the unbelievable. Any collapse will be foreordained by the Democratic Party's agenda.
Comparisons to McGovern and 1968 are all the more painful because they highlight how little has substantively changed from then. McGovern gone from politics, but the dead agenda lives. And poor Obama, having to carry the moldering corpse on his shoulders!
Watching Obama struggle forward, keeping up his momentum with the thin gruel of speeches, charisma and bravado is almost like watching a champion who you know is eventually going to be overwhelmed by uneven odds continue a game fight. Whatever one thinks of Obama, he doesn't deserve so tragic a fate. Obama's worst enemy isn't the conservatives. It isn't even liberals. It's the dead hand of the past. The Spirit of '68, cackling and wheezing from the closed room which no one goes into. Except Hillary, who emerges each time to pronounce Mother alive and well.
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