The audacity of hopelessness

David Brooks had a good column about Hillary Clinton in yesterday's New York Times. He estimates her chances of capturing the nomination at 5 percent, and then professes himself astounded at "what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance." She appears intent on attempting to destroy Obama, even though there's a 95 percent chance her efforts will only help McCain. "When you step back and think about it, she is amazing," Brooks writes. "She possesses the audacity of hopelessness."

Interesting stuff, but even moreso when it's read in concert with today's Maureen Dowd column, which suggests that Hillary might consider this lifeline to McCain a feature, not a bug. After all, if Obama loses the general election, Hillary can take another stab at the presidency in 2012. And a 76-year-old President McCain could hardly play the age card against a 65-year-old opponent.

Dowd writes: 

Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?

Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore?   

Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat.

(Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.)

This is one conspiracy theory that I actually think might have some merit. It's probably only a half-conscious motivation; I'm sure Team Hillary's main goal is still to seize that 5 percent chance and win the nomination in 2008. But certainly, if they're also keeping an eye, or at least the corner of an eye, on 2012, it would help ease the guilt over the collateral damage to the party that their scorched-earth tactics are causing.

The big question, of course, is whether Democrats would hold it against Hillary if her tactics so damage Obama that he loses in November -- whether they'd blame her for his defeat, such that she'd be persona non grata in 2012. I want to say "yes," but I bet the answer would actually be "no." People have short memories, and a million other, not directly Hillary-related things will happen between Obama winning the nomination and McCain winning the election, many of which could and would be independently blamed for the November result. The causal relationship between Hillary's softening-up of Obama and Obama's general-election defeat would not be so direct as to remain seared in the average voter's consciousness for four years.

Many party activists and Obama loyalists would remain pissed, of course. But I don't think an Obama defeat in the aftermath of a bruising nomination fight would necessarily make Hillary radioactive to the average Democratic voter. Her recent tactics, and the bad will they've engendered in some circles, would prevent any 2012 run from being the easy Clinton coronation that I once envisioned for this scenario (back before it became clear how nasty and protracted this race would be). But she'd still be able to corral plenty of support, methinks, from roughly the same demographics that she's been relying on in this campaign. Many, in fact, would see an Obama general-election loss as vindication of Hillary's argument that she was the better choice all along.

So I think, alas, that there's every motivation for Hillary to press on, if she's looking toward 2012, as Dowd speculates. She just needs to avoid so badly damaging her own reputation in the next few months that she becomes totally unelectable (or rather, un-nominatable). But the mere fact of damaging Obama a bit, softening him up for the general, won't by itself totally disqualify her, IMHO.

Relatedly, Josh Marshall points out the latest round of unfathomable deception and hypocrisy from the New York senator. The "audacity of hopelessness," indeed.

Comments

[David K.]

One of the big differences I see between the two candidates is exactly this, hope vs. fear. We've had a fear mentality administration for the past 7 years now, and althoguh I think McCain would be an improvement (Of course I think that Loyette would be an improvement over what we have now... ;-)), I think he would still have the same fear oriented approach.

[I R A Darth Aggie]

5%? heh. It's much higher than that. Do not be surprised to see Hillary walking out of Denver the nominee.

Bill isn't called "Slick Willy" for no reason, you know...

[Brendan Loy]

So Bill Clinton, through sheer force of will, is going to convince a supermajority of superdelegates to deny the nomination to the person who will have won the pledged delegate count by, say, 100 delegates and the popular vote by, say, 52-48? Oh, and did I mentioned this person is black? So they'd be conspiring in a back room to overturn the will of the people to nominate a black man? Even though such a move would obviously destroy the Democratic Party?

Can "Slick Willy" perform Vulcan mind tricks? If not, I'd say 5% is pretty damn accurate. Maybe 10%, but certainly no higher than that. And the scenarios that comprise the 5-10% require her to do really, really well in the remaining states. If the remaining states are basically a wash and the final numbers look similar to how they look now, it'd be more like 1%.

[Marty West]

*Jedi mind tricks*

[Brendan Loy]

Dammit.

Vulcan mind meld, Jedi mind tricks... what, you want me to get my sci-fi metaphors straight? Puh.

This reminds me of the time the Borg almost assimilated the Ewoks, until the Ewoks were saved by the quick thinking of Dr. Soong's beloved android, C3PO, and his trusty Klingon companion, Chewbacca.

[Marty West]

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

[David K.]

Oh come on Brendan, you can include more sci-fi references than just Star Trek and Star Wars in your mixed metaphors!

[KG2V]

The ewoks won because the Weapons Shops of Isher opened a branch....

[Rohinton Rustomji]

Hillary comments on her rival' pastor seems mean and cruel. It is like someone asking her why she has stayed all these years with Bill Clinton after knowing infidelity of her husband Paul Jones Gennifer Flowers and Lewansky? At least

People who live in glass should not throw stones.

ROY R

[yea]

hopefully she stays into the race at least until nc and ind are finished. thousands of democrats registering to vote and obama's campaign setting up critical infrastructure in these battleground states will help come the general. especially while mccain is cash strapped and can't freely spend money because of campaign finance laws that he wrote.

[uscroger]

"So they'd be conspiring in a back room to overturn the will of the people to nominate a black man?"

Yeah, but should the will of the people mean anything when they allow behind-the-back-room people to trample on their will????

[I R A Darth Aggie]

Brendan, Obama has the same problem that Hillary does:

He can't win on the first ballot.

He can't win on the second ballot.

He'll need to peel away Hillary's pledged delegates and/or super delegates to get the neccessary delegate count.

After the second or third ballot, all bets are off, and only the party insiders will count. This will be a nomination determined in a smokey backroom somewhere in Denver, in the middle of the night.

And Bill knows where the bodies are buried.

[Brendan Loy]

No, Aggie, he doesn't have "the same problem" as Hillary, and to the extent he has a problem at all, you've mischaracterized it.

It's true he'll need superdelegate support to reach a majority. But whereas she'll need something like 65% of the supers, in order to overturn the will of the people, he'll only need something like 35% of the supers, in order to validate the will of the people. That is not "the same problem," either qualitatively or quantitatively.

(Note, I am not saying that it is never okay for the superdelegates to "overturn the will of the people." Certainly there are circumstances in which they should do so -- that's the whole reason they exist! However, I would argue that this is not such a circumstance. In any event, "overturning the will of the people" is an accurate description of what they'd be doing, and there's gotta be a higher burden - whether or not it's met here - for that than for simply validating the will of the people. So again, it's not "the same" thing, by any stretch.)

Moreover, it's categorically false that Obama "can't win on the first ballot" and "can't win on the second ballot." Superdelegates vote on the first and second ballots, just like all other delegates. So certainly he can, and very likely will, win on the first ballot.

[BB]

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