Hillary Clinton, the politician formerly known as shoe-in, is not doing very well under pressure. With less than a month left before the Iowa caucus, Barack Obama has closed the divide and is now tied with Clinton. Hillary the inevitable, the surefire thing, the personified vagina dentata that makes Republicans circle the wagons is fading; Hillary the desperate is unleashing a volley of spurious attacks against Obama that make even the most seasoned political gorehounds cringe.
Obama wanted to be president when he was five! Obama has skeletons in his closet! Is Obama trustworthy? Does Obama have a slush fund? Did that uppity negro sell drugs in addition to doing them? Methods of attack that would typically be used in a whisper campaign are being thrown to the media, because the Clinton camp is hoping that at least one of them – any of them – will resonate with voters, giving Hillary her groove lead back. All of them have fizzled, however, and Obama continues to gain traction.
Did Hillary ever consider that maybe America doesn’t want eight more years of the Hillary and Bill Clinton Dynasty? That the statistical dead heat in early primary states is a reflection of Democratic voters desire for change and honesty, a concept they simply cannot conceive of when they hear the name Clinton? Obama’s inexperience in Washington, a talking point constantly hammered by the establishment, and his hopeful, if vague, message shines bright against the murky machinations of the former first lady. The consensus is that Barack Obama doesn’t need consultants and focus groups to know where he stands on an issue.
This may not be a reflection of reality. Obama may be as calculated as Clinton, but if he is, he shrewdly obscures it, relying on his ample charm, muscular hope rhetoric and middle-of-the-road political approach to be his strong selling points. On at least the issue of racial identity Obama is guarded, walking the tightrope between being an acceptable candidate to white voters and trying to win over suspicious working class blacks who have hitherto embraced divisive pillars of the community like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Race is the elephant in the room of the Democratic primary. There are questions about whether white voters will vote for a black candidate, and if black voters will think Obama is too “white”. Several of the Clinton campaign’s attacks have racist undertones to them, namely the aforementioned “uppity” comment and raising the question about Obama selling drugs, a tactic that no one on the Democratic side would have publicly raised after Bill Clinton tacitly admitted to using marijuana.
As the race for the Democratic nomination narrows, Hillary Clinton will instinctively attack whomever she perceives as the biggest threat to her ascension to power. Whether negative campaigning will at some point work to her advantage remains to be seen. But the idea of Hillary the inevitable, the indestructible, the future Big Sister watching everything you do is, at least for the moment, on the ropes.
