By Gerald F. Seib and Sara Murray The Wall Street Journal
Published: 03-21-08
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is at a moment of “real crisis” says Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh. With her attempts to force new votes in Florida and Michigan fading her “prospects for prevailing over Barack Obama in the primary popular vote by June are vanishing fast.
The Illinois senator meanwhile has just delivered a JFK-like speech on race in America — a savvy move that may well have stanched the hemorrhaging of his campaign over the controversial remarks made by his pastor Jeremiah Wright. The mood could be shifting back in his direction.”
Hence Hirsh writes “it’s a moment for miracles. And there’s really only one thing Hillary Clinton can do perhaps to pull one off. That is to play to her greatest strength — her Clintonian credibility on the economy.”
Clinton advisers have “spent the last several days discussing how to handle the financial crisis that KO’d Bear Stearns and has dominated the headlines this week.
‘We’re quite concerned that more action is needed. And we’re spending a lot of time with large numbers of experts on what’s the best framework’ for the relief plan Gene Sperling her chief economic adviser told me.”
On the other hand maybe the mood isn’t shifting back in Obama’s direction.
Tim Reid of the Times of London writes that he “has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his pastor’s inflammatory remarks and the issue has become a serious threat to his presidential ambitions polls suggest.”
New surveys “point to an erosion of Mr. Obama’s support among independents a bloc that has previously backed him in overwhelming numbers and particular alienation among white working-class voters who will be critical to the general election in November. They appear disturbed by the Illinois senator’s refusal to disown the Rev Jeremiah Wright” his controversial former pastor.
Reid cites a new Gallup tracking poll that shows Clinton “regaining her lead over Mr. Obama for the first time in a month now leading 49 per cent to 42 a 13-point shift to the former First Lady in less than a fortnight. Mrs. Clinton also holds a 16-point lead over Mr. Obama in Pennsylvania their next contest on April 22.
In addition Mr. Obama has lost his once-commanding lead among independent voters to John McCain the Republican nominee in a new CBS poll. The survey shows Mr. McCain with leads over both Democrats a sign of how their protracted battle threatens to damage the eventual nominee.”
In any case Clinton isn’t giving up on the idea of holding new votes in Florida and Michigan the two states that she says she won but that had their delegates banned because they defied the national Democratic party by moving up the dates of their primaries. “Clinton kept the pressure on Obama for another day urging him to sign on to a re-vote in Michigan and saying not re-doing primaries there and in Florida would call into question the legitimacy of the ultimate nominee” reports NBC’s Athena Jones.
Explaining why she traveled to Michigan this week Clinton said: “I do not see how two of our largest and most significant states can be disenfranchised and left out of the process of picking our nominee without raising serious questions about the legitimacy of that nominee” Jones reports. What’s more “Clinton suggested Obama was afraid to have a re-vote. ‘For the life of me I don’t understand why Sen. Obama seems to be afraid of letting there be a re-vote in Michigan’ she said.”
Back on the Wright controversy though the Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne also took a look at Obama’s speech and noted that while the speech doesn’t necessarily mean Obama should be president “It does mean that he deserves to be judged on his own terms and not by the ravings of an angry preacher.”
The tradition of “African American outrage” is not new it’s just not something that is usually expressed in front of white people. Even Martin Luther King Jr. switched his tone between white and black audiences and a look into his past speeches provides lines that if uttered today would likely cause a media firestorm.
“I cite King not to justify Wright’s damnation of America or his lunatic and pernicious theories but to suggest that Obama’s pastor and his church are not as far outside the African American mainstream as many would suggest” Dionne writes.
Turning to the Iraq debate Ann-Marie Slaughter notes on the Huffington Post that the discussion has been too focused on who was right or wrong when the U.S. entered Iraq not what it should do going forward.
“Until we can fix the mess we are in everyone who cares about what happens both to our troops and to the Iraqi people should force themselves to face up to the hard issues on the ground rather than indulging in the easy game of gotcha” Slaughter writes.
From her perspective such a plan should be judged on four elements.
1.) Making sure Iraq doesn’t create weapons of mass destruction
2.) weakening terrorist groups
3.) ensuring Iraqi human rights
4.) creating a functional Iraqi government that can aid in stabilizing the Middle East and
5.) doing all of this as fast as possible to bring the troops home.
“The policy that offers the best chance on all five measures is the policy we should follow in my view” Slaughter says. “And applying those measures to concrete policy proposals is the debate we should be having.”
