Clinton's Anger Factor

Why Clinton Will Not Win The Nomination

I still haven't had a chance to watch the debates from last Saturday night, except for the few video clips being posted here and there. Most of them seem to focus on Clinton's "attack" on Obama. And again, while I haven't seen the full clip in context of the debate, it's interesting to note the varied comments on the blogs and different articles.

Armadillo Joe over at Expatriate Thoughts brought to my attention an article in the Guardian by Niall Stanage who opines that the anger shown by Clinton could be her undoing.

The former First Lady, never likely to be mistaken for a shrinking violet, mounted the most aggressive assault yet by one credible Democratic candidate on another...

...Obama won Iowa in large part because of an astonishing turnout - almost double the previous record number of caucus-goers showed up, and a disproportionate number of them were young people. If he can inspire anything like similar numbers to go to the polls in New Hampshire and in later primaries, the Democratic nomination is his for the taking.

So maybe it's no surprise that Clinton seeks to dampen hopes, deride vision and mock idealism. Who knows: the scorched earth approach might even work for her, enabling her to grind her way to the nomination.

But what a dismal victory it would be.

I find this analysis extremely interesting and telling, considering it's coming from an Irish journalist working in the US.

So here's my limited take on the situation after reading several comments on different blogs. Clinton supporters defend her by playing the gender card. "Clinton isn't half as angry as Edwards has been all year. We should have the same rules for both men and women candidates..." Or this quote: "Edward's ENTIRE campaign has been angry and it's not working. Hillary gets angry once and everyone jumps on her." But gender isn't the issue.

Clinton's anger and attacks are seemingly coming from a position of desperation. If she is trying to switch her message from the candidate of "experience" to the candidate of "change" (sorry, Hillary, too late on that one) because it's worked for Obama and Edwards in Iowa, then attacking voting records and "likeability", and insinuating skeletons in Obama's closet aren't the way to go.

At a more subtle level, Clinton and her aides have begun referring with mantra-like repetitiveness to the need for candidates to be properly "vetted". The term, used so frequently, seems calculated to suggest that there is some awful secret in Obama's past that would incinerate Democrats' hopes of taking back the White House if he were to become the party's nominee.

Clinton's anger is not the reason for the maelstrom she's in after Iowa with little chance of recovery due to the short time period between Iowa and New Hampshire. It's why she is angry that is the telling factor.

As another commenter describes it, "There's a difference between the bitter, mean-spirited personal anger of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards displaying contempt for the rigged political system, and that difference has absolutely nothing to do with gender. It has everything to do with Hillary (and her DLC surrogates) being a petty, nasty, triangulating neocon. "

I don't necessarily agree with the "neocon" portion of the comment. Here's another: "Edwards is personally angry that the richest nation on earth has millions of people living in poverty, and is destroying its middle class and potential for upward mobility. Hillary was angry that people weren't giving her experience the respect she thought it deserved. See how these two kinds of anger are not the same? One, I believe, is called "moral outrage" and the other one simply isn't."

I agree with that wholeheartedly as I do with Chris Rock:

"I think America's ready for a woman president . . . just not that woman. Being married to somebody doesn't make you good at their job. I've been with my wife 10 years now. If she got up here right now, y'all wouldn't laugh. At all. You get on a plane tomorrow, you want the pilot's wife flying you?"

It's simplistic, but you get the point. I'm sure the time Clinton served as First Lady was a learning experience. But did she have access to top secret documents? Was she privy to matters of national security? If Hillary wants to run on experience, fine. Your experience in the Senate will do quite nicely. But for all intents and purposes, Bill Clinton was President of the United States, not Hillary Clinton.

As far as "not that woman," I don't want Hillary as the nominee because, in my opinion, she is too much of a centrist. We need to reverse course and go in the exact opposite direction just to get back on track. A centrist view is only going to bring us to the center of "neocon" and "right-wing."

Another Clinton phrase that I find irritating is the "I've been through the wringer against the Republican smear machine and know how to handle it" line. That is just a sorry reason to vote for anyone. And how exactly did she handle the vast right-wing conspiracy (which I do believe existed and still exists)? If she handles it so well, why does Hillary Clinton invoke so much vitriol and disdain from not only Republicans, but some Democrats as well? She is a polarizing figure, much more than Obama or Edwards, and one that the right-wing base can use as a rallying cry. In my opinion, the only thing that's going to make the 2008 Presidential election a close one (besides voter disenfranchisement) is a Hillary Clinton candidacy that will help galvanize the currently beaten down Republican voters.

I'll take a look at the debates and perhaps update as I see fit. But for now, I see Clinton's ship sinking. Two days after Iowa, I thought if Obama wins New Hampshire, the momentum will kill Clinton's campaign.

And if you think about it, you have to admit that a strong one-two punch like Obama/Edwards (or vice versa) is something the Democratic Party has not seen in a very long time, if ever.