Letter from the Left Coast: Hillary Blows her Stash!

Right. That's quite enough about Harry. While I respect his willingness to go to fight in Afghanistan, he is only doing what I would expect any officer to do. I was more impressed with his remarks about his wounded colleagues being the real heroes, which suggested a growing maturity. Hopefully, that will extend to other areas of his life, although whether a cavalry officers' mess is the place to learn such maturity is I fear open to question.

The fight for the Democratic Party's presidential candidate enters an important - maybe even its final - phase this week with Tuesday's primaries in Texas and Ohio, what does our correspondent on the Left Coast Ian Bowater have to say about it all? 

Last time, I promised something on Hillary blowing her stash; little did I know that she was going to blow her stack. Still lacking traction after good debate performances, she laid into Barack Obama over last weekend. The Press Corps – bless ’em – were outraged. Their tender ears aren’t accustomed to passion or truth so, yet again, they circled the wagons around the Senator from Illinois – or as Hillary calls him “my  opponent”. Why can’t they invoke each other's name?

Of course, Hillary doesn’t help herself when on the attack. Her speaking style is awful. Obama glides smoothly from one saccharine-soaked promise to the next glittering vision of the future and the applause lines appear from nowhere. Hillary, on the other hand, slowly and upwardly inflects every claptrap until it sounds shrill. MSNBC trailed this week’s televised debate with the tag line “His Words – Her Voice”. For that read – Gandhi vs Yoko Ono.

On the stump, Hillary’s warm-up act is usually a local Democrat looking to extend his fifteen minutes well beyond its sell by date. She has to stand in the background, nodding, clapping and mugging while waving or pointing at imaginary friends in the dwindling crowd. By the time the local clown has finished twisting her record and policy positions into balloon animals, she’s on a hiding to nothing even in front of a handpicked mob. She looks like a tired old hooker forced to pimp for herself.

If you think that sounds sexist, it’s nothing to what she has to endure on the campaign trail. Hillary is first judged against a male’s ideal of womanhood then as a politician. She is rated on her pants suits, her hair and her wrinkles long before they get to her speeches. When she looks good, no one says a word. The nice little black number with high regency collar piped in gold was lovely – nary a word.

But the tide might be turning on the sartorial front. Obama is being castigated by the Republicans for not accessorizing. His funeral director’s suit does not have a Stars and Stripes lapel pin. They know that because the lapel is not covered with his hand over Barack Hussein Obama’s heart during the Star Spangled Banner. That’s just a taste of what we are in for if Hillary doesn’t stop the tide next Tuesday. If money talks, she walks.

Currently, Barack is beating Clinton two to one in fundraising. He has so much money in his coffers that he is going to have difficulty keeping his pledge to John McCain only use public funds for the general election. Another case of Barack quickly saying what seems like the right thing off the top of his head without thinking it through. McCain has become the Republican nominee while running on a frayed shoestring, he needs the taxpayers’ dough. Obama could become the nominee with millions left unspent.

It wasn’t always so. In the days of yore when the campaign began Clinton was the clear front-runner. Her opponents were the usual suspects with a book to promote or talk show hopefuls. Hillary hoovered up the big donors who all maxed out their limit of $2,500. They still had money so they could hedge their bets with another two and a half grand for a once and future candidate with momentum. That turned out to be Barack Obama. So where did he really come from? For that we have to go back to the 2,000 general election.

An opinion poll famously reported in 2,000 that the majority of the electorate who voted for George W Bush did so because he was a guy with whom they liked to have a beer. The pollsters failed to address the issue of Bush being a dry drunk and there’d be more beer for the respondents in the poll. And so it was, intelligence, experience and competence lost out to Budweiser.

A couple of years later Gray Davis lost the governorship of California to an amiable, steroid enhanced, former bodybuilder. Gray by name Gray by nature was an experienced, competent, professional politician who had held practically every political office in the state from dogcatcher to Lieutenant-Governor.  The LG is the number two. Gray was a real number two by a name and nature. Consequently nobody liked him and likeability is key in US politics.

The Press Corps never liked the Clintons. David Broder, The Washington Post’s doyen of the corps said in 2000 he was glad to see the back of the Clinton crowd because “they have trashed our town”. It seems he’d prefer an idiot as President over a bunch of smart operatives who worn jeans and ordered something straight-up at the endless cocktail parties.

What to do if you don’t like the whiff of a Clinton? Answer, promote a half-term Senator whose original opponent in Illinois imploded and was forced to run, or rather canter, against a last-minute black Republican in a suit. Talk up his sugary rhetoric, call it pure maple when it’s ersatz corn syrup and you’ve got your likeable candidate. Suddenly, Hillary had to start spending the war chest to stave off the challenge. That’s when she blew her stash.

One of Hillary’s stump speech strengths is the economy, her campaign finance record is where this myth starts to unravel. She spent $100,000 on party platters to lose the Iowa Caucuses. If you’ve ever tucked into mid-West cold cuts, you’ll shudder to think what they had to spend on Pepto-Bismol. By the time she got winning ways, there were $25,000 a night tabs at Vegas hotels. And that’s just the expenses. The staff costs were mushrooming out of control.

You’d think her legions of campaign advisors and spinmeisters would be savvy operators taking a bet on Hillary in return for a big job in her first administration or an Ambassadorship to somewhere nice and warm with good food. No! These superannuated apparatchiks are getting paid! One senior campaign operative billed her for over $1,000,000… in January alone!! And that guy hasn’t even given up his day job!!!

The campaign has had a problem with simple arithmetic too. The strategy was to go after the big, delegate rich states, which need lots of cash to throw at TV ads. They allowed Barack to get momentum with a long string of little wins in the caucus states, which need ground support. He’s got that in droves. Catch Hillary’s Armani army knocking on doors? Not bloody likely, it’s cold in Nebraska this time of the year. Even in balmy Texas they have totally miscalculated the process.

Even if Hillary wins, the convoluted divvy up of delegates favours urban and therefore black congressional districts where Barack will get the lion's share of delegates. She could still win the popular vote and lose the assigned delegate count. Sounds like Gore's pyrrhic victory in 2,000. All she has left are the Super Delegates – the elite, the party hacks, the elected House and Senate members who get a say for some reason best known the Democratic Party elite, the party hacks and elected etc, etc.

Poor old Bill is running a rat patrol on the gunwales of the sinking ship trying to keep them in line. It is a tough job. Barack is swimming in cash; he can cajole, lobby and buy off the super delegates with offers to fund their campaigns for the House and Senate. There is already blood congealng in the sawdust on the floors of the smoke-filled rooms. The watchword is – “If it ain’t Barack, don’t try to fix it.”

Away from the campaign trail Prince Harry made the entertainment and celebrity news on MSNBC. But only so they could slam Matt Drudge, the muckraker who broke the story over here. Next week, I'll be looking at another son of an influential family got in the firing line and made a political career out of it. Tune in for "No Country For Old Men – 71-year-old John McCain vies with 74-year-old Ralph Nader to become an asterisk in US political history.

Comments

[Spartakist]

I'm enjoying these letters from the Left Coast, especially regarding Obama.

[Spartakist]

Glad to read that somebody is listening to the issues that the Democratic candidates are talking about....

[The 3rd Column]

Never put a good woman down is what I say. Hillary will run the distance.

At the end of the day, it's all about who can beat the Republican come November and I have a feeling that Mrs Clinton is the one.

[Ernest Suffling]

The British press, including the BBC seem to be embedded with the candidates.I am enjoying Letters from the Left coast. I don't know how independent it is but it is different.

[rogue gunner]

Here Here!