What Hillary Clinton must do to slow down the Obama express train
Commentary
By James P. Gannon
By now it is abundantly clear that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president is in full failure mode and nothing less than a dramatic and immediate change in strategy will save her from becoming roadkill on Sen. Barack Obama’s highway to the White House.
She is beginning to look like Rudy Giuliani, losing week after week while repeating “wait until we get to Florida,” or, in Hillary’s case, “wait until we get to Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania.” But Texas and Ohio are three weeks away, and Pennsylvania is ten weeks away, and both are eternities in today’s politics. Waiting for a breakthrough later won’t work any better for Clinton than it did for Giuliani.
Obama has all the momentum, excitement, media attention and the look of an unstoppable bullet train while Hillary is chugging down a sidetrack to Texas. She has to do something NOW–not tomorrow, not next week–to grab the attention of voters and change the narrative of the media that is portraying her campaign as a loser’s march to humiliation.
Here are five things the Clinton campaign can do–and probably must do–to alter the dynamic of the Democratic race and give her even a long-shot at a comeback:
Attack the media: Always a popular strategy, this looks needed now that the media seem so much a part of Obama’s campaign. His coverage is fabulously favorable, and the commentary on cable TV’s gab shows mixes amazement at his success with barely-concealed glee at Hillary’s string of losses and distress in fund-raising and firing campaign aides.
Hillary needs to accept interviews on national TV and attack a couple of high-profile media figures–MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, NBC’s Tim Russert or CBS’s Katie Couric would be good targets. President George H. W. Bush used this tactic to good effect in 1988 in a well-planned attack on CBS’s Dan Rather. Hillary would be even better at it, and would evoke sympathy for claims that she’s being ganged up on by a biased bunch of blabbermouths.
Send in the saboteurs: She needs a roadside bomb to blow up Obama’s Humvee. She can’t be seen planting this herself, or letting Bill do it, since he botched it so badly when he tried it in South Carolina. But allies outside her campaign–the independent expenditure groups that allegedly are not co-ordinating (wink, wink) with the official Clinton camp–could do it, and in fact, are reported by Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal to be discussing such plans.
Look for an independently-funded TV ad attack on Obama soon in Ohio or Texas, similar to the famous “Swift Boat” ads run by angry Vietnam vets that sabotaged John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign by besmirching his war record as phony. The “swift boating” of Obama might involve his connections to an alleged Chicago slumlord (already mentioned by Hillary in one TV debate, but never pressed) or some personal peccadillo or financial matter.
Drop a policy bomb: Hillary’s campaign speeches on wonky prescriptions for health care, economic stimulus, education reform and the like are so mind-numbing they drive Democrats to Obama rallies. She needs a dramatic new idea to fight economic problems; reach into FDR’s playbook and propose a new New Deal to arrest the coming Depression. Go into Ohio with Warren Buffett and announce he’s going to buy General Motors and give it to the Clinton Administration, which will restore all the lost auto factory jobs….or go into Ohio and denounce NAFTA and its chief sponsor–President Bill Clinton, who rammed it through Congress; promise to repeal NAFTA and divorce Bill, killing two birds with one stone…..something like that. Sure headlines.
Cry some more. Hey, it worked in New Hampshire, didn’t it? She has plenty to cry about now–eight straight primary and caucus losses, landslide-proportion defeats in the Potomac Primaries, money troubles, campaign staff turmoil. She’s a woman in distress. She should surround herself with other women in distress–a focus group of former guests on Dr. Phil’s daily exhibition of family dysfunction–and have a good cry.
Lie, steal, cheat: Actually, this strategy is already underway. All the Democratic candidates agreed to respect a party decision that no delegates would be awarded in Michigan and Florida because they flaunted party rules in setting primary dates. But now Hillary is claiming she won those delegates and they must be seated at the convention. She can’t get the nomination without them, so she’ll fight to her last breath for them–even if it means a party-damaging spectacle at the Democratic convention in Denver in August. Same with super-delegates: If the Clintons have anything they can use to bribe, blackmail or torture the super-delegate party hacks (many who owe them something from their White House years), they will use it. All’s fair when your back’s to the wall. After all, politics ain’t beanbag.
Finally, Hillary needs to scrap that campaign speech she’s worked to death. Enough already about “Day One” and her “35 years of experience.” She can’t compete with Obama on eloquence. She needs to talk plain, not fancy. She needs to speak from the heart, be her own woman (not the ex-president’s spouse), keep Bill in hiding, and win or lose on her own.
-- James P. Gannon
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