“Meet Me In Texas—err Ohio—errr…Somewhere!”
| Before the dust had even settled in the Potomac after her crushing one-two-three defeat there on February 12th, Hillary had a new challenge for Barack Obama: “Tell him to meet me in Texas. We’re ready.” Beyond Hillary characteristically diminishing the worth of the states she had just lost (which we’ve come to expect), she even managed, in one sentence, to diminish the worth of two states she hadn’t lost yet, Hawaii and Wisconsin. Burn. | |
By the morning hours of February 22nd, just 10 days after her “meet me in Texas” taunt to Barack, she sounds a little different: “You know, I’d love to carry Texas but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee.” Quite the change in rhetoric from the person who just a week before was explaining to the country that people in Texas represent most Americans more than the people in places Obama has won. So what happened in those 10 days that caused Hillary to throw Texans under the bus before they even realized they were supposed to count? Well it turns out a lot of things.
First, for a candidate running on the message that only one candidate (her, supposedly) has the experience to be “ready on Day One”, she has run a pretty horrible campaign. She somehow managed to start the race off with every possible advantage, and lose it all to a candidate who came into the race with nearly every possible disadvantage, and she managed to lose it bad. In Texas this failure first took the form of not knowing, until recently, about the unique Texas prima-caucus system that was going to make it nearly impossible for her to rack up a strong delegate lead over Obama there (oops). This isn’t too surprising coming from the same person who failed to read the NIE report on Iraqi WMD (or lack thereof) before following Bush like a little sheep and voting to allow him to invade Iraq. Next, her organizing in Texas has been crap, just as it has been in most other states. Their on the ground effort in Texas has been described as chaotic, aimless, and more colorfully, “a clusterfuck”. The Clintons also seemed to have the benefit of one of Texas’ historically black universities having its polling places taken away, yet in an amazing display of democracy in action, thousands of black students marched over seven miles to the nearest poll to vote and protest disenfranchisement.
Secondly, she again underestimated the unmatchable appeal of Barack Obama (while at the same time vastly overestimating her appeal). In state after state we have seen that she can only lead in places where he hasn’t spent much time, but as soon as he sets foot on the ground and starts meeting with people, they love him. The most time the Clintons spend around people, the opposite happens. In Texas, Obama quickly went from being behind by double digits to shooting ahead of Hillary in the span of a couple weeks. He also got the endorsement of all five major Texas newspapers. In less than two weeks, Obama has made what looked like a safe, if narrow, win in Texas for Hillary, into a very possible win for him. So where does Hillary go from here after both Bill and Chelsea have said that Texas is a “must win” state for Hillary (no matter how many times her campaign denies ever saying it is “must win”)?
Well the very next day after diminishing the importance of Texas in her grand strategy, Hillary gives us a hint of what’s to come: “Meet me in Ohio!!”
You can’t make this kind of irony up.
Oh, and Ohio isn’t looking all that great for her either.
Wait for “Meet me in Rhode Island! We’re ready!!”
“Encuéntreme en Puerto Rico!”
Any day now…
Update: The trouble keeps on piling on for Hillary. Former Democratic Texas governor Mark White endorsed Obama today saying he believes Obama has “essentially become America’s candidate. You see people from all walks of life, rich and poor, every color reflected, every ethnicity. There’s enthusiasm, hope. He will not only be nominated, he will be elected president. He will be America’s president.”
