In all the heat and light of the media coverage of Hillary’s 9 point win in Pennsylvania, not much of the commentary is gushing. No-one is congratulating the Senator for hanging in there, for working her guts out to stay in the race, for winning the primary. Everyone is tired. So, so tired. They just want this thing over with already. Including Obama.
But, as Maureen Dowd points out in The New York Times, Obama “complains about the politics of scoring points, but to win, you’ve got to score points.” And he can’t seem to smash this race over the net.
Instead, when asked another nondescript question a few days ago in yet another nondescript diner, he whined, ““can’t I just eat my waffle?” Maybe Obama should take his cues from Hillary and man up.
It’s not over by a long shot: Everyone take your coat off. Make yourself comfortable. It’s going to be a while before this is over. Hillary Clinton’s nine-point victory last night was exactly the justification she needed to continue her campaign, despite the worries voiced (even more loudly today) that the prolonged primary is hurting the party. And yet, the consensus seems to be that while Obama’s loss raises questions about his ability to appeal to white, working-class voters in the fall, many think nothing in the race has really changed, and we’ve merely pushed back the finish line in a marathon that Clinton can’t win. — New York Magazine
A whole lot of nothing: So much has happened since the March 4 primaries: Bittergate and Bosnia-gate, bowling and Crown Royal shots, Osama bin Laden and the Weather Underground, untold hours of TV coverage and millions of dollars spent on voter persuasion. And guess what? The race. Hasn’t. Moved. One. Bit. — Amy Walter, The National Journal
Hillary’s argument boils down to this: I can hold the traditionally Democratic voters critical to winning the general election and he can’t, and thus I can defeat McCain and he can’t. Sure, he’s ahead in delegates, but he won many of them months ago, before the halo over his campaign was knocked off. — The Weekly Standard
Why Hillary makes my wife scream: It is as if Hillary Clinton is engaged in a toxic transmission onto Barack Obama of every outrageous insult and accusation ever inflicted on her by the American right over the decades. She is running against what she might have become. Too much politics dries the soul of the idealist. It is abundantly clear that the Clintons, working with FOX News and manipulating old Clinton staffers like George Stephanopoulos, are trying, at least unconsciously, to so damage Barack Obama that he will be perceived as “unelectable” to Democratic superdelegates. — Tom Hayden, The Nation
The next McGovern?: For his part, Obama cut into Clinton’s advantage, but couldn’t erase it. Even though he campaigned extensively among white working class Pennsylvanians, he still couldn’t crack this constituency. He lost every white working class county in the state. He lost greater Pittsburgh area by 61 to 39 percent. He did poorly among Catholics–losing them 71 to 29 percent. A Democrat can’t win Pennsylvania in the fall without these voters. And those who didn’t vote in the primary but will vote in the general election are likely to be even less amenable to Obama. — John B Judis, The New Republic
Why won’t you let me eat my waffle?: In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage and a Philly cheese steak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak. But this is clearly a man who can’t wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites. That was made plain with his cri de coeur at the Glider Diner in Scranton when a reporter asked him about Jimmy Carter and Hamas. “Why” he pleaded, sounding a bit, dare we say, bitter, “can’t I just eat my waffle?” — Maureen Dowd, New York Times
A bit of scientific analysis, too much media talk, talking, talking, talking, means a lot of it will be nonsense. Tom Hayden’s Hillary lament with “toxic transmission onto Barack Obama of every outrageous insult and accusation ever inflicted on her by the American right over the decades” is known as projection, a learned self-protection devise from the sub-conscious. It’s the self-justified doings to the Palestinians by the Israelis as they felt it from the earth’s advanced race in the 40’s. The abused abuseth. Who’s arguing? It’s why the occupier’s police force is justified in arresting a known militant in Gaza by taking out a building with a gunship forget the ½ dozen kids asleep in the place. Bugger all that lets just keep taking, talking, talking. Oh, about that
“she is running against what she might have become” try and explain that & “too much politics dries the soul of the idealist” is an evidenceless lyric. It’s all cute so long as ‘the media’ knows what its talking about.