At one point, one of the film's major protagonists, Aaron Altman (played by Albert Brooks...no relation) is feeding empty-suit-but-good-looking-anchor Tom Grunick (William Hurt in a wonderfully underplayed performance) information of a technical nature during a live report on an international incident. Grunick is not the brightest bulb in the TV news world but he handles the import of information through his earplug with seamless efficiency. Brooks sees his words reflected on his TV screen seconds after he phones it in. He remarks, with stunned admiration, "I say it here, it comes out there."
I felt this kind of pride of ownership when reading this morning's commentary from Newsweek's doyenne of DC politics, Eleanor Clift. She was referring to the stratagem I highlighted yesterday of repeating the issue of Obama's youthful indiscretion of drug usage while vowing not to talk about it. She was relaying the observations of a longtime Democratic strategist who also caught the ham-handed attempt to lay a smack-down on Obama:
In what looked like one of the oldest campaign tricks in the book, Hillary pollster Mark Penn managed to repeat the charge even as he disavowed its place in the campaign. "It's dangerous for her," says the Democratic strategist. "She has high negatives. She cuts someone else up; she cuts herself down."Clift is no tool of the right-wing media. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has jokingly referred to her in the past as "Eleanor Rodham Clift." Is Clift's column a sign that the DC news illuminati are deserting Team Clinton?
Senator Clinton continued to suggest that Obama wasn't a familiar enough quantity in the party, hinting that the man Joe Biden infamously referred to as "clean" perhaps had some dirt under his fingernails. Her husband took the opportunity on the PBS' Charlie Rose show to suggest that voting for Obama was "rolling the dice." This is not how you behave when you are simply on the way to your coronation.
The problem the Democrats have is one they have often faced in the past. The bench is depleted. The experienced candidates who would have seen strong support in the past (Biden, Richardson, Dodd, etc) are mired in single-digit poll numbers. The pundits are just now realizing that we live in a celebrity world. The omnimunificent Oprah didn't tour for them; she toured for Obama. And thousands turned out...but will they turnout for a caucus or primary?
Is this a window of opportunity for John Edwards? What if Hillary gets THIRD in Iowa? That seems very unlikely since caucus states require strong long-time ground game organization. Edwards does have that going for him and his populist message plays well with Iowa Democrats. But Obama is from next door. That may be more important.
It is well to remember that John Kerry was barely showing into double-digits in 2004 until Senator Ted Kennedy brought in his people to help the junior senator from his state in the last few weeks leading up the the Hawkeye Cauci. That organization's ability to overwhelm the volunteer minions of the "people's candidate", Howard Dean astonished many of the punditry. While it didn't end the competition, Kerry did go on to take New Hampshire, his natural turf, and he never looked back on his way to the party's nomination.
If organization is the key, then Hillary could recover in New Hampshire. That is the state that launched her husband's run for the White House with a strong second place finish to New Englander Paul Tsongas; all in the middle of the Gennifer Flowers hubbub and the leaked draft letter fracas. In Hillary's case, present polls are threatening a possible four state loss in a row beginning to the primary season.
It's a long cry from "Mrs. Inevitability." Why is that aura of invulnerability so important? In politics, perception is everything...especially when you count on money from donors to keep flowing. When the money slows down, so do ad buys, hiring, travel schedules, and it all contributes to the perception, played by the hilt to a 24-hour media, that your campaign is imploding.
And that, if it began to play out on the small screen, would be enough to turn the Hillary express into a Greek tragedy for all to see. Again, all of this is simply pre-game speculation when there hasn't been a single vote counted yet but the flop sweat, again so wonderfully portrayed by Brook's Aaron Altman in Broadcast News, is beginning to emanate from the Clinton campaign.
Whats that Greek word...hubris?
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