If only John Edwards, a year ago, had thought to pound on that one, simple little word: change. He could have been its agent, and would likely be leading the pack now. Sure, it's void of real meaning and almost laughably clichéd, but on the other hand it embodies -- bumper-sticker-style -- what voters seek most, and any candidate who can first link that one winning word to his or her name is light years ahead of the game.
And it now appears voters want change in their politics as well as policies. There's a palpable and even provable sense of yearning in the air -- a profound yearning for a cleaner style of politics, a rejection of old-school skulduggery, and even some demonstrated connection between the electorate's concerns and the candidate's strategy.
Put those two together -- the desired and the delivered -- and Barack Obama's crushing victory over Hillary Clinton yesterday comes into easy focus. Two sentences from this morning's New York Times coverage summarizes in large part the senator's Waterloo:
"South Carolina voters showed little taste for the Clintons’ political approach. They said in exit polls that their main concern was the economy; during an all-out campaign blitz on behalf of his wife here, Mr. Clinton spent the last week highlighting Mr. Obama’s record on Iraq and his recent statements about the transformational nature of Ronald Reagan's presidency."
Yet those old-school distortions were but the half of it. The other half, of course, was Bill Clinton's slithering undercurrent of racial politics, endorsed if not researched and scripted by the Clinton campaign itself. Yesterday's Bill-ism was perhaps the topper, the granddaddy snake of them all: When asked a question that had nothing to do with race, Bill responded by casually noting that Jesse Jackson had won South Carolina's primaries (caucuses, actually, at the time) in 1984 and '88. Yes, Bill, we get it. We noticed. Obama is black.
How did that play with S.C.'s white voters? Obama obliterated his eight-percent ranking reported only a few days ago, scoring "about as many South Carolina white men" as voted for Clinton, and outscoring her by about 10 points among youthful white voters of both sexes.
Ron Fournier of the Associated Press had some excellent advice for the former president just four days ago: "Bill Clinton says race shouldn't be an issue in the Democratic presidential campaign. Well, then perhaps he should stop talking about it." Bill should have listened, or at the very least, Hillary should have muzzled him.
But the Clinton campaign's old-school skulduggery didn't stop at Obama's door. Last night in interviews with the three candidates' top strategists, Edwards' Joe Trippi was on the verge of ripping any Clintonite's heart out. His on-camera blow-up was over the Clinton's use of "robocalling" on the primary's eve in a vulgar attempt to cut into Edwards' primarily white vote. The robo-wording was sickening:
Hello. This is the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign. Before you vote on Saturday, you should know that John Edwards voted for permanent trade relations with China ... [a] bill that cost thousands of jobs. Like the ones in the textile mills he talks about so much down here. You should also know that John Edwards made nearly a half a million dollars working for a Wall Street investment fund, a fund that’s been profiting on foreclosing on the homes of families; including 100 homes right here in South Carolina.... Edwards says he’s one of us, but up on Wall Street he was just another one of them. Can you trust John Edwards?
Grotesquely underhanded, but in a pinch, it's what they do, and what they do best.
Many voters no doubt recalled that any candidate who campaigns that way will also govern that way. Does any other South Carolina primary victor ... oh, say, circa 2000 ... who went on to the White House come to mind?
This morning the Clinton campaign is licking its wounds, wondering why the old venom failed to kill. The network commentariat's consensus last night seemed to be that it would now pull back from its attack-dog strategy, having suffered a momentous backlash.
But I have my doubts. Like a cornered wolverine, the Clintons are far more inclined, it seems to me, to strike again from the same old strategic foundation, though in new and wondrous tactical ways. I'd put my money on a desperate bloodbath of inventive skulduggery. It's what they do -- because they learned from Republicans all too well.
"Change" be damned.
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