Ex Cathedra from my navel:
Looking at the whole response of the Hillary camp to Iowa and the events of the last few days, I think that her advisors (and Hillary, most likely) are totally flummoxed. They expected a walk to the coronation at the convention, and seriously were totally surprised and shocked at ‘Obamamania’ or whatever you want to call it. From their perspective, she’s The Real Deal, and the rest of these guys are not serious contenders - just characters with big mouths and big dreams and no idea of What Needs To Be Done.
I get the idea too, that their view of Obamamania is something similar to that of a society matron watching a crowd of people foaming at the mouth, pushing and shoving to get the limited supply of Betsy Wetsy dolls for their kid for Christmas - sort of horrified that the mob would go so nuts for something so - well, not worthwhile.
What the mass of people are seeing, I think, it that the Same Old Set Of Suits aren’t really giving a damn about them, and regardless of party, they keep getting had by the powers that be. The Bushies have lied and scrod till the cows come home. The Establishment Democrats are too spineless to do much aside of feather their own nests. So the people who are doing the best in either party are saying that the little man is being had, the lies don’t make sense anymore, and I’ll tell the truth and get things done for the best situation of the country.
In the case of Hillary and Romney and McCain, I think they decided two to three years ago to run, and laid out the fundamentals of how best to play to the base - or the base as they saw it. The problem is that in setting those up and sticking to these positions, they’ve ignored the real restlessness with Bushism and Same-Old-Same-Old. Obama and Edwards and Huckabee saw that coming, went with that, and it’s made all the difference.
In the case of the populists, I think it’s nearer to their real personal position, nd that makes it easier for them to be seen as credible. I remember LBJ very well as a kid, and I heard plenty from my Dad in particular as to how dishonest he felt the man was as a deep-down part of the way he did business. And frankly, I agree.
McCain decided that the way to Bushie support was to kiss Bush’s butt on a number of things, including the war (which he now says that he would have gone for anyway and screw the WMDs, Saddam just needed takin’ down). Romney decided to dump all of his old opinions and out-Bush the Bushies. If Bush liked to torture, sure, twice the torture!
The problem is that Romney is seen by a lot of the pro political operatives and his fellow candidates as a total dishonest fraud. One blogger said that Romney’s smartest move would have been to position himself as the experienced executive with new, better ideas and to dump high Bushism as just not the way to run anything, much less a country. He was too brittle to take that much of a jump, and so…
In the case of Hillary, she got beaten up enough in the past that she got shell-shocked into believing that the art of only the most probable was possible. Backroom deals for an inch or two at a time. We’ll get around to doing something major maybe someday. Anything else, she came to see as political suicide.
Here’s a part of what I mean, from the Daily Kos:
What not realize is that times are very different. 2008 is nothing like 2004. Five major events have dramatically changed America. Those 5 events are Terri Schiavo, Hurricane Katrina, The Housing Collapse, $3 Gas, and Where’s Osama. And people now spot the BS.
Terri Schiavo awoke Americans to the fact that the Republican Party is controlled by people who are just like the Taliban. And that scared them.
Hurricane Katrina awoke Americans to the fact that Republicans don’t care about people. And that angered them. The Housing Collapse and $3 Gas awoke Americans to the fact that Republicans suck on the economy. And that concerned them. And Where’s Osama awoke Americans to the fact that Republicans are truly disastrous on foreign policy issues because even Mr. Magoo could capture Bin Laden if given 7 years to do so.
So now the electorate is poised to begin a new era where the Washington Cocktail Party Elitists, the uber wealthy corporate interests, and Washington insiders can rot in hell while the rest of us fix this nation. Voters want real change. Voters want candidates to tell it to them straight even if they disagree with you from time to time. Voters want somebody to stand up for the middle class even if it means stepping on some toes.
John Edwards and Barack Obama get this.
She chose to continue down the path of Shrum, Brazille, Penn, and other Beltway losers where you try to muddy the differences and hope you end up on the winning side of the 51 percent straw. She chose to smear Obama’s 100% pro choice record and now her campaign is attacking the family of Natalie Sarkisyan. She chose wrong.
As a result, she is now perceived by people (even those who agree with her most of the time) as calculating, dishonest, and a person who will say or do anything to win. She can thank Mark Penn for that image but at the end of the day, she only has herself to blame.
At this point, the only thing she apparently can think of to do against Obama is try to nit-pick his loose ends, or call him a hopeless dreamer with no track record. I really can’t see this seriously getting her somewhere. She may see herself as the obvious choice and Obama a charlatan who presumes to the throne, but she’s going to make people like her even less.