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There is something of the dawn about him

One of the biggest international stories so far this year has been the rise and rise of Barack Obama. Its twin is the collapse of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. She now has the unmistakable air of a loser as the aura of inevitability and the mystique of invincibility give way to a scramble for relevance. Perhaps she is learning the meaning of the audacity of hope.

One former British politician said famously and damningly of another that there was something of the night about him. There truly is something of the dawn about Mr. Obama. He has been able to shine light on the dark landscape of despair and self-doubt afflicting the country. His launch of a presidential bid a year ago was indeed audacious, yet his vision of hope seems set to triumph over her claims of experience. Hillary Clinton has lost what was her greatest asset a year ago — her aura of inevitability — leaving her campaign sputtering and imploding like a falling star while Mr. Obama is still building his head of steam.

Mr. Obama has momentum, money and media. Tellingly, all the television networks cut off Ms Clinton in mid-sentence on Tuesday night in order to switch to Mr. Obama’s rousing rally speech when he declared “Houston, we have liftoff.” He beat her by a margin of 17 points, 58-41. Astonishingly, that is the closest Ms Clinton has come in his string of 10 galloping victories on the trot. Later the same night, in Hawaii, he beat her 76-24. Mr. Obama’s margin over Ms Clinton in Wisconsin was about the same as Senator John McCain’s over Governor Mike Huckabee (55-37). In other words, Ms Clinton is as formidable a foe as Mr. Huckabee after Mr. McCain’s candidacy is assured.

What makes this even more memorable is that Wisconsin is her natural demographic turf: a preponderance of blue collar White voters in a State with a strong industrial base. It should have played to Ms Clinton’s core strengths: 60 per cent women, 90 per cent White, 40 per cent on income below $50,000, and almost 60 per cent without a college degree. Instead, about the only reliable cohort left for Ms Clinton is White women over 65, who do not a majority make. He either led comfortably or pulled almost even with her in all other demographic groups.

She tried everything in Wisconsin. Her attacks on his eloquence make her sound small-minded. In a sure fire call on the losing candidate’s last card, she accused him of cowardice in not engaging in another debate. He parried with the reminder of 18 debates already held and another two scheduled. She accused him of plagiarism yet ducked the question of guaranteeing she had not lifted material from others, arguing that the charge was relevant only against Mr. Obama for he relied on words as his prime narrative, and therefore it mattered that the words were not his.

Most importantly, Ms Clinton has become a prisoner of her own meta-narrative that has failed to excite the voters while Mr. Obama has tapped into a deep yearning for change from the politics of mutual destruction to one of a calling for a higher shared purpose.

By caricaturing any questioning of his naiveté rooted in inexperience as an attack on hope-mongering — “they say I need to spend some more time in Washington so that I can be seasoned and stewed until the hope has been boiled out of me to prepare me for being President” — he turned around the charge. Ms Clinton became the wicked witch of the West bent on destroying hope. Yet the criticism of Mr. Obama being light on experience is not unfounded.

The problem for Ms Clinton was worsened by her own fairytale claims of 35 years of experience. This, to put it politely, is a stretch, both a numerical and terminological inexactitude. Her one executive-level experience during Bill Clinton’s presidency was to be put in charge of healthcare reform which went down in flames. Her management style contributed to the epic train wreck. As a Senator, her major legislative accomplishments seem to have been to rename post offices after sundry people. Even more tellingly, on a core issue with the party’s core constituency, namely Iraq, the boast of decades of experience was trumped by Mr. Obama claiming to have the right judgment.

Ms Clinton’s inability to acknowledge and apologise for that mistake is doubly damaging. It underscores widely held perceptions of her as a focus group driven and calculating politician while reinforcing his claims as a conviction leader. And the tortured explanation, that she was wrong to trust George W. Bush, is disingenuous and undermines her entire claim to be ready to take charge on day one.

The experience-equals-competence meta-narrative has been disproved also with the ineptitude and turmoil engulfing Ms Clinton’s campaign against the professionalism and self-assurance of the Obama express. Her entire organisational and financial effort was predicated on triumph by Super Tuesday on February 5. That night’s results marked the end. The results of this Tuesday might mark the beginning of the end. Until Feb. 5, Ms Clinton and Mr. Obama had duelled to a draw in their respective grand coalitions of women, the elderly, White blue collar workers and rural Democrats against African-Americans, young voters and the high income and educated Whites. Mr. Obama’s rout in Virginia and Maryland a week later showed the first cracks in Ms Clinton’s coalition. Wisconsin on Feb. 19 confirmed the cracks are widening, his demographic disadvantages are disappearing and Ms Clinton is at risk of being deluged by Obamania.

Then there was the experience-equals-resilience argument (tested, vetted and investigated): tough enough to have beaten back numerous attacks from the Republicans. Voters show a hunger to move beyond this take-no-prisoners style of politics as a contact sport. And it once again reinforced her negative image as willing to say and do anything to recapture the White House. When voters are warming to Mr. Obama’s promise of unifying the nation and healing the wounds, she guarantees divisiveness and polarisation from day one.

Ms Clinton’s refusal to release tax returns and donors to her husband’s various activities added to the unease of voters about rolling the dice on another Clinton administration. And so they rejected the coronation of the Clintons option and embraced Mr. Obama’s call for change instead.

On electability, as Mr. McCain began to emerge as the presumptive Republican nominee, Ms Clinton’s negatives came to the fore while Mr. Obama’s positives were accentuated. Mr. McCain’s experience in and of Washington politics is longer, genuine and more substantial than Ms Clinton’s. Having run her entire primary on this meta-narrative, she could not change it in the election campaign. Mr. Obama offers the starker alternative on Iraq. Ms Clinton will lack credibility on national security and as commander-in-chief in waiting against a genuine war hero; Mr. Obama can change the storyline by emphasising judgment and the use of force against the real enemy, at the right time, in the right place.

In the latest opinion polls, on average Mr. Obama beats Mr. McCain by 5.5 points, Ms Clinton loses by 4.5 points. In Wisconsin, Democratic voters believed, 63-37, that Mr. Obama is more likely than Ms Clinton to beat Mr. McCain. Significantly, Mr. Obama received a total of 646,000 Wisconsin votes against 403,000 for all the Republican candidates combined.

Ironically, Mr. Obama’s campaign has relied on the insight of Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush’s victories. Ms Clinton’s strategy of triangulation has aimed to capture the middle ground. But the pool of voters there is small and shrinking. Rove’s strategy was to energise the core Republican base (for which Clinton — any Clinton — as the opponent would be a gift). Mr. Obama has done brilliantly in attracting new voters to the primaries and caucuses in record numbers — yet without losing independents and centrists.

Can Ohio and Texas revive Ms Clinton’s campaign, or has she run out of time, arguments, money, primaries and even respect as she launches negative attacks? Mr. Obama leads her on votes: 10-9 million; on delegates count: 1187-1028, or 1360-1266 including committed superdelegates (using Real Clear Politics calculations); in national opinion polls: 46.0-41.8 on average; and in number of States won: 24-13. The average margin of his victory over Ms Clinton in the last 10 successive wins, not weighting for populations, is 36.6 per cent. He is sounding and looking increasingly presidential; she looks exhausted and sounds increasingly desperate. Mr. McCain clearly believes that Mr. Obama is pulling ahead. Ms Clinton’s choice is to withdraw with grace and humility and live to fight another day, or to go for a do-or-die scorched earth policy on March 4 and ruin her prospects of becoming an elder Senator aiming for a legacy of substantial legislative accomplishments.

Negative attacks and hints of convention skulduggery by Ms Clinton reinforce her image of ruthlessness and win-at-any-price ambition. Negative attacks on Mr. Obama are deflected by decrying the same old politics of bar room brawling. Mr. Obama’s uplifting cathartic speeches have been met by confused and continually shifting messages; the positive energy of “Yes we can” with the negative refrain of “No you can’t” (subtext: it’s my turn, you get back in line). Her performance in the Texas debate on Thursday night seemed to hint at a graceful valedictory concession — and earned her the night’s only standing ovation.

(Ramesh Thakur is Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.)

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