Hillary's Snark

One of the things about writing a blog such as mine is the freedom to use snark. Whether used like a scalpel, a rapier or a baseball bat, snark is a potent tool in the blogiverse.

Snark has its uses. But there is a place for it. And there are places that it should not be wielded.

Hillary Clinton unleased a snarky line on Barak Obama last night, in referring to his use of stuff written by Deval Patrick: "You know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in; it's change you can Xerox." If you listen to the audio from that part of the debate last night, you can hear a round of booing from the audience.

It was out of place and it hurt her.

Obama also called her to task for her "get real" comments of late.

Eugene Robinson noted, in his column in today's Washington Post, that if Obama had lost ten contests in a row, it would be all over for him.

Clinton, though, has managed to get into even a bigger mess than did Rudy Giuliani. Both she and Rudy were the front runners a year ago. Both Hillary and Rudy tried to run their campaigns on the Borg Theory of Campaigning: Resistance is futile. At least Rudy just got beaten like a gong and quit.

Hillary, on the other hand, has managed to pull off a feat that will be the stuff of political legend: Backed by the most powerful people in the Democratic party establishment, having the name recognition of a former president who was (up until the South Carolina primary) hugely popular within the rank-and-file of the party, her campaign has gone from being the clear front-runner into the political equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. Which is why she has tried to rewrite the party rules for seating the delegations from Michigan and Florida.

There is an aura emanating from the Clinton campaign:


Clinton had a double-digit lead in both Ohio and Texas. From the polling I've seen, that has evaporated in Texas and is narrowing fast in Ohio. Turnout in both states may be far higher than average and that has tended to be good news for Obama. It may be "fork time" for Clinton unless she can pull off a miracle on March 4th.

But only fools will count out a Clinton until the coffin is screwed shut and buried deep.