Endgame 2.0

Obama turned the page last night, as the light at the end of the tunnel finally shows itself clearly. His speech was personally crafted by him to address the weaknesses he showed in recent weeks; it marks, in his mind at the very least, the beginning of the general election campaign by the now Unofficially Presumptive Nominee (UPN).

CNN Coverage News: A New Conventional Wisdom in the Making (Live)

Clinton backer Lanny Davis desperately tried to put up the defense for his candidate last night. His most signal failure was his attempt to substitute the number 2209 (I think it was) for 2025 (or perhaps, more accurately, 2024.5) ; the larger number being the required number of delegates to clinch victory if Michigan and Florida are seated at the full strength they would initially have been given.

Donna Brazile (who will gladly move over to the UPN sometime just after the end of the month) dissented strongly. As a member of the Rules Committee, she has tried to maintain some perspective, publicly and privately, and last night she clarified that her official position is "Undeclared"--i.e., she knows who she supports but has not seen fit to say so. She pointed out that, right now, Michigan and Florida have no delegates. She also alluded to a proposal the committee expects to consider, which I am interpreting to mean a partial seating of the delegations. With a reduced weight, Obama can agree to seating proportions based upon the "beauty contest" results, but modified (watered down) with some appointed delegates, and the primary-result based delegates, with the size of their pool reduced.

The key point is the same it has always been, since the two rogue states executed their unsanctioned votes: the delegations' key characteristics will be determined by the candidate who controls 2025 delegates ex MI/FL. So they took themselves out of the picture. And, as it turned out, needlessly--they sought influence, and would've had much more if they'd kept their original dates. Particularly Michigan.

Lanny went hard at CNN for its coverage bias against HRC (Paul Begala was not in the theater, I think by design, in order to contribute to that impression). He was working some tired lines of argument from the Talking Points for SD memo. The problem with the "Michigan, Florida, and did I mention the Big Swing States" argument is that there are no more big swing states to win. Indiana and North Carolina were neither big nor swing. The future prospects are even worse, though: the ones left are small, not medium-sized like IN/NC, no swing, some are not even states (PR is large, among those left). The primary campaign is over, except some dying embers.

Clinton Campaign Post-Mortem

The good news for the Clinton campaign leadership is that Hillary need not loan it any more money. Money hasn't done that much for her, anyway, nor has it for Obama (McCain is a different story).

They can use all remaining fundraising to pay off the campaign's debts (those to the Clintons being fairly high up in the chain of creditors, I'd imagine, and those to Mark Penn not so high).
Keeping any momentum going on that front is Hillary's mission, at this point. That requires continuing to speak her point of view, with conviction.

The great thing about Hillary is that she can do that--until the cows come home. If the advisers want toughness, tears, saber-rattling, sarcasm, whatever, she can perform it. As a Democratic Presidential candidate, I think Hillary rates in the top quartile from my lifetime--up there with her husband, way above most of the losing general election nominees.

Obama is different, and therein lies the true distinction. Obama sets the tone for the campaign through personal involvement in his trademark speeches. What he says has been given careful consideration and is accurate. (As I wrote that, Hillary was saying that she had come from "8% or so behind" to win Indiana--she did no such thing; and I remember, an hour ago, how McCain had been raving to his unconvinced audience that "governments matters" over and over.) Obama doesn't just take the lead in drafting and wording, he memorizes his speeches and delivers them, word-perfect, in spite of any shouted interruptions. With good expression, reasonable eye-contact, a powerful, inflected voice.

Hillary rambles along through a ton of points, for which she has near-instant recall, and delivers with largely grammatical vernacular. She's good.

I think she was let down by her strategists. The commentators have pointed out how she missed the "Change" theme early, going for the second-rated "Experience". There's some truth in that, and through that error she missed a chance to close out all her party rivals early. In the Long Campaign vs. Obama, though, the deciding factor was Obama's integrated turnout machine and their strategic focus on winning caucuses. Ironically, the Machine Candidate was out-gunned by a superior machine.

Bill was a mensch and took on the heavy role, which allowed Hillary to preserve some decency in her arguments (if not respectability--that was capital that she spent, judiciously, in various panders). It did damage--fortunately not too much of it permanent--but could not overcome the tactical lead Obama put together in the run of victories just after Super Tuesday. That superior tactical planning--I worked in a Super Tuesday primary, and I had no idea how much the Obama campaign had planned after that day--built the pledged delegate lead that offset Clinton's SD lead, and which has stood up since as the candidates traded blows.

The Clintonistas, on the other hand, had pinned everything on winning enough in the Early Quadriliateral (IA/NH/NV/SC) and putting it away on UNP Day. Their Plan B didn't emerge until Plan C time.

Obama has already accomplished something this year: he has led the finest primary campaign in history, exhibiting quality in political content, execution, his dignified posture, and of course setting a whole new plane of achievement on the Internet. He doesn't need to do nearly as well in the general election campaign to win.