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Posted
Monday, April 14, 2008 12:36 PM
| By
Christopher Beam
Barack Obama's "bitter" comment is just the gaffe Clinton needed to
woo superdelegates. Her chances of winning the nomination jump 4.5
points to 14.2 percent.
Hillary Clinton needed
a miracle. She's down in pledged delegates, likely to lose the popular
vote, and slipping on the superdelegate front. So, Barack Obama's comment
at a San Francisco fundraiser—that bitter Pennsylvanians "cling to guns
or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" in response to
economic hardship—is as close to divine intervention as she could get.
With Pennsylvania a week off, Clinton has just enough time to foment
outrage and perhaps regain her formerly wide lead
in the polls. It's also as comprehensive a gaffe as Obama could have
mustered: It's got elitism, guns, religion, immigration, and trade—just
the controversy cocktail Clinton was waiting for.
The "bitter"
incident serves one real purpose for Clinton: It strengthens her case
to superdelegates. Clinton has already been painting a potential Obama
nomination as a disaster scenario.
This flap gives her fresh buckets and a new brush. Among her plausible
arguments: Obama just lost Pennsylvania in the general. He alienated
Reagan Democrats across the country. He squandered a major advantage
over the less-religious McCain. His "bitter" comments—and the attitudes
they represent—are just the tip of an iceberg of vulnerabilities. Clinton even compared
him to John Kerry and Al Gore (so much for that endorsement), who
voters thought "did not really understand, or relate to, or respect
their ways of life." An Obama nomination, she can now argue, would be
the worst kind of disaster—a repeat. ...
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.
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