Ding-dong, the witch is ... no, wait ... by Muhammad Cohen

CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER
Ding-dong, the witch is ... no, wait ...
By Muhammad Cohen

HONG KONG - For Hillary Clinton, it has come down to this: she must win on Tuesday in Ohio and Texas to preserve her fading hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. That's not my analysis: Bill Clinton declared the states do or die for the former First Lady, loser of 11 straight contests since Super Tuesday.

So what if Hillary Clinton gets beaten in Ohio or, as polls suggest is increasing likely, Texas? Does she trade her US$110 million-plus campaign tent for a legacy of starring in the most famous big budget, big name flop since Ishtar?

Or does the junior senator from New York improve on her husband's Comeback Kid to Dame Dracula, living to fight another day in Pennsylvania after losing a do or die state or two? Send in the lawyers to mud wrestle over Michigan and Florida (if the Democratic National Committee, to its eternal shame, doesn't solve the problem first), and get Bill Clinton's cabinet speed-dialing super delegates?

In reality, whatever happens next Tuesday, Hillary Clinton will have nearly as many votes and committed delegates as her rival Barack Obama, and neither will reach the convention in August with enough pledged delegates from the state contests to claim the nomination outright. If the situations were reversed - if Obama had won nearly as many delegates and votes as Clinton - few would be writing his campaign obituary.

Losing 11 straight is no success formula in any game, but Clinton's problems go beyond the numbers. Like presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, left for dead along the campaign trail six months ago, a lot more people passionately dislike Clinton than avidly embrace her. Her flaws, exposed during eight years as First Lady and another seven as senator, are only part of the story.

You are cordially invited ...
I've often said the best thing that could have happened to the Democratic Party would have been a breakfast meeting of top strategists at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop New York's World Trade Center, on September 11, 2001. Clinton's stunning plunge from presumptive nominee to kamikaze candidate is the latest evidence.

Clinton's premium priced campaign team - chief strategist Mark Penn's firm billed $3.8 million in January - has committed stunning tactical and strategic mistakes. Worst of all, Hillaryland remains clueless about stopping the bleeding.

Ahead of the February 12 tripleheader of double-digit losses in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, Clinton's campaign proclaimed Ohio and Texas its "firewall". That's triple dumb. First, never declare any state is must-win before winning it. Further, winning or losing there won't decide the ultimate outcome for any side. Most of all, especially in this campaign, never skip ahead to a "decisive" state.

That evokes the Republican's 2008 Ishtar candidate, Rudolph Giuliani. His campaign staked all on Florida and watched a double-digit lead slip away during drubbings in Iowa, New Hampshire and the rest of the early states. Clinton's camp is seeing a similar scenario play out in Texas.

I suspected turning the clock ahead to March after the Potomac debacle was Clinton strategists' clever fake to set the stage for a "surprise" win last week in Wisconsin, a progressive blue-collar state that seemed perfect for Hillary. But when Clinton lost by 17 points there, I realized I was giving the campaign far too much credit.

K Street vs kitchens
Too often, Clinton's campaign has seemed aimed at winning over the conference tables of K Street - the epicenter of Washington's consultant/lobbyist culture - rather than the kitchen tables of America. Clinton's plagiarism accusation on the eve of the Wisconsin blowout was a prime example. Who cares if Obama borrowed words from a friend? Furthermore, all candidates use speechwriters, so words are often not their own. The Clinton campaign wouldn't confirm that its candidate doesn't use unattributed sources for her speeches - and she did it at the end of their debate in Austin, Texas, last week.

Clinton could have stepped away from the plagiarism pettiness during that debate. Obama ended his rejection of "silly season politics" saying, "What we shouldn't be doing is tearing each other down, we should be lifting the country up."

"Amen," Clinton should have said, rising above the insider elbowing while jabbing at Obama's orating skill. Instead, she chose to persist, unleashing the "change you can Xerox" line that drew boos.

Insider myopia also explains why Clinton wouldn't (and still won't) admit she was wrong on her vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Echoing John Kerry's "I was for it before I was against it" was the first prick in Clinton's inevitability bubble. Clinton the Inevitable couldn't allow any hint of mortality, but the real problem is she's Clinton the Inflexible who can't admit she's ever wrong.

(Contrast how poorly Clinton and her campaign articulate her position on her Iraq vote with the far more dangerous situation John McCain and company faced with last week's New York Times story on the Arizona senator's relationships with lobbyists. McCain's campaign jujitsued the story to bring conservatives aboard and raise funds through a shared hatred of the New York Times. But the story also has a slow leak quality - is McCain as ethical as he claims? - that poses a long-run challenge.)

Shoot the message?
Clinton's campaign geniuses can't find a consistent, winning message - experience hasn't worked in any of its guises, electability is a tough sell during a losing streak - but that doesn't excuse the messenger. Her delivery makes any message sound like a lecture, and flourishes seem forced. Only Hillary Clinton could have said, "We will shatter the highest, hardest glass ceiling of all," and failed to get applause.

Even when the campaign and candidate stumble into a winning line, they can't stick with it. We've all seen what works best for Clinton. In New Hampshire she won, not because of a single teary-eyed moment, but because she was listening and talking to people, not at them, using more "we" and less "I" as Obama does.

She found that voice again at the end of the Texas debate. "The hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country," Clinton said. "You know, no matter what happens in this contest, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama," she said, reaching to shake her rival's hand. "I am absolutely honored."

Channeling Bill Clinton and John Edwards, she continued, "You know, whatever happens, we're going to be fine. I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that's what this election should be about." She got a standing ovation, and the campaign got that moment on the air as an ad within 24 hours.

Insiders say such apparent unguarded sincerity is difficult and unnatural for Clinton. Don't believe it: Hillary Clinton can play act with the best of them. After all, she's pretended she doesn't want to strangle Bill for the past post-Monica Lewinsky decade.

Moreover, you've got to be acting at least once when you say you're "honored ... absolutely honored" to share the stage with Obama and within 72 hours rant over Obama mailings which Clinton claims misrepresent her positions on health care and the North American Free Trade Agreement. "Shame on you, Barack Obama," she barked. "Every Democrat should be outraged. Meet me in Ohio. Let's have a debate on your tactics and your campaign." Perhaps to give Obama something to talk about, a photo of him in East African garb was reportedly circulated by Clinton staffers, apparently aiming to rekindle speculation that Obama is a Muslim.

That's not running for president, it's flailing in the dark. It's easy to blame Clinton's high-priced brain trust, but it's the candidate who bears ultimate responsibility and will pay the price. But, no matter what the campaign says, the final bills won't be tallied in Ohio and Texas next week.

Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com), a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie.

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