Hillary Clinton has always fallen back on the notion that, nationally, she is way ahead of Obama. That was always the silver lining. Losing Iowa and/or New Hampshire would suck, but in the end, the national support would win her the big delegate states. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Stories today have been littered with Hillary's so called "demise". I, for one, am not willing to just concede Obama's inevitability. After all, Hillary was inevitable 2 months ago, and as we all can see, politics can turn on a dime. You never really know what's going to happen in the future. It could be just as possible that Obama does something stupid, or Hillary's rumored "dirt" has a big impact, or world events shift the electorate's priorities. In other words, Obama supporters can't just assume the nomination is theirs.
But this is the first time that national poll numbers are showing Hillary sinking and sinking fast. Which seems to tell me that the "Obama Wave" that the press seems so enamored by (Tom Brokaw said he hasn't seen anything like it since the days of Kennedy) is happening nation wide. The sheer immenseness of the Democratic electorate flocking AWAY from Hillary tells me that, her support was never that strong to begin with. Democrats are, at their heart, idealists. We want big things, big changes, and bigger than life politicians we can feel have our best interests at heart. But I think this is the first time, in my lifetime at least, that there is a Democrat with the resources to compete with the "establishment" candidate. Let's not forget that Obama, even when way far behind in the polls this past summer, raised just about as much money as Hillary. Even back then, signs were pointing to the fact that Democrats wanted "change".
What is this "change"? Everybody is jumping on the "change" bandwagon, donkey and elephant alike. Hillary is struggling desperately to tell voters that she is change. Mitt Romney has evoked Obama by telling Republicans that he is the only change candidate on their side, thus the only one who could beat Obama in the general election. Likewise, Huckabee and Edwards are chanting the mantra of "change, change, CHANGE". Let's not forget, that Obama and Edwards were, from the very beginning, the only candidates who offered this slogan. Obama's success has come not from just preaching "change", but from incorporating "hope" into his speeches. Obama has a way of making people believe that better days are just around the corner. That there truly can be an end to the horribly polarizing divisiveness of our country. He brings that across far better and more emotionally evocative than any other candidate. Now, whether or not he can deliver on that message is a different debate. But in the minds of Democrats across the country (and independents, and Republicans), that message is resonating in a way that has even the most hardened political pundits and insiders shaking their heads in disbelief.
Obama, by all accounts, is supposed to cruise to victory tomorrow. Gallup has him winning by 13%. I think it will be a lot closer than that, but who knows? There are two important things to look at tomorrow if he wins.
1) Did he win the Democratic vote? The common thinking is that Obama will overrun Hillary because of the large numbers of independent voters in New Hampshire. That could happen, but if he doesn't win the registered democrats, expect Hillary to go on the attack immediately. She'll frame it in a way that tells the upcoming states that don't allow independents to vote "Don't let outsiders determine our party nominee". That's a solid base rallying cry and it will may even enflare the paranoia and conspiracy theories that Republicans are "infiltrating" the democratic primaries in order to affect the outcome they want. Of course, Obama will counter that one of the entire points of his candidacy is that he can bring independents and republicans into the democratic ranks. But if he wins amongst registered democrats (he won 32-31 in Iowa), Hillary won't be able to use that as a line of attack.
2) Can he replicate the youth and 1st time voter turnout of Iowa? I think this will be the most important thing to look for tomorrow. Obama's candidacy is predicated on the notion that he can DELIVER new voters to the party and finally accomplish the democratic "holy grail": bring young Asses to the voting booth. The amazing thing about Iowa is that he did it. Now comes the real test: can he replicate it? If the polls show tomorrow night that more record turnout among youth and first time voters skew heavily in favor of Obama, then Hillary is toast. Why? Because no matter how strong her base may be in New York or Florida...it won't be enough when Obama's youth support come out in droves to offset Hillary's 65 year old grandmother's. Young voters are also far more forgiving. If Obama does have a screw up that the media magnifies, it will matter a lot less to a 25 year old kid with an iPhone than it would to an older voter. At the very least, the young voters would keep Obama competitive in the later states. However, if Obama does not duplicate his success in Iowa, then Hillary is certain to jump on the fact that Iowa was a mere aberration and that he only won New Hampshire because of the independent vote, and things will change as soon as they get to the closed democratic primaries.
Will an Obama victory tomorrow end the Clinton candidacy like some pundits are predicting? Probably not. There are rumors that Hillary doesn't have much money, but I don't put much stock in those. Hillary supporters can raise just as much money in a crunch as Obama supporters, probably moreso. What I think is troublesome for Hillary is that she's going to have to do a Rudy Giuliani, only focus on Feb. 5th, strategy. There's been a lot of talk about the delegate count. Hillary currently holds a commanding lead in "superdelegates" and that if she can pull out New York, California, and Florida, it won't matter if Obama runs the table. Looking at the numbers, this is actually a somewhat apocalyptic scenario (Hillary will automatically win Michigan since Obama ain't on the ballot). If Hillary does rely on her establishment buddies to secure her an insurmountable delegate count, that will have terrible consequences for the Democratic party.
If Obama is running through states with an overwhelming grassroots support and bringing new voters into the party, and Hillary tries some strange, seemingly underhanded tactic to win (putting aside that it is a perfectly sound strategy well within party rules) by calling in all her congressional and senate favors to throw their support her way even in the face of a huge movement against her...the party will disintegrate and she will have no chance in hell of winning the nomination in November. Obama supporters are nothing if not insanely passionate about the guy and if Hillary is perceived to be doing it more for the Clintons and not the party, there will be a rebellion against her by democrats in the general election. If this nomination process gets to that point (which I don't think it will, but I don't put anything past Hillary Clinton; I'm just talking hypothetically right now) you will see a nightmare scenario where the party fractures and it would probably kill any chance for the Democrats to ever get the youth out in huge numbers. You don't invest this much and then watch a politician sneakily come in the back door for the nomination, even if it is perfectly legit to do.
Wow, this went really long. These are just some of my observations about what may or may not happen. Believe me, I'm definitely stoked beyond belief that Obama has done as well as he has. It's sort of a validation for me on a personal level since I've been singing his praises for the past 4 years. But I'm also realistic and I know this could change at any moment. He very well could lose tomorrow in an upset and then the entire dynamic is changed.
But for now, I'm going to revel in Hillary's misery :)
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