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Comeback Kid, the sequel Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008 By John Brummett Hillary Clinton's inevitable comeback-kid heroics might begin tonight in Wisconsin, where they would generate extra excitement because of being unexpected. We've heard from Clinton's campaign about not counting on Wisconsin and about banking everything instead on Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. It may have been a reflection of indecisiveness about whether and how to invest in Wisconsin. Or it could have been a bit of a feint. Surely she has merely pretended to be wholly without optimism in Wisconsin. She's poured television money into negative ads against Barack Obama in the state. She showed up Saturday and remained to campaign Monday. Polls have narrowed, to a mere 47-43 lead for Obama in one of them. Actually, there's an aberrant poll - there always seems to be one lately - that puts her ahead. On Saturday night, Clinton had more visible and energetic supporters at a big Democratic gala in Milwaukee. She told Wisconsin Democrats at that event that they could be assured she was ready for war with Republicans. She said they couldn't necessarily be sure about Obama. It's her best argument, which is not to say Obama doesn't have a reasonably credible counter. Clinton will not be in Wisconsin tonight. She prefers not to stick around if she might lose. If she wins anyway, she can declare the rousing victory somewhere else, most likely a key place yet to vote. If she comes close, she can spin a moral victory out of that in this strategically chosen new locale. And if she loses by a significant margin? Big deal. She expected it. Obama had all the advantages there. She's not even in Wisconsin. She told you it didn't matter. That is to say Clinton has lowered expectations for herself and raised them for Obama. And she has done it in a state where the demographics seem to ensure that she can stay reasonably close. The African-American vote isn't so large in Wisconsin. The women's vote is. And there are plenty of blue-collar voters. That ought to be a Clinton formula. On another day, any loss or anemic victory by Clinton could be easily spun as devastating to her. Just two weeks ago, any win in Wisconsin would have been monumental for Obama, considering those demographics. Now just any old win will appear to deflate his momentum. He might do well and get described as doing poorly. It's the fault of his own success and the handiwork of his formidable opponent. Gamesmanship, some call it. Oh, well. Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania remain bigger, and the super-delegates bigger still. ----------------- Even as he persists in a nonsensical, wholly self-serving campaign, Mike Huckabee continues to draw good press. It's all based on humor and biography. For humor: A piece Sunday in The Los Angeles Times quoted him admiringly as having quipped that, in Arkansas, we refer to a dead armadillo on the road as possum on the half shell. The Times apparently had not heard that before. That biography: This same piece couched Huckabee's quixotic campaign as reflective of his defying odds throughout his life -- rising from the lower middle class to national prominence, completing college in under three years because his money was short, becoming a popular Republican governor in a Democratic state and, of course, dropping more than a hundred pounds and completing three marathons. Huckabee is going to need a job soon. What he's doing with this campaign is fortifying and enhancing his emergence as the new face of the evangelical Christian political movement. Clearly there is a vacuum. Jerry Falwell has passed, Pat Robertson has lost his mind and James Dobson is outrageous. None of them ever won a primary or caucus. Huckabee has won a half-dozen, and darned near two or three others. I've been short-sighted, perhaps, in predicting that Huckabee would end up with a cable television talk show. He may get a whole blooming network. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
