Crisis

Honestly, very few of us, albeit a few more after Iowa, gave much credence to the possibility that Mrs. Hillary Clinton, outstanding US Senator from New York and the better half of America's most potent political dynasty could somehow lose the 2008 Democratic nomination. Ever since her first Senate race in 2000, many observers (including this one) had long pointed to Twenty-Oh-Eight as the year of the attempted Clinton restoration. Now, her electability remained in doubt to some, but the mountain to climb for any living Democrat to wrestle the nomination from her looked gargantuan.

You knew, unlike 1993-94 with HillaryCare, she would not self-destruct. You knew that no one had a more effective political advocate in seemingly every corner of the Democratic caucus than a popular, two-time presidential winner than her. You knew she knew that foreign policy expertise would prove crucial in a future election and so she finagled her way onto the Senate Armed Services Committee. You knew that liberal women, reliable primary voters, would serve as her foundation. You knew that no one, outside of Mr. Bush himself, could hope to outraise her on the trail. You knew she had the toughened horses of Ickes, Grunwald, Blumenthal, and others did not. You knew that the African-American loyalty to her family, crystallized in the 1998-99 dark days, would not look for another.

It was her time, in a compliation, she was owed this by the electorate for all the nonsense and public humiliations she put up with from you-know-who after all these years, and Big Dog was going to get it for her because we owed him his chance at redemption. And for nearly all of 2007, all went according to plan, her campaign sailing blissfully along whilst the MSM castigated her main opponent almost daily for his "lack of substance" and "unwillingness to engage." The gorgeous and brilliant HRC dominated presidential matchup polls for most of the last quarter of 2006, looking ahead to moneyman Terry McAuliffe's scheme to deliver her the nomination on February 5, Super Duper Tuesday, as no one could possibly out-organize the battle-tested Clinton machine in a dizzying twenty-two states in one shot.

Fast forward to a not-so wondrous Valentine's Day. The lovely (if allegedly arrogant) Patti Solis Doyle is gone, top Clintonites are reportedly at each other's throats over how to react to a considerable dry spell courtesy of one Barack Obama. Women began to turn against the first truly viable female presidential candidate, which made the Potomac area site of an embarrassing defeat. The Clintons have awakened to the real possibility, even with the questionable power-play to seat Michigan and Florida delegations, of proving unable to catch Mr. Obama in pledged delegates before the 796-strong superdelegate contingent casts the final votes.

Mrs. Clinton was poised to do very well in Ohio (more blue-collar workers) and Texas (strong number of Hispanics), but she has almost three weeks of bleeding to endure, likely without another victory and perhaps an alarming loss in Wisconsin, to stay afloat. Her 50% of the Democratic coalition has shown preliminary signs of splintering off into runner-up status. Now what?

She has run on experience, as others have suggested, in the wrong party. Republicans, with some exceptions, nominate battle-scarred veterans, whereas Democrats obsess about change in almost every year outside of 1996 and 1964. Her party, yes, the very same party her husband built into a three-time popular vote-carrying powerhouse, has rejected her argument. The Clintons, perhaps trying harder at certain points than others, failed to file Senator Obama in the "black candidate" box. Yet, poll after poll finds the Illinois charismatist edging Republican John McCain, and Mad Mac usually beating HRC.

In the end, if she fades from view, her failure will rest on an inability to successfully straddle between two distinct candidacies: Bill Clinton's wife (think Argentina) and the first woman. The undeniable potency of the latter clearly ran into trouble from the former. Even worse, Barack reminded voters of the 1992 good ole days much more than the ferocious femme that commanded the War Room. When Hillary Clinton chose to leave the fast-track of Washington D. C. in the 1970s for an Arkansasan with big dreams, she forever relinquished her own political identity. Even in her luminous light of Beijing in 1995, she was merely the representative of her husband. Even though women voters soberly acknowledge "If not Hill, who knows when" fighting for the legacy of a family, instead of the woman that made it under her own name, is just not the same thing and cannot arise the same emotions as, say, the first black president.

Yet, shed no tears for her. She knew this was the Faustian bargain she made long ago. Her husband would provide for her a launching pad no other American female candidate had ever had, yet her last name, which rocketed her to the Senate on a fast-track duplicated perhaps only by her opponent, would never allow her to run, perhaps as she wished, as "Hillary." Now, her donors and perhaps the increasingly paranoid 42 have maxed out, and the man from her old stomping grounds continues to romp to victory and unbelievably favorable press coverage whilst she saunters on in places where she once had an insurmontable lead.

The Clintons thought they had it all planned out. Bill even made peace with virtually all of their past enemies, to include Richard Mellon Scaife and Matt Drudge, yet they failed to prepare for the possibility of a drawn-out, post-Feb 5 battle for the nomination. Now, the once smug front-runner is reduced to clamoring for every debate she can wrestle out of the Chicago steamroller. "Differences in health care," she loudly exclaims, "Ready to lead on Day 1," comes another.

Cries for help, cries for a return to normalcy in Demland, cries to avoid the all-too-real prospect of the Clintons sitting at the convention as respected elders, not re-conquering heroes. Perhaps not much more time for that national "chat."