Day two and again what the press want to talk about is the Clintons. Tonight Hillary speaks and, to be fair, she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. If she takes it to John McCain, the pundits will say look what the Democrats are missing. But if she talks more about her primary campaign and Obama, she’ll be accused of pulling her punches.
The word is that she will indeed go after McCain hard, something that the Democrats failed to do in prime time last night. The problem is that the keynote former Virginia Governor Mark Warner is not a red-meat speaker so he’ll likely not hit McCain hard. The contrast will set off chatter about how the Clintons are the only Democrats who know how to play hardball.
Tonight won’t be the end of the Clinton drama, there is still Bill’s speech to come on Wednesday night and given the controversy that has preceded it pundits will be determined to find something between the lines of it. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is effectively fanning the flames with a string of ads recounting Hillary’s criticism of Obama. (Considering this, McCain would be shooting himself in the foot to pick Romney as his running mate the back and forth between them was equally, if not more harsh.
Could the whole Clinton drama have been avoided? Not totally, America hasn’t had such a close and protracted primary campaign in a long time and that was always going to leave some bruises. But both sides have exacerbated the problem. Obama should have gone through the motions of vetting Clinton or appeared interested in the idea of her as Senate majority leader, he could have done more to help retire her debt and he should have paid homage to the Clinton legacy and made a show of asking Bill for his advice. On the Clinton side, they should have accepted that they lost and that this is not their party anymore.
Riding the bus back last night with a bunch of volunteers—people who had paid their own way to come to Denver to stand outside the convention hall pointing delegates and the media in the right direction—one sensed a real irritation with the Clinton drama. If it doesn’t end tonight, expect this frustration to bubble over and to bring forth a response from hardcore Clinton supporters. For Republicans, the Clinton campaign is the gift that keeps on giving.
Comments