From Brixton:
Barack Obama handily beat Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, while she took
Indiana by the slimmest of margins.
She promises to soldier on, even as party elders urge her drop out and
donors become more scarce.
I do wonder if the drama that lead up to yesterdays primaries wasn't just an
invention of the media not finding a story, so therefore, making one up. The
one about Clinton somehow securing the nomination when it seemed highly
improbable long ago.
Well, now it seems near impossible. The Senator needed the inverse of her
results yesterday; a resounding win, and barring another victory, at least a
narrow defeat- exactly what Obama pulled off. If Clinton had done that, at
least the ideas of electability or renewed popularity might have been lent
credence.
Now her momentum has been halted.
She may look back on these last weeks at some future date, and see a glaring
tactical error. She asked that we put cold equations aside, claiming that
she was of better presidential stuff than her opponent. The gamble might've
had a pay-off, save she didn't act very presidential. The petty 3AM ads, the
wink to the voters over the Wright controversy or the cloying ridiculousness
of the gas tax holiday.
If that was leadership, a lot of folks didn't think so.