Who Will Tell The Clintons That Hillary Has Lost?

Last August I read a column which I thought provided  fascinating insights in to the Clinton campaign.  Subsequent events have shown the column to be prescient:

When Hillary sharply disagreed with Obama’s pledge, in the South Carolina Democratic debate, that he would meet with the leaders of rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, she was undoubtedly shooting from the hip. But when she and her campaign spent an entire week attacking and ridiculing Obama — and now are well into their second week of criticism — they appear to have lost their marbles.

Put very simply, Hillary is on the wrong side of this particular issue for the Democratic primary electorate...

Meanwhile, Obama, correctly reading the mood of the Democratic electorate (or correctly reading his polls), mocked Hillary’s position as "Bush Cheney-lite," emphasizing Hillary’s insider way of thinking.

Hillary’s stumbles over this issue remind one of her campaign’s knee-jerk decision to lash out at David Geffen for his attack on Bill Clinton’s administration and pardons. Both mistakes smack of appeasing the boss at the expense of making the right move politically. Each is the kind of mistake that advisers who don’t have the confidence to stand up to the Clintons often find themselves making. When Bill’s temper is aroused or Hillary stubbornly digs in on a position, it is a daunting task to confront them and convince them that they are just flat-out wrong. Few advisers are able to do it, and it appears that the current crop are helpless in the face of their candidate’s insistence on making a mistake. [Emphasis added]

This source, I admit, is problematic, as the column was written by Dick Morris.  Morris has a long, complicated and at times even sordid history with the Clintons.  Furthermore, it was Morris who brought Mark Penn in to the Clinton orbit for the 1996 campaign.  Morris got tossed overboard after his toe-sucking escapade, while Penn has become Clinton's "Chief Strategist."  Morris has reason to resent Penn, and he's irrationally obsessed with the Clintons.  

Morris is undoubtedly biased against the Clintons.  But in suggesting that there's nobody who can deliver bad news to Hillary or Bill Clinton, he also appears to be correct.  

A month ago I declared that the race for the Democratic nomination was over; Barack Obama will be our nominee.  The conventional wisdom is catching up.  More and more, people are realizing that Clinton is hanging around on the dying hope that Obama will destruct, either by his own hand or the hands of others.  The early indications are that Obama will weather the Wright scandal-ette, and may in fact come out from it stronger.  

Clinton ended up in this situation because she ran against an extraordinary candidate who's run a masterful campaign.  But she has also hurt herself.  She has never had a compelling message.  She ran a safe campaign about experience in an election in which voters are starving for change.  She couldn't reel in her husband.  The crushing defeat in South Carolina gave Obama big momentum heading in to Super Tuesday; it's unlikely Obama would have won by almost 30 points if Bill Clinton hadn't recklessly insulted Obama, likely pushing even more support to Obama and possibly John Edwards.  She eventually fired her campaign manager, long-time staffer Patti Solis-Doyle, but Penn stayed put, Penn and Harold Ickes continued to battle, and her campaign continued to fall behind Obama.  While he may be an asshat, the evidence suggests that Dick Morris was right, that Hillary Clinton's campaign was crippled by a dearth of trusted aides who could tell the candidate (and maybe more importantly, her husband) when they were making mistakes, when they needed to change course, and who should be listened to and who should be ignored.

Now the question is, if Hillary and Bill Clinton didn't have anyone around would could tell them when they were wrong, who will tell them the campaign is over, and it's time to step aside and acknowledge Barack Obama will be our nominee?

It's hard to tell what's going on inside the Clinton campaign, but one has to wonder whether many of the top Clinton supporters really believe in her campaign.  Surely some of the people who were top staffers to Bill Clinton know, but few of them probably have the ability to tell the Clinton's they will not achieve their dreamed-of dynasty.  They're estranged from many of their long-time friends and close associates from Arkansas; it's probably too harsh, but there's at least a little bit of truth in this comment comparing them to The Great Gatsby's Tom and Daisy Buchanan:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

Few people have remained close to the Clintons through all their difficulties and can still tell the what they don't want to hear.  But soon someone will need to tell them it's time to step aside.  

Vernon Jordan could be that person.  

Vernon Jordan is one of those creatures known in Washington as a "fixer."  He was for a long time the head of the Urban League, and then became a fixture on the DC circuit of lawyering/lobbying/sitting on corporate boards/serving on panels and commissions.  He chaired Bill's transition in 1992-1993.  And despite getting deeply embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, he remained close to the Clintons.  At the lowest point of the scandal, in August 1998, Bill and Hillary vacationed on Martha's Vineyard, and about the only time they socialized was to "celebrate" Bill's birthday with Jordan and his wife.  The relationship continues; both Jordan and his wife have bundled over $100,000 for Hillary's campaign.  

Jordan is committed to the Clintons, but he probably understands the extraordinary talents and achievements of Obama.  In October 2003, five months before Obama won his Senate primary, he held his first DC fundraiser, where he was introduced to some of the power elite in Washington at the home of Vernon Jordan.  

Someone needs to tell the Clintons they will not have a dynasty.  It has to be someone they trust and who can tell them what they don't want to hear.  And it has to be someone who can see clearly what many of us have known was coming for some time, and what the traditional media are finally starting to recognize, that Barack Obama will be our presidential nominee.  

Mr. Jordan, it's getting to that time where you're going to have to break Bill and Hillary the news.