If Hillary Clinton thought her win in West Virginia last night would be a "game changer", she was sorely mistaken. Before the polls closed last night, I was anticipating that the media would turn this win around to say Clinton had risen yet again from the ashes, labeling her win as a "comeback". While there was no doubt some of that going on, the press in large part hasn't taken the bait.
In a brutal column today, Dana Milbank documents the Clinton's evening as the polls closed comparing her campaign to Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch
The press covering her campaign has dropped to a number that won't even fill up one press bus. No matter what she or her campaign or her surrogates say, when the press stops paying attention, IT'S OVER.
11:45 a.m., Melrose Hotel, Foggy Bottom: It's Day 7 of the Clinton Campaign Death Watch -- a full week since the official arbiter of the Democratic primary, Tim Russert, declared the campaign over and Barack Obama the nominee. Hillary Clinton's advisers continue to insist that the candidate's prospects are very much alive, but the press isn't buying it. Exhibit A: There are two press buses waiting at the hotel here for Clinton's trip to her victory rally in West Virginia, but the entire press contingent doesn't quite fill one. It isn't until the entourage arrives at Dulles Airport that Clinton aides learn that the second bus is still idling, empty, at the hotel.
Make believe crowds await her at the airport.
2:57 p.m., Yeager Airport, Charleston, W.Va.: A steep descent brings Clinton's plane to Charleston's hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.
The REAL crowds are thinning too. She had, at the most, 500 supporters at her rally at the South Charelston Convention Center.
9:06 p.m., still in the South Hall: The announcer has just introduced "the next president of the United States." And with the TV now turned off, it almost seems possible. The confetti guns are loaded and ready. The streamers hang from the ceiling. And the crowd -- now up to 500, all but about 10 of them white -- is rapturous as Clinton rebukes the "pundits and the naysayers."
She's having a hard time convincing the Pundits on Cable as well. One of my favorite clips from last night came from MSNBC after Clinton's "greatest speech EVAH" victory speech. Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews are dumbfounded by the Clinton campaign's misconstruing the facts about her ability to win the nomination and her fight with "pundits". A choice quote from Matthews:
"It isn't her against somebody's opinion, it's her against everyone elses's assessment of the numbers"
Granted, I didn't watch CNN, and I'm sure the coverage there skewed more in Clinton's favor, but the facts are that the press is beginning to move on.