No amount of spin can overcome Hillary's disappointing performance Tuesday night in Cleveland. MSNBC called it a draw, but hardly anybody else did. Hillary didn't land a single blow. Her insistence on sticking with health-care reform as an issue for the first 16 minutes of the debate only reminded people how unbending she can be when convinced of the rectitude of her position. The debate was perhaps her last chance to turn the tide after 11 straight losses. As aides sat looking at polls coming in with the gaps widening, a new reality took hold. They've given up winning in Texas and they fear they may not win in Ohio.
Clinton once led Obama in all the national polls; now she's behind him by a growing margin—as much as 13 or 18 percent in some soundings. In Texas, which votes on March 4, Obama is now ahead in most polls. For the first time he has also surged ahead of her in an Ohio poll—one taken before the debate. Hillary leads in three other polls, but by a margin of 4 percent at best. This is a state where she has the backing of the governor and once led by a double-digit margin. Campaign aides are dejected and demoralized, and they're turning up for work late. It's as if they've given up. Talk of a dream ticket—the idea that a deal would be struck to combine his youth and her experience—was once an exciting prospect. Now the likelihood of that happening seems to fade by the day.
Even though I am firmly in Obama's camp I take no real glee from watching the Clinton campaign in this state of despair.
There have been so many times in the past that I was standing on the side of the losers watching the winners throwing their hats in the air and feeling like we were robbed.
One of my kids asked me why I felt that the Hillary Clinton truly dislikes Obama, and I told him that she had been planning for this for the last seven years and she would have surely taken the nomination if not for Barack Obama's inclusion.
She really feels as if he came long just to spoil her chances. She was to be the first female President, and that could only have been overshadowed by the first African American Presidential hopeful. Of course she is angry and disappointed.
But she also needs to be a realist. Even if she were to eke out a victory in either Texas or Ohio, or even both, she still needs to recognize that the race is over. As sad as it may be for her and her followers, this is the year of Obama. Staying in the campaign any longer makes her seem petulant and petty.
The irony is that if she hadn't run such a nasty campaign, she would have won.
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