At the Democratic debate last week, Hillary Clinton remarked that regardless of how the race ends, “we’ll be fine.” She said how very “honored” she was to be on the same stage as Obama, and then wistfully recounted a story of seeing hundreds of wounded soldiers at the opening of a veterans’ hospital. A lot of people took those evocative comments to mean that she was signaling the beginning of her campaign’s end. That she’s seeing the writing on the wall. That she wants to go out gracefully.
We should know better. These are the Clintons. They cling to the chandeliers and go out feet first.
Yesterday afternoon, Hillary tossed the High Road right out the window. Grasping fliers about her health care and trade positions put out by the Obama campaign days, even weeks ago, she summoned fresh “outrage” about them. “Shame on you, Barack Obama,” she cried. “It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.”
Obama’s team fired back immediately, saying the fliers were “completely accurate” and wondered aloud—rhetorically—why she would pick a fight about them now, when they’ve been circulating for weeks.
The Clintons are street thugs. They fight with broken beer bottles and switchblades. Even though her debate crack about Obama’s “change we can Xerox” bombed, she’s at it again. Going nuclear over an ant.
This is the Clinton default position. They don’t know how to fight gracefully. Calling out Obama for negative campaign tactics is certainly rich, coming from her. But it’s also weak. She’s down in the muck over some campaign fliers, when he’s talking about changing the world.
The Clintons have lost their mojo. For a couple who dominated American politics for 15 years, they have gone tone deaf to what’s happening.
Hillary knows this is slipping away from her, and she’s got one final chance this week to try to bring him low. That means she will continue to go low. It’s so 1990s. It’s sad, in a way. And quaint.
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