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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Feb. 14, 2008 / 8 Adar I 5768

Why Hillary will lose

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Hillary Clinton has blown an almost sure shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. Having surrendered the lead to Obama, she is not likely ever to regain it. It is a fantasy that the Ohio and Texas primaries will be a "firewall" to contain the flames of enthusiasm for Obama and reverse her defeats of February. Just as with Giuliani's supposed Florida firewall, Hillary's will crumble as Obama's momentum carries him forward to the nomination.


Before Hillary lost her first primary or caucus, she lost the dialogue with the Obama campaign vis-à-vis the totally misguided decision to focus her message on experience, surrendering the ground of change to her opponent.


The more she tried to emphasize Obama's inexperience, the more she seemed to fence herself into the status quo. That it was the status quo ante of the Clinton years, not the status quo of the Bush administration, made less and less difference as the campaign progressed.


She ran on a message perfect for a Republican primary — experience — and abandoned the key to winning a Democratic primary — the message of change — to Obama.


Her decision to rely on special interest political action committee and lobbyist contributions and to seed her war chest with the checks of maxed-out donors gave substance to Obama's contrast of the status quo vs. change. With her chief strategist a lobbyist and her top campaign team all in the business, she was awash in associations that crippled her ability to fight for change.


Obama became the attraction in the race while Hillary recited her laundry list of proposals with a deadening monotony.


She could have waged a grassroots, small-donor, Internet campaign of change based on being the first woman running for president with a serious chance of victory. The charisma could have been hers, the excitement hers and the novelty hers. But by embracing experience and pretending to be safe and tested, she deadened the excitement her candidacy could have generated.


She got a reprieve by winning in New York/New Jersey and in California/ Arizona largely on the strength of Latino and immigrant voters. Their concentration in five key states (75 percent live in California, New York, Illinois, Florida and Texas) gave her a draw on Super Tuesday. But too many of her votes come from Hispanics who fear blacks and from older whites who harbor residual racial feelings. Her and Bill's heavy-handed attempts to polarize the election racially died on Super Tuesday in an avalanche of votes from white states like Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, North Dakota and the like.


As the election turned from Super Tuesday to the heartland, where there are few Hispanics or new immigrants, Hillary's campaign has lost its momentum and its prospects of victory. Obama's victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington state, and his probable wins in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, show how complete is his mastery of states without immigrants blinded by the Clinton name to sustain it. Hillary's hopes for victory in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina are a fantasy. The Latino population in those states is well below 10 percent and not enough to carry her to victory.


The super-delegates will not be enough to reverse Obama's primary and caucus victories and they will run for cover and join the Obama bandwagon anyway.


Besides losing the rhetorical battle, Hillary will have nowhere near the money that Obama will have. Her preparations for a short war based on maxed-out donors and old politics were disastrously shortsighted, while Obama wisely cultivated online contributors who can regenerate with the click of a mouse.


When Barack Obama beat Al Gore to the punch and jumped into the presidential race while the former vice president was still deciding what to do, it seemed that Hillary had virtually wrapped up the nomination. While Gore could have beaten Mrs. Clinton, it seemed unlikely that a senator with two years' service under his belt could do so.


But the mistakes and strategic errors of the Clinton campaign gave Obama an opening that he exploited masterfully. It is Obama's charisma that is winning this election, but it was Clinton's mistakes that opened the door.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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