Passing over Clinton sure to spur buyer’s remorse

Brian Till

Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When Barack Obama started sliding in the polls a few weeks ago — grinding downward despite unprecedented press coverage on a seemingly flawless trip abroad — he should have made a game-time decision.

The chorus of conversation leaving the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night left little unsaid. “Daily Show” correspondent John Oliver assaulted those leaving the convention hall with camera crew in tow, demanding, “Are you healed? Have you healed now?”

Oliver’s stunt, while hilarious to most who witnessed it, also resonated loudly. The truth stands: Some were surely soothed by Hillary Clinton’s words, but others were rattled by them — I being one of the latter.

Far from the Coup de Convention, about which hard-line former staffers whispered and begged until the last moments, Hillary’s appearance Tuesday brought a great deal of closure to her run at the Oval Office — securing her role ahead of Nancy Pelosi and possibly alongside Margaret Sanger as a premier of the American women’s movement, all as she stood wholeheartedly behind Barack Obama.

But grumblings that Obama and Joe Biden’s first meeting wasn’t entirely a blind date from heaven, and a text message scheme that went from pure brilliance to a borderline gaffe — the message many supporters had anticipated for weeks coming at 3 a.m., only hours before Obama would appear with Biden for the first time — makes me wonder if the Obama camp doesn’t have a little buyer’s remorse.

“And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter,” Hillary said. “My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president.

“This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.”

She referenced Seneca Falls and Harriet Tubman, and nearly shook the Pepsi Center with every applause line.

As a partner in governing, there’s likely no worse choice than to sign on with Camp Clinton. Hillary bringing Bill along for the ride, the old guard pulling in one direction while the most recent generation of Hill-fem-staffers tugs in another.

It would have likely brought the infectious infighting of the Clinton camp squarely into the heart of the Obama machine. But in terms of getting elected, I think Barack realizes she might be the only one with the power to take him to the White House.

Up until this point, he has done nearly nothing wrong; John McCain, on the other hand, has done just about everything with a misstep or a mistake: “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” in December; “I think — I’ll have to have my staff get back to you,” in terms of how many houses he owns, in August; and several gaffes this summer mistaking Shi’a and Sunni nations and terrorist groups.

Nonetheless, he finds himself in a dead heat, the Bradley effect — the 6-8 percentage point drop between black candidates in polling and number of votes they actually garner — having yet to rear its head.

There was a moment following Michelle’s speech Monday night when cameras cut to Barack’s response, as he sat in a generic living room alongside a rather white, “Leave It to Beaver”-looking family. The family looked rigid, as if sitting for a family portrait. There was an awkward distance between them and Barack, who looked as comfortable as he might watching the Bears in his own living room. The shot lasted on-screen for only a moment, and there’s a reason for that: It visually expressed that narrow but deep chasm Barack’s been unable to close, a divide that Hillary could stand squarely in the middle of, linking the common, white, blue-collar family to the inspiring and intellectual Obama.

This campaign is likely to be among the crowning achievements of Hillary’s life, and her speech sought to recognize that. But the “18 million cracks” referenced several times Tuesday night — the ones she hammered into the glass ceiling above all American women — appear to be one shy. It likely should have been Barack Obama who gave the final tap, putting her on the ticket as she deserved. Not just for the Democratic Party and for the women of the world, but for the sake of his own candidacy.

Brian Till, one of the nation’s youngest syndicated columnists, writes for Creators Syndicate. He also is a research associate for the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington.