Signs of the Times

You know the election is really over (with the next one still three years away) and the new president has the responsibility for the poor economy squarely on his shoulders when Maureen Dowd of the New York Times writes a column, laced with frustration, headlined "Trillion Dollar Baby."

Dowd, who was for Barack Obama before being for Obama was cool, starts off her column by observing, "So much for the savior-based economy."

I guess folks aren't linking arms and singing "Kumbaya" these days. The latest jobless figures probably put an end to that for awhile.

But, wait, there's more.

Dowd seems perturbed with the political aspects of the battles that continue to rage in Washington. "The Obama crowd is hung up on the same issues that the Bush crew was hung up on last September: Which of the potentially $2 or $3 trillion in toxic assets will the taxpayers buy and what will we pay for them?"

I get the impression that Dowd — as well as millions of Americans — thought Obama's inauguration would mean an end to politics as usual. Well, perhaps it will lead to that eventually.

But not when trillions of dollars are on the table.

Money still talks. But it isn't saying, "Yes, we can." It's saying, "Screw you."

"There's a weaselly feel to the plan," Dowd writes, "a sense that tough decisions were postponed even as President Obama warns about our 'perfect storm of financial problems.' The outrage is going only one way, as we pony up trillion after trillion."

Well, that's the way the game is played in Washington. And Obama is enough of a pragmatist to know that a president must take whatever victories he can get — even if they don't include everything he wants.

It was funny, when it was suggested, before the inauguration, that Bush and his gang left such a mess that a black man had to be elected to clean it up. But more than three weeks have passed since the inauguration, and not much — if anything — has been cleaned up.

Sometimes it seems like more of a mess is being made. The roller coaster ride continues on Wall Street.

Obama's personal popularity remains high. But support for the economic stimulus package is sinking. Maybe his supporters are getting a reality check.

Nevertheless, House and Senate negotiators say they've resolved their differences, and Sen. Ben Nelson came up with a one-liner that just might be short enough to be on a bumper sticker. "[C]all us the 'jobs squad,' " he said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's suggestion that the latest compromise will create more jobs than the version of the bill that passed the Senate.

Well, it is more manageable than Nelson's one-liner after the Senate compromise last week. Hold your applause until we see how many jobs really are created.

To top it off, Dowd makes demands on behalf of the taxpayers (even though she concedes that Wells Fargo's purchase of a Sunday ad in the New York Times "could have cost up to $200,000," which she admits might qualify as a "bailout" for her endangered newspaper industry).

"We don't want our money spent, as Citigroup did, to pat itself on the back 'as we navigate the complexities together,' " she writes. "Bank of America cannot get back our trust by spending more of our cash to assure us that it's 'getting to work' on getting back our trust.

"Just get back to work and start repaying us."

Gee, Ms. Dowd, what do you think this is? A democracy?

Hillary Deja Vu

Perhaps it was during, perhaps it was after Hillary Clinton's speech to the delegates at the Democratic convention last night.

But, at some point, I was reminded of a similar speech she gave at the national convention in Boston four years ago.

Of course, in 2004, Clinton did not challenge the eventual nominee, John Kerry, during the primaries.

And, both last night and in 2004, Clinton said all the right things in support of the party's nominee.

But I got the same feeling last night that I got in July 2004.

It seemed to me that Hillary was going through the motions. She made the right gestures at the right times, and she smiled when she was expected to — and she said the things that were expected of her. But, in her heart of hearts, I got the feeling that she really doesn't want the Democratic ticket to win in November.

Because that will make it easier for her next time.

(Maureen Dowd of the New York Times writes about this — in a way, although Dowd's distaste for Hillary and her adulation for Obama have never been in question. Dowd writes about "a vibe so weird and jittery, so at odds with the early thrilling, fairy dust feel of the Obama revolution" in a column that is dark and foreboding — and is headlined "High Anxiety in the Mile-High City.")

If Kerry had won in 2004, he probably would have been the favorite for the party's nomination this year, and Clinton would have known that she wouldn't have a realistic shot at the nomination until 2012 — unless Kerry turned out to be a disaster (as the Bush presidency has been for the Republicans), which might well have rendered this year's Democratic nomination meaningless.

This time, if Barack Obama wins the election (and if he survives the four-year term), conventional wisdom suggests he will be favored to be renominated in 2012. His age would not preclude him from seeking a second term, and there are currently no known health issues that might interfere with such plans.

So, if Obama wins the election, Clinton may have to put her presidential ambitions on hold until 2016 — by Election Day that year, Clinton will be 69 years old.

There is something of a sense of urgency for Clinton because of her age.

It wasn't an issue during this year's primaries, and it probably wouldn't be an issue if Obama loses the 2008 election and Clinton has a clear shot at the nomination four years from now.

But only one politician — Ronald Reagan — has been elected president at the age of 69 or older. Bob Dole was the Republican nominee at the age of 73, and he was unsuccessful in his attempt to deny Bill Clinton a second term. John McCain will be 72 when the voters go to the polls in November — it remains to be seen if he will be successful.

I'm not saying that Clinton will do anything deliberate to derail Obama's campaign.

I believe she is sincere when she says, "Whether you voted for me or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose."

Clinton has had many purposes in her life, and she devotes herself wholeheartedly to whatever purpose she is drawn to at a particular time. It is true that she has always worked for causes that would benefit working mothers and their children. She has long been an advocate of affordable health care. She has been a champion of minority rights.

But she has also been married to a political pragmatist for more than 30 years. Even if that was not her nature initially, some of it must have rubbed off on her. When she was first lady of Arkansas and, later, first lady of the United States, there were often times when she put her own needs on a shelf, allowing her to dedicate herself to the public needs of her husband.

At this stage of her life, her husband's ambitions have been realized. And political pragmatism says that an Obama defeat in November will serve Hillary's ambitions better than an Obama victory.

Whether that would serve the interests of the nation better is, of course, something each voter must decide.

More Responses to Obama's Choice

Today is the day after Joe Biden was introduced to the American public as the running mate on the Democratic ticket. And responses continue to pour in.

• Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen write, in Politico, that Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate tells us five things about the presumptive presidential nominee:
  
  
  1. He's fixing for a fight.
  
  
  2. He's a lot more conventional than advertised.
  
  
  3. He’s insecure about security.
  
  
  4. He’s more worried about Lunchbox Joe than Bubba.
  
  
  5. He doesn't hold a grudge — or at least he doesn't let it get in the way.
  
  I won't elaborate on the points. The post is short. I recommend that all my readers take a few minutes to read it for themselves.


• In what is sure to become familiar fare (for those who watch the Democratic convention this week, it will be familiar by the time Biden gives his acceptance speech), the Washington Post writes in glowing terms of Biden's life of "comebacks" of which the latest is his emergence as Obama's running mate after dropping out of the presidential race in the wake of an ignominious loss in Iowa.
  
  "Setbacks are followed by successes" in Biden's life and career, write Eli Saslow and Amy Goldstein in the Post, "and the cycle repeats. A tragic car accident, brain aneurysms, a plagiarism scandal, two failed presidential runs — nothing has permanently derailed him."
  
  
• But the response in the Washington Post hasn't been uniformly enthusiastic.
  
  In a group asssessment of the choice, Ed Rogers (former White House staffer under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush) says there are three reasons that Republicans should be glad Biden was the choice:
  
  
  1. Biden is not "another lightweight left-wing snob."
     
     "Everyone who cares about good government and serious politics can imagine him as president," Rogers says, "unlike Obama."
  
  
  2. "Biden has no following in a key state or among any particular voter group that will help Obama appeal to the center, nor does Biden reinforce Obama's appeal as an agent of change."
  
  
  3. "On any given day, there is a good chance that he will say something that could destroy the Democratic ticket or at least hurt its chances in November."
  
  Rogers says that, as a McCain supporter, he is "relieved and encouraged by the Biden selection."

(Pardon a personal note here: There is, I believe, something to be said about the fact that the Congress is, in part, to blame for the giant sucking sound we hear, of American lives and treasure being lost in Iraq. Congress has been the enabler of problematic behavior in this dysfunctional relationship that has existed between Congress and the Bush administration.

(But, as Congress has continued to authorize exorbitant defense spending, even as the economy has soured, are any of the presumptive nominees in a position to cast any stones?)

In the same assessment piece, Rutgers University history professor David Greenberg says, "Obama blew it." Greenberg says Obama's "over-the-top coyness damages him three ways —"


1. "First, it feeds the idea that he's a narcissist."


2. "Second, after so much hype, the choice could only disappoint. And really, we waited three months for Joe Biden?"


3. "Third, the protracted process short-sightedly allowed Hillary Clinton's name to re-enter the veepstakes — a move bound to further alienate her backers when she wasn't selected."
   
   We might get an idea how Hillary's supporters feel about the selection process when, on Wednesday, she is reportedly going to tell her delegates that they are free to vote for Obama on the first ballot. Will they still vote for Hillary? Will there be a floor demonstration?
   
   Stay tuned.


• Elizabeth Holmes writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that Biden and McCain share "striking similarities."
  
  "In their roughly 57 combined years in the U.S. Senate, Sen. McCain and Sen. Biden have forged much the same path," Holmes writes. "The pair has each earned a reputation for a quick tongue and become outspoken on foreign policy."


• The sub-headline on the article by Mike Dorning and James Oliphant in the Chicago Tribune summed up what the Obama camp appears to want voters to see when they look at the Obama-Biden ticket: "Experience. Foreign policy chops. Fists for a political fight. And, if Obama's lucky, an appeal to white working-class voters."


• Frankly, I expected to read something about the selection in Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times this morning.
  
  But she seems to be too busy obsessing over John McCain's "dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam" — and the "powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free."
  
  Although the article was written by someone who was adamantly anti-Hillary during the primaries, the argument sounds like it could have been fashioned by a feminist Clinton supporter in a general election campaign against McCain. It doesn't really seem like a plausible complaint coming from an Obama backer.
  
  Presumably, this is in response to the subject that was raised by the revelations in recent weeks about John Edwards' affair — although Edwards is never mentioned in Dowd's column today.
  
  And Edwards only appeared to threaten Obama's run to the nomination briefly — and in a marginal sort of way, at that, after finishing a fairly distant second to him in the Iowa caucus on January 3. In fact, Edwards found himself competing with Clinton for second place that night. When he came in far behind both Obama and Clinton the next week in New Hampshire, Edwards prepared to throw in the towel.
  
  Perhaps Dowd will have something to say about Biden in her next regularly scheduled column — which presumably will be Wednesday, the day Biden is supposed to accept the nomination.


• Dowd's colleague, Frank Rich, doesn't mention the running mate, either — except tangentially. But he may have provided a hint of what may be to come when the Democrats convene this week in Denver.
  
  "Change We Can Believe In" was an effective slogan during the Democrats' "familial brawl," Rich says in the New York Times, but now the opponents are McCain and the Republican Party. The message must be blunt.
  
  So it's time, Rich says, to put to rest "Change We Can Believe In" in favor of something like "Change Before It’s Too Late."
  
  If so, perhaps that puts the Biden selection into its proper perspective.

If that doesn't do the trick, here's something that might.

Yesterday, I wrote that the selection "was made with no apparent consideration given to the effect it might have on the electorate in November."

But Dan Balz raises a point in the Washington Post that I hadn't thought of.

"The die may have been cast for Biden ... when Russian forces invaded Georgia this month," Balz writes. "Until then, Obama may have believed he had more latitude in his choice, that he could worry less about dealing with his perceived weaknesses and instead pick a running mate who would more clearly buttress the change and generational messages at the heart of his candidacy.

"Once the tanks rolled, the weight of evidence shifted toward someone who would raise no questions in the area of national security. ... Among those under serious consideration, Biden, 65, was at the top on national security credentials."

In that Washington Post assessment piece I mentioned earlier, Todd Harris, a former McCain spokesman, refers to the Russia-Georgia clash and writes that Biden "brings decades of foreign policy experience to the ticket — and more than a little baggage."

Another example of how unforeseen events have the power to move campaigns in unexpected ways.

The Fallout From the RFK Analogy

---

HILLARY CLINTON: I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don't understand it. Between my opponent and his camp and some in the media there has been this urgency to end this. Historically, that makes no sense, so I find it a bit of a mystery.

BOARD: You don't buy the party unity argument?

CLINTON: I don't because, again, I've been around long enough. You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just don't understand it and there's a lot of speculation about why it is . . .

Transcript of Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader interview with Hillary Clinton

---

I sincerely hope the media will stop obsessing over minutiae and focus like a laser beam on real issues when the general election campaign begins.

But, for now, we have to continue to endure commentary on things that don't really matter.

This weekend, the discussion has been about Hillary Clinton mentioning the Bobby Kennedy assassination during her interview with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader on Friday.

• John Harris writes, in the Politico, that the furor is an example of the kind of story that "will cause the media machine to rev up its hype jets."
  
  And Harris claims to have become pretty good at anticipating which stories will have that kind of impact.
  
  "Her comment was news by any standard," writes Harris. "But it was only big news when wrested from context and set aflame by a news media more concerned with being interesting and provocative than with being relevant or serious."
  
  
• Her recent reference to the Kennedy assassination is further proof, as Michael Goodwin says in the New York Daily News, that Clinton is her own worst enemy.
  
  "Context, as in 'you've taken my words out of context,' is the last refuge of a politician caught with foot in mouth," writes Goodwin. "But with both feet in [Clinton's] mouth, she doesn't have a leg to stand on."
  
  But what else could the context possibly be?
  
  Goodwin observes that "[t]here is no question she was citing the RFK murder of 40 years ago in the spirit of 'anything can happen' ... Which means she was thinking of murder as a momentum changer. Not a pretty thought in any context."
  
  No, it isn't a pretty thought. Even though it's true. Anything can happen.
  
  Including losing a nomination everyone expected you to win.
  
  In this case, as in so many others, I think Clinton may be guilty of giving voice to thoughts others have been having privately.
  
  Or, perhaps, not so privately.
  
  I, for one, have mentioned the possibility of assassination -- and not just with Barack Obama in mind.
  
  Let us not forget that prominent women have also been the targets of assassins in other parts of the world. Indira Gandhi was assassinated in India in 1984, and Benazir Bhutto was murdered in Pakistan less than a year ago.
  
  Austria-Hungary's Archduchess Sophie was assassinated with her husband, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914, setting in motion the events that began World War I.
  
  American nun Dorothy Stang was murdered by logging interests in Brazil in 2005 for her outspoken efforts on behalf of the poor and environmentalism. María Cristina Gómez, a teacher and community activist, was murdered in El Salvador in 1989.
  
  
• Maureen Dowd of the New York Times didn't miss a chance to pile on.
  
  "In politics, there are many unpredictable and unsavory twists and turns," writes Dowd. "That’s why she’s hanging around, and that’s why she and Bill want to force Barack Obama to take her as his vice president, even if he doesn’t want her, even if Michelle can’t stand her, even if she has to stir the sexist pot, and even if she tarnishes his silvery change message."
  
  
• During that now-infamous interview, Clinton referred to her husband's campaign in 1992, observing that he hadn't secured all the delegates he needed until the California primary in June.
  
  Jake Tapper of ABC News takes her to task on that one.
  
  "Yes, [Bill Clinton] literally did not secure the nomination until June 1992," Tapper says, "but by then it was a foregone conclusion that he would be the nominee."
  
  What's really more to the point is Tapper's observation that the 2008 primary/caucus season actually held its first binding vote in Iowa on January 3 -- much earlier than any caucus or primary had ever been held before.
  
  Which makes the duration of the Democrats' 2008 pursuit of primary votes one for the books.
  
  
• Also to the point is Thomas Lifson's observation, in American Thinker, that "[o]nce again Obama and his partisans take deep personal offense when his name is not even mentioned. Obama is, to himself and his partisans, so significant that any mention of anything that might tangentially be directed at him amounts to a personal attack."
  
  Obama and his people will have to stop being so sensitive if they hope to be successful in the general election campaign. If this episode has taught them anything, it is that they should never become indifferent to security issues.
  
  Real security issues.
  
  Homeland security and candidate security.

You know, I don't dispute that Clinton has a right to take her campaign to the convention in Denver and give a prime-time address to her delegates.

It's not unprecedented.

Ted Kennedy did it in 1980, when he had clearly lost the nomination to President Carter. Gary Hart did it in 1984, when he had lost the nomination to Walter Mondale. Jesse Jackson spoke to the Democratic conventions in 1984 and 1988 -- even though he didn't finish second in either campaign.

But the odds against Clinton get longer with each passing day. It's probably past time for Clinton and her supporters to stop kidding themselves that they still have a chance to win this thing.

At this point, Obama is probably more heavily favored to win the nomination in late August than Big Brown is to wrap up thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown in a couple of weeks.

Obama's Pastor

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright won't go away.

That's what's so wrong about Rev. Wright, as far as Barack Obama is concerned.

In America, everyone is free to believe what he/she wants to believe, and everyone is free to say (just about) anything he/she wants to say.

Our laws do draw the line at certain points. But it's our freedoms that allowed Jeremiah Wright to stand in the pulpit of his church and call upon God to "damn America."

Rev. Wright is entitled to his opinions, and he has expressed them frequently. But Obama, who apparently does not share Rev. Wright's views even though he spent many years as a member of Wright's congregation and listened to Wright's hate-filled messages Sunday after Sunday, is being weighed down by the minister's words.

"When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it," Obama said. "It contradicts everything I am about and who I am."

What seems contradictory to me is the relationship between Obama's words and his actions. Is Obama saying he finds Wright's words "appalling" now that he wants to be president and needs the support of white blue-collar voters to make it happen -- but those same words were acceptable when Obama represented a mostly black state senate district in Illinois and heard Wright utter them as the pastor of his church?

Obama has no shortage of defenders for why he spent nearly two decades in Wright's church -- where he remains a member after Wright's retirement.

"Having been deserted at age 2 by his father," writes Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, "Obama has now been deserted by the father-figure in his church, the man who inspired him to become a Christian, married him, dedicated his house, baptized his children, gave him the title of his second book and theme for his presidential run and worked on his campaign."

Dowd is a diehard supporter of Obama's campaign, and that is something she is certainly entitled to be. But even the most devoted supporters can do only so much for a candidate. At some point, the candidate can no longer allow his surrogates to make his apologies for him.

Obama still needs to explain to a dubious public why he remained in the church for two decades and listened to Wright's assertions that the federal government manipulated AIDS to apply a "final solution" to blacks in America and that God permitted the September 11 attacks to happen because America had been practicing its own brand of terrorism abroad.

That's something Obama did not do at a news conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. And, try as she might, Dowd cannot apologize for Obama's lapse in judgment -- if one can call it that.

"Tuesday was more than a Sister Souljah moment," writes Dowd, "it was a painful form of political patricide. 'I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency,' Obama said. In a campaign that’s all about who’s vetted, maybe he should have."

That seems a rather tame defense to me. Obama didn't need to investigate Wright. Obama was a witness. He sat in the pews of Wright's church for two decades and heard the minister's sermons himself. How much vetting did he need?

And how's this going to play with the blue-collar white voters?

(I assume they're the same voters Obama accused of clinging to their religion in times of crisis.)

What It's All About

A friend of mine, whose opinion I value, insisted, as I was trying to decide for which candidate to vote in yesterday's Texas Democratic primary, that it wasn't about misogyny vs. racism.

Yet, lurking beneath the surface, where all those high-minded subjects -- like "hope" and "change" and who is better qualified to answer a crisis call at 3 a.m. -- were (supposedly) getting the attention, is (you guessed it) misogyny vs. racism.

And, I have the feeling that, no matter who wins the race to the Democratic nomination, those issues will influence the general election as well.

No matter how much you try to distance yourself from that with thoughts about foreign policy, health care, the economy, NAFTA and the other things that affect everyday life for everyone, misogyny and racism won't be denied their role in this campaign.

It was inevitable. A country that wants to be seen by the rest of the world as the land of opportunity for everyone hasn't been the place where women or racial minorities were taken seriously in a quest for the highest office in the land. Until now.

One way or another, we're going to have something completely new in the general election campaign. We're either going to have a white woman or a black man at the top of the ticket.

And that means we're going to have to deal with some issues that have been buried in past elections.

We're not used to this in America. Sure, we have a "first" from time to time -- but, up until now, all our presidential nominees have been white and male.

This year, we'll have a presidential nominee whose candidacy speaks to issues we haven't dealt with before -- like shattering a "glass ceiling" or truly living up to the creed that says "all men are created equal."

Once Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have resolved their fight for the Democratic nomination, those will be issues that John McCain will have to deal with as well. He may prefer to talk about winning in Iraq and loving your country -- but his opponent will speak to what the country is really about -- whether it really believes in equality.

And, after months of all this, would it surprise any of us if the majority of America's voters look at the battle now being waged between Clinton and Obama, and turn instead to McCain in a "plague on both your houses" move?

Maureen Dowd recognizes what the issues really are in this campaign. The columnist for the New York Times says, "[T]he Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts. People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny?"

As America has learned -- painfully and tentatively -- in other areas, it is necessary to deal with the past before proceeding to the future.

"As it turns out," observes Dowd, "making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It’s all about the past. Will America’s racial past be expunged or America’s sexist past be expunged?"

I can't answer that question.

But I can say this.

I'm glad the question is out of my hands -- for now.

It's Heating Up For the Democrats

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times makes some good points about the Clinton-Obama battle for the Democratic nomination.

"We’re in another national seminar on gender and race that is teaching us about who we are as we figure out what we want America to be," Dowd writes. "It’s not yet clear which prejudice will infect the presidential contest more -- misogyny or racism."

If nothing else, the Democrats are managing to give the Republicans an unexpected reservoir of ammunition to use in the fall campaign. John McCain can spend the next few months concentrating on his choice for running mate, and the increasingly unified Republicans can start aiming their guns at the Democratic candidates.

It won't matter which one wins the nomination. There will be plenty of targets.

By CNN's latest count, Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton in delegates, 1,253 to 1,211. But, just a few minutes ago, CNN's John King showed the TV audience how it's virtually impossible for either Obama or Clinton to run the table and win all the remaining primaries and caucuses and come away with enough delegates to win the nomination outright.

And this assessment comes the day after Obama won Maryland with 60% of the vote, won Virginia with 64% of the vote and won D.C. with 75% of the vote.

Even so, if Clinton wins in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, that would mean that she swept all of the big state primaries, except for Obama's home stae of Illinois. It's hard for me to imagine the Democrats denying her the nomination under those circumstances.

Gender and race aren't going anywhere. They will remain campaign topics through the convention in Denver -- and probably beyond.

And, as Dowd points out, that may benefit Hillary Clinton in the long run.

Many political observers have credited Clinton's teary moment just before the New Hampshire primary with reviving her campaign after the unexpected loss to Obama in the Iowa caucus less than a week earlier.

If it seems like people are ganging up on Clinton, women voters in upcoming primaries may vote for her because they empathize with her.

"Many women I talk to, even those who aren’t particularly fond of Hillary, feel empathy for her," writes Dowd, "knowing that any woman in a world dominated by men has to walk a tightrope between femininity and masculinity, strength and vulnerability."

That, says Dowd, is "what may give Hillary a shot. When the usually invulnerable Hillary seems vulnerable, many women, even ones who don’t want her to win, cringe at the idea of seeing her publicly humiliated -- again."

Here in Texas, that might be called the Ann Richards effect.

In 1990, Democrat Richards was running for governor. Her Republican opponent, millionaire rancher Clayton Williams, was believed to have an insurmountable lead, but he insisted on shooting himself in the foot on numerous occasions.

Still, it was generally considered that he was leading until one night a few weeks before the election. Williams and Richards found themselves at the same event. Richards smiled gamely and offered her hand to Williams when they bumped into each other. Williams refused to shake it.

A few weeks later, Richards pulled off a narrow victory -- with the apparent help of many Republican women who may not have liked Richards but didn't relish seeing a woman being humiliated in a man's game.

Richards lost her bid for re-election four years later -- to George W. Bush. Bush may not be the smartest governor Texas ever had, but he was smart enough not to make the same mistakes Williams made.

In the scenario outlined by Dowd, Obama is the "the glib golden boy who slides through on charm and a smile."

Dowd points out that, during her husband's presidency, Clinton described herself as "a gender Rorschach test." But, Dowd says, Clinton is a "flawed science experiment" as a presidential candidate.

"Instead of carving out a separate identity for herself, she has become more entwined with Bill," Dowd writes.

"She is running bolstered by his record and his muscle. She touts her experience as first lady, even though her judgment during those years on issue after issue was poor. She says she’s learned from her mistakes, but that’s not a compelling pitch."

CNN will look at the politics of gender and race in depth on Friday night at 10 p.m. Eastern time.

Just in case you haven't had enough of it already.

The Trail of Tears

In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary, much is being made of her "crying" incident on Monday.

Thirty-six years ago, the debate over whether he cried apparently doomed Ed Muskie's bid in the New Hampshire primary -- and ultimately derailed what was expected to be a fairly easy run to the nomination.

But in 2008, the debate over whether she was about to burst into tears on Monday apparently "humanized" Clinton and gave her campaign new life.

It's all the subject of Maureen Dowd's column in today's edition of The New York Times.

And Dowd makes an interesting point.

"[T]here was a whiff of Nixonian self-pity about her choking up," Dowd writes. "What was moving her so deeply was her recognition that the country was failing to grasp how much it needs her. In a weirdly narcissistic way, she was crying for us. But it was grimly typical of her that what finally made her break down was the prospect of losing."

Or, as Dowd quoted a New Hampshire voter as saying, "When you think you’re not going to make it, it’s heart-wrenching when you want something so much.”

Clinton clearly wanted to win in New Hampshire. And she clearly needed to win the primary to keep her presidential hopes afloat.

The impact of Monday's incident wasn't lost on Karen Tumulty, who writes in Time magazine that "[A] prominent Democratic strategist not affiliated with the campaign [said]: 'Yesterday helped her a lot with women.'

Tumulty also goes on to point out that the incident helped Clinton "especially with unmarried women, a key component of the Democratic base. One campaign adviser noted that, where [Barack] Obama won that demographic by 13 percentage points in Iowa, Clinton carried it by 17 points in New Hampshire—a 30-point shift ..."

Nor was it lost on Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, who writes, "[T]he 2008 New Hampshire primary will be remembered for Hillary Clinton choking up when describing her everyday struggles. (The original question was about how she got through every morning when things were so tough)."

But Alter finds other ways to explain what happened in New Hampshire, even if, as he concedes, "I don't have a clear explanation for how Hillary Clinton defied the polls and prognosticators to win ..."

Alter suggests, for example, that the campaign experienced "The Reese Witherspoon effect."

"It's like the movie 'Election,' where Reese Witherspoon's character ... is an ambitious and too-perfect high school senior who has the election stolen from her after she was expected to win against a cool if inexperienced jock," Alter writes. "By the end of the movie, she ends up on top."

Will Reese/Hillary prevail in this version?

That leads Alter to another intriguing point. "In a workplace context, Obama may have reminded women of under-qualified hotshots who come along and get the big job with less experience because they're cooler and have more rapport with the boss and are, after all, men. They rallied to one of their own, just as the Clinton campaign hoped all along."

But if that scenario is correct, Alter has a warning for jubilant Clinton supporters: "In terms of electability, this bodes ill for Hillary. Democrats don't need more women in November. They need men -- a constituency that favors Obama."

The shortage of male voters among Democrats has been well documented in many quarters. And the Democratic nominee will need to draw more men to his/her side in order to win the election.

But the defection to the GOP has been among white males more than black or Hispanic males. And it is far from clear -- at this stage of the campaign, anyway -- whether Clinton or Obama would be in a better position to lure enough of those voters to the Democratic side to win the election.

As for myself, it has me yearning for a time when Americans will decide elections based on the candidates' views on the issues, and issues and events will not be seen through the narrow prisms of gender or race. That may be happening in some races in some places, but it doesn't seem to be happening in this race.

Not yet, anyway.

The Day After Christmas

It almost seems traditional for people to reflect on some of the lesser-known attributes of the Christmas season the day after the big day.

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd observes that "When consumerism curdles, it’s tempting to become an emotional Marxist about Christmas. Not Karl. Groucho."

When Groucho Marx and Christmas are mentioned in the same breath, you know you're in for something.

Actually, it was kind of a sneaky way to work in Caroline Kennedy's book, "A Family Christmas," a collection of all sorts of holiday stories, poems, songs, etc., into the column.

Ms. Kennedy says the book continued her mother's holiday tradition. Jackie Kennedy wrote holiday poems for her mother, and Ms. Kennedy and her brother wrote holiday poems for Jackie.

Dowd remarks that she found a 1953 letter from Groucho to Fred Allen in Kennedy's book, and she goes on to speculate that just about everyone would have a holiday tale to contribute to the book.

Her story, Dowd said, would be about Trigger, "one of those wooden horses that bounced on springs." It was a gift she received as a little girl, one that she clearly treasured.

But one day, Dowd says, she awoke to find the horse was gone. Her mother, who experienced the loss of her father at the age of 12, had been touched by the sight of a young boy who "stared longingly at the horse" when he and his mother passed the house. Dowd's mother gave the horse to the child.

It took several years for Dowd to learn what her mother's generous gesture really meant.

"Her lesson was lovely: that materialism and narcissism can only smother life -- and Christmas -- if you let them," Dowd writes.

It's a lesson we would do well to remember, even if Christmas has come and gone.

The 'Billary' Campaign -- A Symbiotic Relationship

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd discusses the presence of former President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail.

Dowd wonders if Bill Clinton is savior or saboteur for Hillary Clinton. It's a good question. But it's not a simple question to answer.

Dowd notes that the Clintons have always needed each other to succeed. "Their relationship has always been a co-dependence between his charm and her discipline," Dowd writes, and I tend to agree with that.

But in politics, especially since the advent of television, what voters see comes first and what they hear comes second. So, while the message may be on target, it misses the mark completely if the voters don't see something appealing first.

For example, much has been said -- and written -- about the different interpretations from radio listeners and TV viewers of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960. Those who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won, but TV viewers, perhaps influenced by Kennedy's tanned and rested appearance, picked Kennedy over the haggard-looking Nixon.

Today, any news event, including a debate, clearly will have far more TV viewers than radio listeners. Although that does lead to an interesting personal point. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was at work and had no access to a TV. Every person at a desk that had a radio was listening to reports of events that almost everyone else in the country was seeing.

That can be a blessing, especially when you realize that everyone in my office was spared seeing people jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers.

But back to the point at hand ...

Lacking President Clinton's kind of appeal means Mrs. Clinton needs her husband's charisma if she's going to pull off the deal that Dowd says she's trying to make with the electorate -- i.e., "asking people to like her if they liked him."

Dowd goes on to assert that "it’s almost as if she’s offering herself to Clinton supporters as the solution to the problem of the 22nd Amendment."

It reminds me of George and Lurleen Wallace in the 1960s. George was barred by Alabama law from seeking a second consecutive term as governor in 1966, so his wife ran and was elected. George was governor behind the scenes for 17 months. But Mrs. Wallace died of cancer and was succeeded by the duly elected lieutenant governor, leaving George with no elected platform to use while seeking the presidency as an independent in 1968.

By the way, Lurleen Wallace remains the only woman ever elected governor of Alabama.

Dowd correctly concludes that this is a "coattails strategy." It's also a symbiotic relationship. Someone who was stronger in the sciences would know the answer to this better than I, but it seems to me that it isn't necessary for a symbiotic relationship to be mutually beneficial. It is possible to have a symbiotic relationship of a parasitic nature -- in which one party benefits and the other does not.

For awhile, this particular symbiotic relationship seemed to be working. Now, it's not so clear that it's working. Electorally, at least. I don't know how well it works on a personal level.

But the problems on the campaign trail puncture the balloon of Mrs. Clinton's "inevitability" as the Democratic nominee.

The Democrats' Keys to Victory

In today’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd’s column about Barack Obama and his “second chance” to shine as a black candidate for president raises some interesting points.

My argument has been and remains that, for the Democratic nominee to win, whoever that nominee turns out to be, the scenario for success in the general election hinges on the outcome in the South.

The last three Democratic nominees who were elected president -- Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- had Southern roots. Carter and Clinton had been elected governors of Southern states before running for president. And Johnson was an influential senator from the South (rising to majority leader) and then vice president before becoming president after John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

In the last half century, the rest of the Democratic nominees, except Kennedy, lost the South by varying margins. The one who came closest to defeating his Republican opponent, Al Gore in 2000, came from Tennessee, and it’s fair to say that he owed his defeat to a unique set of factors.

Nevertheless, he still won the popular vote.

I think it will continue to be important for the Democrat to win in the South -- if that Democrat is going to have any hope of winning the general election.

In the Rocky Mountain and Western regions, while the margins may be down from what they’ve been, Republicans can be expected to win most of the states. In the Pacific Coast and Northeast, the races will continue to swing in favor of the Democrats. And battles will continue to be fought in the Heartland and Industrial Midwestern states.

Which leaves the Southern states as the keys to victory.

I grew up in the South, and I’ve spent much of my life observing political campaigns here. And, despite what we’ve heard for years about poll respondents saying, overwhelmingly, that they would vote for a qualified woman or black for president, I don’t believe the time has come when a majority of Southerners can step into the polling booth and vote for a woman or a black seeking the presidency.

It may seem racist or sexist to say that now. To be sure, the time will come when a woman or a black can win states in every region of the country, including the South. But that’s the kind of change the South isn’t ready for. Not yet.

Southern states have elected women to the Senate and House -- and a few times as governor. Here in Texas, for example, Democrat Ann Richards was elected governor in 1990, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison was elected to fill the remainder of Lloyd Bentsen's uncompleted term as senator in 1993, and three women hold House seats from Texas today.

Blacks haven’t been successful on the Senate level or in races for governor in the South, but they’ve won numerous House seats across the region. Three blacks hold House seats from Texas, and you will find black members in the House delegations from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. And you could include Tennessee on that list until 2006, when Rep. Harold Ford chose to give up his House seat to run, unsuccessfully, for the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist.

So, while the political influence of both groups has been increasing, I don’t think either group can produce a candidate who can be successful on the presidential level.

There are those who might point to Hillary Clinton’s years as first lady of Arkansas during President Clinton’s gubernatorial administration and say that gives her credibility in the South. But Mrs. Clinton was raised in Illinois. Her husband was raised in Arkansas.

I lived in Arkansas for most of Bill Clinton's gubernatorial tenure, and I can say that Arkansans appreciated many of the things that Mrs. Clinton did as their first lady. But first lady is not an elective post, and Arkansans never voted for Mrs. Clinton for anything.

(Today, however, a woman holds one of the Senate seats from Arkansas.)

No matter how often you hear her lapse into a Southern drawl when speaking to Southern audiences (frequently Southern black audiences) or how many times you hear her refer to her days as a "Goldwater girl" in her youth, Mrs. Clinton is not a Southerner and native Southerners know it.

Obama has been making an effort to win over evangelical Christian voters in South Carolina, but a group of ministers there endorsed Mrs. Clinton this week. And that is seen as a huge roadblock in preventing Obama from getting support he needs to win the nomination.

Success with evangelical voters may be more important in the South than any other region of the country. Indeed, if former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who was a Southern Baptist minister before he became governor, wins the Republican nomination (or is, at least, the running mate on the ticket), the evangelical vote will make it even more difficult for his Democratic opponent to score victories in the South.

That mission will be virtually impossible if a black or a woman is atop the Democratic ticket in 2008.

Defining Moments

Apparently, we've reached a stage in the campaign where leading presidential candidates are having their "defining moments."

In today's New York Times, one of my favorite columnists, Maureen Dowd, makes a point about Hillary Clinton that is similar to the one I've made in a previous post in this blog. Basically, the thing that Hillary feels strongly about is winning.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing for a politician to care about. A politician has to win elections in order to accomplish anything. But that seems to be where Hillary steps off the train. She wants to win. What she wants to accomplish once she wins is really anyone's guess.

Even hers.

In the aftermath of Hillary's have-it-both-ways on illegal immigration moment during last week's Democratic debate, Dowd observes that "there is nowhere she won’t go, so long as it gets her where she wants to be."

Dowd calls it the "Gift of Gall." I call it an absence of vision.

Karen Tumulty writes in Time magazine that Mitt Romney's defining moment actually occurred when he was governor of Massachusetts. And, although he might not embrace it readily today, that defining moment was his health care initiative that transformed the state into an example of universal coverage.

Tumulty says that the people around Romney assumed that his battle for universal health care coverage in Massachusetts, which included reaching out to one-time rival Sen. Edward Kennedy, would be the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House, illustrating his "data-driven, goal-oriented, utterly pragmatic side."

But Tumulty points out that "that other Mitt Romney, the one who wouldn't be satisfied until he found the answer himself" seldom emerges on the campaign trail.

One has to wonder if it will emerge more frequently if he wins the nomination and needs to run more to the center against the Democratic nominee.

For Mike Huckabee, the defining moment may be coming in a series of moments, starting with his surprising second-place finish in the straw poll of Iowa Republicans in August. That's when people really began talking about Huckabee.

Then, polls began to show Huckabee moving up in the standings. And then he made some waves with his speech to the Values Voters Summit in Washington, where he scored points with Christian conservatives, who are looking for the anti-Giuliani candidate who can successfully articulate their values and concerns.

If Huckabee can do well in Iowa, as Pat Robertson did a generation ago, it won't be necessary for him to win. Nor will it be necessary to win in New Hampshire, writes Charles Mahtesian of the Washington Post. After all, another Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton, didn't win New Hampshire's primary in 1992; he merely beat expectations before moving on to a series of primary victories that led to the nomination.

If Huckabee survives in Iowa and New Hampshire, it probably means one of the leading candidates didn't survive, Mahtesian, editor of The Almanac of American Politics, says. And that will mean a huge opportunity in the South Carolina primary, only days before Super Tuesday, when several Southern states with larger numbers of Southern Baptist voters (including Huckabee's home state of Arkansas) will be voting.

That will be Huckabee's time to shine, Mahtesian says. It's a tricky dance for the one-time Baptist preacher, but not one that is out of his range.

Dowd On Cheney

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times says Vice President Dick Cheney has a new strategy for shaping foreign policy (borrowed from the Richard Nixon playbook).