From Marcelline in NY:

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> Hillary's Diminishing Returns
>
> Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page A17
>
> There is dissension in the Hillary Clinton camp. Top aides have been
> in arguments, shouting back and forth about differences in strategy.
> Should Clinton come on strong? Should she go negative? Should she be
> upbeat and positive? Here's my answer: Stop campaigning.
>
> The evidence is overwhelming that since Super Tuesday, the minute
> that Clinton steps foot in a state, her numbers start to plummet. Of
> course, Barack Obama has something to do with it. He's a phenomenon, a
> political version of Roy Hobbs, "The Natural" of Bernard Malamud's
> wonderful novel, whose physical repose is TV perfect and who will,
> when the time comes, provide a jarring visual contrast to the much
> older John McCain. Obama is nearly as good as he thinks he is.
>
> So it could be that Clinton would lose the Democratic nomination even
> if she were a gifted politician. But she has no such gift. Her smile
> is strained. She is contained. She seems unknowable, and there is that
> melancholy Billie Holiday air about her -- all those songs about a
> suffering woman. Most of us would prefer Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop
> (Thinking About Tomorrow)," the upbeat theme of Bill Clinton's first
> presidential campaign.
>
> It might seem surprising that Clinton has turned out to be something
> other than a brilliant campaigner. But consider her record. Back in
> 1999, she entered the New York Senate race in the manner of Marie
> Antoinette entering France -- to be ultimately crowned queen. When
> Clinton announced an interest in running, every other potential
> Democratic candidate -- Andrew Cuomo, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, even Al
> Sharpton -- took it as an order to vanish. The strongest of these,
> Rep. Nita Lowey, graciously stepped aside, as if Clinton was the real
> McCoy and a six-term member of Congress was an undeserving interloper.
>
> Back then, I wrote that there was "something wacky" about what was
> happening. Clinton, you might recall, was hardly a New Yorker. No
> matter. She had never won an election in her adult life. No matter.
> She was virtually inexperienced on her own. No matter. She was first
> and foremost the wife of Bill, and for party leaders and hypocritical
> feminists -- Lowey was a woman, too, for crying out loud -- she just
> had to be The One.
>
> With the Democratic senatorial nomination in hand, Clinton was set to
> go up against Rudy Giuliani. This would have been the great matchup
> between two suits inflated with little but name recognition, but it
> never came to pass. Giuliani withdrew on account of prostate cancer,
> and Clinton wound up facing . . . can you remember? It was Rick Lazio.
> Even so, Clinton did not win really big -- 55.3 percent of the vote.
> Not a landslide.
>
> Six years later, Clinton ran for reelection. Once again, she had no
> Democratic opponent, and in the general, she faced a Republican named
> John Spencer. He was little known before the election, hardly known
> during it and so forgotten afterward that I expect a segment of the
> show "Lost" to be devoted to him. Clinton won in a landslide, 67
> percent of the vote. But just two years earlier, Sen. Charles Schumer
> (D) had gotten 71 percent of the vote -- and no one ever mentions him
> as a presidential candidate. In many ways Clinton is a remarkable
> woman, but she is not proving to be a remarkable politician.
>
> Big-money Democrats have been on the phone of late, and their
> conversations have been on how to get Clinton out of the race. Some of
> these Democrats were tepid Clinton backers to begin with, wishing to
> go with the presumed winner or responding to the soft extortion of
> Bill Clinton and his allies. But others were sincerely committed and
> now fear that the Clintons, she and he, will not know how to lose --
> and will take the Democratic Party down with them.
>
> Politics can be ugly, not to mention sad. Broken dreams are strewn
> across the American landscape. Fred Thompson resigned from "Law &
> Order." Chris Dodd moved his family from Connecticut to Iowa just for
> the caucuses. Mitt Romney blew through a fortune. John Edwards
> campaigned through personal pain. The difference between a
> presidential candidate and a fool in love is only a matter of Secret
> Service protection.
>
> For Hillary Clinton, a loss has to be particularly tough. The
> presidency is not just the ultimate honor for her. It is, as others
> have suggested, a justification for all she has put up with.
>
> My cards are already on the table. I don't think that Clinton can win
> the nomination, but even if she does, I don't think she will win the
> general election. That would become apparent as she starts to campaign
> in states that have yet to see her. The harder she works, the worse
> she does.=