Days of Change

Day 1164 – Waterloo

South Carolina tends to end campaigns. One reason Obama was able to take the Democratic nomination was that Hillary Clinton did not want to take down the party fighting for it. The first sustained call of racism was after South Carolina, when Bill Clinton responded to Barack Obama’s victory by recalling that also-ran Jesse Jackson managed the same win in 1984. Clinton wanted to take Obama down a peg by downplaying his importance. Instead, he was considered a racist because Obama is always perfect.

Hillary’s campaign responded by giving Bill the Sarah Palin treatment. He could rally the crowds, but he wasn’t allowed to speak extemporaneously. The fact is, Bill knows how to win. When he was running in 1992, there was no cabinet position waiting for him. It was back to backwater Arkansas if he lost. He threw everything but the kitchen sink into the fight. Hillary Clinton almost had too many options. She made the mistake McCain eventually repeated, thinking this campaign was about the better idea. She might as well had dropped out.

Anyone who’s not Mitt Romney is being offered the same choice now. Stop trying to destroy Mitt and just give up already. One thing that makes me like Newt Gingrich is that he wants to campaign on ideas, but if someone takes a shot at him, he’ll keep punching until he’s out of punches. I have no doubt he can best Obama in a debate. I’m also starting to think he can go negative enough to beat Obama down as well.

Romney, for all his blandness, is a good manager. When he wins the nomination, he will raise more money than Obama and go more negative than Obama. He will be called a racist and an idiot and the destroyer of worlds. It won’t matter. His ads will create the narrative and it’s that Obama sucks and he’s not getting any better. As for the attacks on him now, it’s good for Mitt. It’ll toughen him up.