Beyond the Shark Nets; the Panic in the Clinton Camp

from HuffPost:



Jon Robin Baitz
Beyond the Shark Nets; the Panic in the Clinton Camp
Posted January 7, 2008 | 02:02 PM (EST)


Once, many years ago, around 1975, I was (laughably) on a short-board in the water off Durban, when I realized I had drifted way too far out, near the shark-nets which were there to protect the (white) swimmers. I imagined the sharks just waiting beyond the nets, eagerly anticipating lunch. Somehow the dappling of the light on the water had created a kind of hypnotic effect, a petit mal attack. I panicked, trying to get back in. It wasn't happening. I was done, and I started to fight, tiring myself more and more, the more I fought, the more I could not believe it was going to go down this way. Fifteen, comfortable in the waters, and flailing. The life guards came out, and towed me and my board in.

The panic I felt is being felt in the Clinton campaign as Barack Obama pulls ahead in New Hampshire. Senator Hillary Clinton is awakening from the hypnotic petit mal torpor of bad advice, and the smug certitude of a presumptive nominee, into the cold hard snowy January reality of an actual battle for hearts and minds of an unimpressed electorate. Infighting dominates at her camp, finger pointing prevails, and still Bill and Hilary come out swinging against Obama. With each punch, each vulgar assertion of his inexperience, or his lack of a stand on women's rights, they seem more and more and more desperate, more vicious, and ever more out of sync with the emerging spirit of the day.

Seven months ago, I was at a Hollywood Hills fundraiser for Senator Clinton, when she answered a young girl's (reasonable, but I felt stage-managed) question about "the glass ceiling for women". I sensed in this tiny bit of theatre, all of the cautious triangulation that she employs to cover all the bases. The moment evidenced the crushing lack of spontaneity in her approach to campaigning, and even decision making. When I asked her why she felt the need to have shills even in friendly crowds in the hills above Sunset, there was a dismayed gasp. She snapped "You try doing this a dozen times a week". The crowd cheered her, booed me, and I knew she was going to have a hard go of it, then and there -- if all she had was that brittle humorlessness. No charm. No grace. No admission of anything amiss. And then it kept happening: The shills in the crowds.

Well. Voters know what the fire this time looks like: They are thirsty for intellect unfettered by compass-watching-perpetual caution. That alone draws them to Obama.

They are voracious for a passionate and credible communicator; that too, points them towards Obama.

They crave a new model, a new kind of American, who somehow is not redolent of the old and shop-worn language of the past. That craving brings them in a straight and inexorable line right to Obama.

And the Clinton camp knows it, and sees it, and has literally no clue how to respond. Because all they have is a candidate who is tough, and admirably indefatigable. (The one moment in the New Hampshire debate on Saturday night that seemed to humanize her was the "likability" beat. She admitted to having hurt feelings over some of the negative qualities attributed to her. ) She smiled, and in that moment, Hillary seemed human, vulnerable, light of touch, tough, strong and funny. One of us. But still, after an endless presumption of inevitability, hearts had grown slightly cool. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-baitz/beyond-the-shark-nets-th_b_80073.html