A Pilgrim’s Digression

I am feeling somewhat more optimistic today about Obama’s chances, both in the Democrat primary and in the November election. There is still much that can go wrong, but also much that can go right in the coming weeks. I think my biggest fear is of the Rev. Wright making a personal appearance on Oprah, but barring anything dramatic such as that, consensus seems to be that a one-two punch by Obama in Indiana and North Carolina in two weeks could effectively end Clinton’s hopes.

Whether Obama can pull it off is the big question. He has had other opportunities to score a knock out prior to this.

However, something not fully considered in speculation about the Indiana and North Carolina primary is the roll of money in the campaign. By all accounts, the Clinton campaign is deep in debt. She had to spend so much money in Pennsylvania, she is effectively broke compared to Obama. She may have raised as much as ten million in the 24 hour period after her victory on Tuesday, however at that moment in time, her campaign was also ten million dollars in debt. Meanwhile, her big donors are maxed out on their campaign contributions. She can’t rely on them anymore.

Thus, whereas Obama has campaign coffers well-stocked with something like 30 million for the next two campaigns (and no debts), Clinton is either going to have to continue going deeper into debt, or she will have to rely on the beneficence of small donors who give ten, twenty, or fifty dollars.

Obama has built much of his campaign funding on such small donors, but Clinton has built no such financial infrastructure for her campaign, instead relying on her wealthy supporters who can no longer contribute anything. Clinton likes to point out how Obama out-spent her in Pennsylvania, yet she still won. However, what she doesn’t mention is that she had a demographic cushion of voters there to negate his financial power. She has no such cushion in the majority of the upcoming states. Indiana may still be a tough win for Obama, but there are no more ten point margins of victory in Clinton’s future. If she wants to win at all, she will need at least another 20 million to be competitive.

Looked at in this way, Obama’s loss in Pennsylvania may have been a Pyrhhic victory for Clinton, leaving her bankrupt. Can she compete successfully in two states at once against a campaign that has no money worries? I don’t think so. She will probably have to forfeit North Carolina in order to compete in Indiana.

Still, Obama looks shaky right now. Clinton’s questions are good ones: why hasn’t he been able to shut her down? Why aren’t white, blue collar voters supporting him? However, I think in 60 days, with the primary season over and a glorious summer in full bloom, the challenges facing Obama will seem less daunting.

One sign of hope for November came from an unlikely source yesterday. John McCain called on the North Carolina Republican party to remove an ad attacking Obama for his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a letter to the NCRP, McCain scolded them, saying “The television advertisement you are planning to air degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats. In the strongest terms, I implore you to not run this advertisement.”

I was really pretty stunned by that move on the part of McCain. For one thing, I don’t understand why he did it. The Karl Rove Dummies Guide to Politics suggests that if surrogates such as the Swift Boat wankers or the North Carolina Republican Party want to run ad hominem advertisements against your opponent, you allow them to do so.

McCain’s unwillingness to attack Obama suggests a fundamental weakness in his own strategy going into the Fall. Either McCain is afraid of being accused of racist “Willie Horton” tactics, or he genuinely believes that Americans want a clean, respectful campaign. Either way, he loses. The Jeremiah Wright controversy was a major setback for Obama. McCain’s reluctance to use the weapon his opponent hands him suggests that he will not be able to land the kinds of crushing blows against Obama necessary for winning in the fall.

Moral superiority can become a kind of vanity, and therein lies the danger for McCain. In some ways, he and Obama are similar in that both men have tried to run a high-minded campaign that transcended Clintonian-style personal politics. The difference is that Obama, supposedly the “inexperienced” politician, has been personally schooled by the Clintons; whereas McCain has been able to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Clinton the schoolmarm rapping Obama’s knuckles. Once school is out for Obama, McCain may not enjoy himself so much.

It costs nothing to turn the other cheek when it’s someone else’s face being slapped.