It's interesting that many media outlets today are leading with stories that "Obama can't close the deal." Over at the Hillary Clinton campaign website (masquerading as a newsmagazine) Salon.com, for example, their Washington Bureau Chief, Walter Shapiro has the cover story, unoriginally headlined "Obama can't close the deal." But this is not a real "news" headline. It's just Clinton campaign spin, a Howard Wolfson talking point designed to deflect attention away from the truth. Because the one who can't close the deal has been, and continues to be Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton entered the campaign as the "inevitable
candidate" and the "presumptive nominee." She was never the underdog, and she was supposed to have closed the deal long ago, by Super Tuesday.
She had a huge war chest.
She was white, establishment Washington, she knew the ropes, she'd been around the block. She knows the White House.
Many newspapers -- including the New York Times itself -- endorsed her.
So who exactly is it that can't close the deal?
Hillary Clinton squandered away her inevitable, frontrunner status, by sending surrogates out to cynically play the race card, by lying about the extent and depth of her political experience (35 years, really?), by exaggerating her bravery (sniper fire in Bosnia), by flip-flopping on everything from NAFTA to the war in Iraq, and by running an ugly, Republican-style personal smear campaign with tactics right out of Karl Rove's playbook.
And as a result, she's struggling to keep her head above water. She's broke. Even former "Clintonians" - Bill Richardson, Robert Reich - are endorsing Obama. Voters says she's untrustworthy and has a credibility problem.
And there's no way she can win the nomination unless she stages a desperate and destructive, superdelegate coup d'etat in Denver.
Meanwhile, the real underdog candidate, an African-American with funny name and a Muslim father in a land that still trying to overcome racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, came from the obscurity of the Illinois state legislature, gave a speech that touched a nation, has risen to national prominence, became a Senator, answered the call to run for president, inspired hundreds of thousands to register to vote and become politically active, raised phenomenal amounts of money for himself and other candidates, and has created a once-in-a-lifetime political movement.
He's just a few months away from becoming the Democratic nominee -- and if Hillary Clinton had as her priority the good of the Democratic party and a Democratic victory in 2008 -- she would step aside and let that happen sooner.
Hillary had every advantage and every chance to close the deal. The nomination was hers to lose. And she lost it. She couldn't close the deal.
It's time for her to step aside and let Obama have the time to bring the party together to heal, and energize in preparation to win back the White House in 2008.
Madame De Stael is the founder of Salon: The Parody -- http://salonparody.blogspot.com--
a blog/website that takes aim at Salon.com's biased campaign coverage.
