Democrats found their nominee three months too late.
It turns out that the candidate they really wanted was Hillary Clinton after all.
But not the Hillary Clinton of tears in New Hampshire or “change you can Xerox ” in Ohio.
Instead they wanted the Hillary Clinton who came to them on Tuesday at the Pepsi Center confident enough to embrace Barack Obama without fear. She was funny, brassy, and natural. It was the best speech of her career.
As one awed Democrat standing next to me said as the cheers were just starting to fade away Tuesday night, “Where was she before?”
Where she was, it seems, was stuck in the middle of a muscle-bound campaign operation afraid to risk her presumptive lead. Now, with nothing to lose, she nailed her last big moment of 2008.
But since the Clinton of Denver wasn’t on the ballot in Iowa, Democrats went with Barack Obama. And buyer’s remorse has set in with a vengeance. As Hillary was mounting her final stand through the Rust Belt and the Hillbilly Firewall, she warned Democrats that Obama couldn’t close the deal – that Obama couldn’t handle the Republicans.
But in a party that finds diversity a virtue and oratory the hallmark of leadership, Clinton couldn’t get her fellow liberals to listen. That Democrats were beating Republicans by 19 points on a generic ballot didn’t help her case either.
And the Republicans are thrilled that the Democrats wouldn’t hear Clinton’s desperate pleas. Every Republican I talk to is thinking that Hillary Clinton would have cleaned John McCain’s clock. And after she wowed ’em here in Denver, the potentates of the GOP are feeling like they just missed a seat on death row.
It’s still Obama’s race to lose, but with the polls tied and states like Florida seemingly out of play, Democrats who bought a two-seater coupe are wishing they had gotten the minivan instead.
Democrats also now understand that if Obama had been brave and chosen Hillary as his running mate, they’d be so much better off than with Joe Biden.
So now it falls to Obama to close the sale again. But things are different than when he was making his pitch the first time around. Now Obama has to appeal to a broader audience. In the primaries, invincible-feeling Democrats were weighing policy differences like how to establish socialized medicine. Quit Iraq now or in three months? Solar or wind? Gay marriage or civil unions?
Now, general election independents have a different set of questions, and Obama seems to be groping for a way to handle offshore drilling, Russia, the looming success in Iraq and taxes.
Democrats might be a little stunned at how backward these swing voters are, but poll after poll keeps showing that Obama can’t get traction. So when he takes the stage tonight, Obama has two tasks in front of him — to get Democrats fired up again, but not frighten away any more swing voters.
It’s telling that Obama picked Al Gore to help him do the job. Gore, who precedes Obama on the stage tonight, is a powerful symbol among liberals. It is an article of faith that the Bush machine stole the 2000 election from him. And since then, Gore has become a martyr for the issue of global warming.
His beatification by the left has gone on while Gore has become something of a punchline to the American middle. He represents the silly kind of environmentalism. The goofy, Hollywood version.
The truth is that George W. Bush didn’t steal the election from Al Gore. Rather it was Al Gore who couldn’t find a way to deal with Bill and Hillary Clinton the right way. Tired of being the third wheel and nervous about the incumbent president’s boggling indiscretions, Gore walked away from the Clintons and didn’t benefit from being part of an administration that had governed during a period of peace and prosperity.
By mishandling the all-important Clinton question, Gore lost the White House.
If Barack Obama comes up short this fall, the same will be said of him.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
