The aftermath

Well, it looks like McCain has finally completed a political resurrection that would do Lazarus proud. With Romney out and Huckabee only viable in the Bible Belt, McCain appears to have salted away the nomination almost by default. Out of a sea of less than stellar candidates, it seems most Republicans found him the least objectionable of the lot. Bummer for the GOP and bully for us.

On the Democratic side, Super Tuesday hardly brought forth the closure that many people believed it would and on which the Clinton campaign was banking. Hillary bet on the knockout blow and failed to deliver. Now she and Obama are neck and neck, readying for a long run. This unexpected state of affairs has Team Clinton positively freaking out. I actually heard Mark Penn, her campaign manager (and not a very good one at that), refer to Obama as the “establishment” candidate this morning on NPR. Really, I am not kidding. Somehow, this idiot thinks he can reposition Hillary, the former First Lady for goodness sake and pre-Primary front-runner, as the insurgent contender. When political operatives attempt this level of bullshit jujitsu, they are hitting the panic button, hard. Think Richard Nixon and “I am not a crook”, or if you prefer, Bill Clinton dithering over the definition of “is”. Add to that Clinton’s insistence on more debates and you can almost smell the fear and desperation.

Most ironic, the fear is not of Obama or his message, it is his money. You see, Hillary’s trump card was always her ability to raise cash. She was tapped into the main line of Democratic donors. Based upon that and her name recognition, she should have crushed all comers. Thanks to a terrific campaign by Obama and a wicked burn rate in her own, those advantages are now gone. Her donor base is narrow compared to Obama’s, with many in her corner maxed out to the legal limit. Obama’s, on the other hand, is largely built upon a huge number of low dollar contributors that can be solicited again and again. This shortage of cash is particularly important when her campaign relies on a media strategy that has concentrated on larger, more urban states with big, expensive markets. Hillary can’t afford that tactic any further, hence the clamor for more debates, read free media.

Long story short, he has the money to compete and, right now, she does not.