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LITTWIN: This race heading for a photo finish

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 5, 2008 at 7:21 p.m.
Updated May 5, 2008 at 7:21 p.m.

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JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — It's another day on the trail. It's another high school gym. And just so you know it's a campaign event, the time on the scoreboard reads 20:08 — as in, yes, 2008. And the score reads 44-44, a slightly obscure reference to the fact that the next president will be, yes, No. 44.

We're in Southern Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, Ky., a part of Indiana that Hillary Clinton figures to dominate in Tuesday's primary against Barack Obama. I'm standing with a Clinton aide, and we're talking about what everyone on the campaign trail talks about these days — whether the interminable race will ever end and what the chances are that our families will recognize us if it does.

And, just then, Clinton comes bounding onto the stage. And bounding is the right word. If you want to understand Clinton's appeal in the late stages of the campaign, you need to see her energy level up close. Robert Kennedy Jr. is campaigning with her on this day, and Clinton takes the stage as if she's on Dancing With the Stars and threatening to grab Kennedy for a tango. Her eyes go wide, and the much-practiced smile fills her face.

Love her or hate her — and what's changed from the early part of the campaign is that there's far more love from the crowd now — you'd never guess she had arrived here nearly an hour late or that this was the fourth of five stops.

There may be a thousand people in the gym, the majority of them white women — who are, of course, her most loyal audience. They've been with her at least from the near-tears moment in New Hampshire. And they're with her now even as a North Carolina labor leader praises her, uh, "testicular fortitude."

In some ways, this is the best time for Clinton in recent memory. She is clearly on a roll. Polls are rising. The money is coming in. And Obama, meanwhile, hasn't had a good day in memory.

Looking at her, you'd think Clinton was on the verge of pulling this race out. And yet, the delegate math shows it's nearly impossible for her to win. The score is not tied. Time is running out. And a steady trickle of the few remaining uncommitted superdelegates, meanwhile, make the slow walk to Obama's side.

She has to win here in Indiana, where the vote is expected to be close. She may have to also win Tuesday in North Carolina, where no one expects her to win. And even two wins might not be enough to change the dynamic of the race.

Still, when Indiana state Sen. Connie Sipes introduces Clinton and gives her a pink and green T-shirt with the word "filly" across the front — invoking today's Kentucky Derby — the crowd goes slightly wild. Clinton, who says to put a few bucks on the filly for her, looks like she believes she can win, and certainly the crowd believes.

And Sipes tells them, "She certainly is a filly and a thoroughbred."

But I was more interested in a discussion that I had just had with three women in the stands as we waited for Clinton to show.

This is Southern Indiana, which is not unlike Southern Pennsylvania and Southern Ohio — a population skewed towards white, blue collar workers, the kind that Obama has famously had problems reaching.

When I ask Margaret Middleton why she prefers Clinton, she says, "I think the economy is No. 1, especially as I get older. I have three grandchildren I'd like to see grow up with a balanced budget."

Amy Ramsey leans in and says, "And because she's a woman."

Middleton continues: "Gas prices are totally uncalled for. Hillary wants to know why the oil companies should make all that money when people are trying to put bread and milk on the table."

Then Jennifer Leonard leans in, "And she's a woman."

And when I ask about Obama, Middleton pulls back slightly, before offering a long list of complaints: "Obama scares me. His middle name is Hussein. There's the Reverend Wright. And I don't know about the Muslim community. And there's that thesis that his wife wrote in college. And, besides, he doesn't have any answers. If you ask him a question, he's totally blown away."

Before the campaign began, some people worried that, as in the past, some white voters wouldn't necessarily be honest about whether they would vote for a black candidate. But in this campaign, most polls have shown, if nothing else a willingness to be honest.

When I ask Middleton if she'll vote for Obama should he win the nomination, she doesn't hesitate. She says she'll stay home and won't vote for either candidate. The others say they'll reluctantly vote for Obama. "I just want to see Hillary win," Middleton says. "She's the first serious female candidate we've ever had."

If you go to an Obama rally, you can expect what Clinton dismisses as "just words," but, in any case, they'll be well-spoken words. If you see John McCain, he'll warm you up with a few jokes before launching into — this is the nice version — a plain-spoken speech.

Clinton gives you a long list of programs, with almost no rhetorical flourishes. It's as if she didn't bother to hire speech writers. She says she'll do this about health care and that about college loans. Something more about taxes for the wealthy, something less about keeping troops in Iraq. The big issue now is gas prices, and Clinton has joined McCain in calling for a gas-tax holiday, although, unlike McCain, she's also calling for taxes on oil companies.

It's the first break Obama has gotten in a while. Obama has said no to the tax holiday, and he gets to argue that this is a typical, do-nothing, pandering, Washington solution — because it is a typical, do-nothing, pandering Washington solution. And it also links Clinton to McCain, which can't help in a Democratic primary.

The Clinton campaign hasn't been able to produce a single economist who thinks the tax holiday is good policy. And the break for Obama is that it gives him something to talk about that has nothing to do with the Rev. Wright.

Obama called a news conference Friday in which he admitted, in an understatement, that he'd been through "a rough couple of weeks."

But he also called the tax holiday — which saves 18.4 cents a gallon, much of which would probably be kept by the oil companies — "a political stunt."

In Jeffersonville, though, Clinton had laid down a challenge, to name names, that the Obama campaign immediately jumped on — calling it Bush-like — and noting that many superdelegates (yes, them again) think it's a stunt as well.

"I believe it is important to get every member of Congress on the record," Clinton said. "Do they stand with hard pressed Americans ... or do they once again stand with the big oil companies? That's a vote I'm going to try to get, because I want to know where they stand and I want them to tell us — are they with us or against us?"

The crowd was with her, but not enthusiastically. Congress — see Mark Udall's statement — will almost certainly not be with her.

But that's not the real issue. What Clinton needs on her side is more delegates and more time. And I'm guessing at this point that even a stopped gym clock won't help.

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com

Comments

  • May 5, 2008

    7:55 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    zelduh writes:

    I hope the good people of Indiana are not so stupid as to fall for her fakery. I am sick to death of the misleading statements and outright lies from both Clintons. They are relics of the last century; this is the 21st century. Time to move on and try something new.

    P.S. I am a white woman in my mid-50s. Unfortunately, I do not fit her demographic because I am educated.

  • May 5, 2008

    10:46 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    roofingbird writes:

    Geez -Mike don’t YOU get upset when they lose the nice trail of blogs you’ve got going?

    See:

    LITTWIN: This race heading for a photo finish
    By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
    Saturday, May 3, 2008

    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...