Hillary's Coronation Derailed Again

Iowa was a nasty surprise for Queen Hillary who has labored diligently to foster an aura of inevitability around her campaign. In New Hampshire and Nevada she managed to restore some of that aura even though Obama tied her in delegates in New Hampshire and picked up one more than she did in Nevada.

Tonight in South Carolina, that aura has been punctured once again, this time possibly for good. Billary played what it thought was a golden trump card in the issue of race in South Carolina and it backfired badly on them. Billary knew that by attacking Obama bitterly and unfairly they would invoke a backlash among black voters and opinion leaders against them. They reasoned that the images of angry black leaders on television denouncing them would trigger a defensive response from South Carolinian whites that would blunt Obama's advantage with black voters.

What they forgot, is that even in a racially polarized state like South Carolina, white voters are unlikely to vote as a bloc for reasons of race especially when the black candidate is someone like Barack Obama who has run an inclusive campaign targeting voters of all races. The Clinton strategy backfired, and in the process they may have helped Barack Obama to lock down a large advantage among black voters that will come in very useful in the Super Tuesday states of California, New York, New Jersey, Missouri, Georgia and Alabama.

The other takeaway from this evening is the puncturing of Bill Clinton's image as a huge asset to Hillary's campaign. South Carolina was his state and his job was to just keep it close. The Clintons have been trying to lower expectations in the hope that they could portray a second-place finish with 10% of Obama as a "better than expected" result that maintained the momentum of New Hampshire and Nevada.

Well, that didn't work and now everyone should be questioning whether Bill Clinton is hurting the campaign more than he is helping. Is his constant presence in the media as the Clinton campaign's attack dog overshadowing Hillary and raising uncertainty in the minds of voters as to who is really going to be calling the shots in a Hillary Clinton presidency? The Clinton campaign would be wise to lower Bill's profile in the coming days and try and focus attention back on Hillary and her supposed strength in the area of experience.