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It is over

By Lawrence Kudlow
February 22, 2008

Allow me a dose of hardened market realism concerning Barack Obama's landslide victory in Wisconsin. The race is over. Hillary Clinton is over. Her electability is over.

Bill Clinton's political invincibility is over. The Clinton Restoration is over. It's over.

Mr. Obama got to the far left faster than Hillary did. He out-organized her, out-fund-raised her, out-speechified her, out-hustled her, outdressed her, and out-presidentialed her. He outbid Hillary for votes, one promised government check at a time. His 17-point margin of victory in Wisconsin was incredible. It says he can't be stopped.

Outside of the whacko ultra-left Madison college population, which is even worse than the Ohio State population, Wisconsin is a lot like Ohio. And Ohio campuses will go for Mr. Obama. Think faculty voters, grimly determined for a left-wing takeover of America "from the bottom up," to use the Saul Alinsky community-organizer phrase. As goes Wisconsin, so goes Ohio.

Not even Hillary's last-minute bashing of business, free trade, and free-market capitalism — which was a complete repudiation of her husband's presidency — could save her. Mr. Obama got there first, with a style and elegance Hillary couldn't match.

And it came out of nowhere. On the eve of the Wisconsin primary, Hillary did a hard-left imitation of John Edwards' populist and demagogic soak-the-rich rhetoric. She trashed some of the greatest businesses in America — oil, credit-card, insurance and pharmaceutical firms. Wall Street and lending firms. It all must have come as quite a shock to the alumni of the Bill Clinton White House working for her campaign.

Robert Rubin may have been too busy tending to Citigroup's subprime collapse to keep Hillary on the reservation. But where were Wall Street's Roger Altman and D.C.'s Gene Sperling when she discarded pinstripes for the polyester lefty-union pantsuit?

Bashing business comes naturally to Mr. Obama. But for Hillary Clinton, it was a complete failure. Exit polls from Wisconsin say the trade protectionists went with Mr. Obama. Union members? Mr. Obama. People who think the economy's in trouble? Mr. Obama. Folks who don't think it's in trouble? Mr. Obama. People making less than $50,000 a year? Mr. Obama. More than $50,000 a year? Mr. Obama. And it only gets worse.

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