Inside Politics

Shaking her fist

On Saturday, “Hillary Clinton exited the presidential race, pledging loyal support toBarack Obama. In reality she was shaking her fist defiantly at the victor. Her prolonged farewell, though undignified, is not hard to understand,” John O’Sullivan writes in the London Telegraph.

“Unless she bullies Obama into making her his vice-presidential candidate - which looks unlikely - she is leaving national politics as well as the 2008 campaign,” Mr. O’Sullivan said.

“Despite all the praise for her gallant uphill fight, Mrs. Clinton blew a sure thing. As the candidate of inevitability, she lost. As the candidate of competence, she won most major battleground states, but lost the nomination because her campaign failed to organize in the smaller states. As the candidate with an unrivaled Democratic Rolodex, she lost the superdelegates.”

“Even her late emergence as the friend of Joe Sixpack reflected her loss of most other Democratic constituencies rather than her recruitment of a new political base. She is a very implausible leader of a white working class that is drifting steadily towards the Republicans.”

Drilling Democrats

“Republicans finally have a winning argument on a big issue, and they’d better make the most of it. It starts with high gasoline prices - the single most infuriating issue to voters these days - but doesn’t end there,” Fred Barnes writes in the Weekly Standard.

“Democrats are not being blamed for causing the price of gasoline to reach $4 a gallon, at least by the public and at least for now. Where Democrats have stumbled embarrassingly is in their campaign to persuade the public that the American oil industry is the chief culprit. A Gallup national poll in May found only 20 percent blame the oil companies for gouging, down from 34 percent a year ago,” Mr. Barnes said.

“Where Republicans have succeeded is in selling their solution to soaring gas prices: drilling for oil offshore and on federal lands, areas now off-limits. In the Gallup survey, support for drilling in precisely these areas jumped from 41 percent in 2007 to 57 percent in May.

“So Republicans have an issue to exploit. And it’s one on which Democrats are especially vulnerable because they promised in the 2006 campaign to offer a ‘common sense’ plan to curb gas prices. They have yet to produce one, and the price per gallon of gas has risen by more than $1.60 since Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007.”

An honest speech

“Echoing another dramatic moment, Hillary Clinton came not to praise Barack Obama, only to support him,” New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin writes.

“Or maybe she was channeling consigliere Tom Hagen, who in ‘The Godfather’ famously said of a Mafia family feud: ‘This is business, not personal.’

“Whatever her muse, Clinton Saturday gave one of the most honest speeches she has ever given and perhaps the most honest we have heard in this political marathon,” Mr. Goodwin said.

“She didn’t pretend to like or admire Obama. She didn’t pretend she believes he would be a great president. She didn’t say he was right on the issues. She never said he’d be a good commander in chief or would keep America safe.”

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