Clinton is far from 'inevitable'
By Scot Lehigh | October 5, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/10/05/clinton_is_far_from_inevitable/
PREPARING TO leave Iowa just before the 2004 caucuses, I picked up the national newsweeklies to read on the plane. One story in particular caught my eye: a cover piece on Howard Dean that, in exploring how he might match up against George W. Bush and speculating about possible VP choices, conveyed the unmistakable impression that the good doctor had the Democratic nomination pretty much wrapped up.
There's a lesson there at a time when some pundits and prognosticators (and even presidents) are starting to view Hillary Clinton as a formidable force on a glide path to the 2008 Democratic nod.
Certainly Clinton has good reason to be pleased with her recent progress. Her healthcare plan played to strong reviews, her latest fund-raising total bested Barack Obama's, and a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows her not just with a large lead over her Democratic rivals, but also beating Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani by eight points.
Further, the profusion of primary contests slated for Feb. 5 should impart a real advantage to a well-financed front-runner - as long as she emerges from the first few contests intact, that is.
But if Clinton is in an enviable position, she is far from inevitable.
Just ask Gary Hart.
"I went through the same kind of experience in the fall of 1983 with Vice President Mondale," recalls the erstwhile Colorado senator.
As a former vice president, Mondale was treated as the prohibitive front-runner. Still, after Hart finished a distant second in Iowa, his own campaign took off like a prairie fire. He upended Mondale in New Hampshire, then rode that momentum to a strong showing on Super Tuesday. The two battled all the way to the last primaries, and beyond. Despite the support of the Democratic establishment, Mondale barely staved Hart off.
"Voters have a very strange way of not listening to the pundits," Hart notes wryly.
Part of the disconnect lies in the great disparity in attention currently being paid to the race. Activists and junkies have been following every twist and turn for months. But what one hears from everyday people is that many simply haven't tuned in in a serious way yet. Certainly that's the message I got from students I interviewed at the University of New Hampshire last week; most had just begun thinking about the race.
"The full-time professional political aparatus . . . lives and breathes this stuff, but a whole lot of people aren't even going to pay attention until after the World Series," says Hart.
What's more, in New Hampshire, where primary voters pride themselves on watching and weighing the candidates for months before making up their minds for good, it's doubly dangerous to mistake early inclinations for final voting decisions.
John Kerry, who bounced back to win the 2004 nomination despite being widely written off in the fall of 2003, credits Clinton with running a strong and capable campaign, but notes: "Crunch time really won't come until the last six weeks or so." Only then, he says, will voters truly zero in.
Further, the stultifying nature of a race in which one candidate is treated as inevitable can create a backlash of its own. (That's particularly true when a candidate seems as cautious and calculating as Clinton did in last week's Dartmouth College debate.) That's one reason why Al Gore, a sitting vice president, came close to losing New Hampshire in 2000.
Then there's a crucial unknown: what issues will drive the campaign when crunch time finally comes. So far, the Democratic race barely qualifies as a pillow fight. Yes, we've had a number of forums, but the contest isn't really joined; in primary politics, the gloves start coming off when the cold weather sets in.
And if history is any guide, Clinton is all but certain to face a test that, if flubbed, could slow or even derail her candidacy.
"I haven't seen one campaign that didn't go through a valley before it was over - and there is always a lot of danger with the Clintons," notes one savvy presidential-trail veteran.
So despite a growing tendency to see Clinton as all but unstoppable, the bet here is that the Democratic campaign will become a real contest, and not an easy coronation - no matter how much the Clinton camp might wish otherwise
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