The Hard Left Plays Hardball

Victor Davis Hanson comments on what appears to have happened within the Democratic Party nomination this season.

Clintonian Pathos

After a lopsided victory, Hillary seems a mute bystander to the Obama / McCain exchanges.
Of course, there is irony in Bill Clinton whining about media bias against his wife's candidacy, when to suggest the reverse in the 1990s was McCarthyesque. Ironic too is to see the viciousness of the hard left—in Clinton war-room style—eviscerate Hillary. And more still to see the identity politics of race trump Hillary's 2007 gender card of our would-be first female President. And even more still to see Bill out crooned by a younger, far slicker version of himself.

But all that said, Hillary, the far more experienced and knowledgeable candidate and the better debater, does have a point—under any other rules than the byzantine system of her own party, she would be the nominee. She won all the key in-play states. And her recent margins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, (and Kentucky to come) prove the momentum is still with her, despite a lack of cash and coverage. If she doesn't quite win the popular vote, her victories still more derive from plebiscites than Obama's caucus wins.

In the past other less successful Democratic candidates have stayed in the race far longer than she. Surely all that should equate to a tight race rather than a media stampede to have her get out in shame and defeat. Either one of two things—or both—is going on. Either the Democratic establishment and media, nursing hidden slights and pent-up grievances over nearly two-decades of Clintonian selfishness and hard-ball and now smelling blood, have finally and collectively yelled "No mas. " Or at this point, it matters not at all what Obama or his various embarrassments say any more. He is a new messianic piper, part old Adlai and JFK, and the Democrats are swarming to his tune.

It's now a question of pure emotion, not reason, and any poor soul like Hillary who stands in their way—well, suffers the fate of all disbelievers...