« previous | TPM CAFÉ READER POSTS HOME | next »
Hillary's Briar Patch
Following the rule that anything Robert Novak says about a Democrat must be exactly opposite the truth, you can imagine how clairvoyant this little article on MI & FL from last September was. Almost like Scooter Libby leaked it himself:
<a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/hillarys_brier_patch.html">Hillary's Briar Patch</a>
Novak counters the opinion of the NY Times, which stated "The decision seemed to dash any hopes of Mrs. Clinton relying on a
strong showing in Florida as a springboard to the nomination." Instead he draws this interesting conclusion:
"Assume Clinton starts by losing Iowa and New Hampshire after more than
a year of campaigning. That could be nullified by campaign-free
Michigan, where a public poll gives Clinton a 19-percentage point lead
over Obama. Assume Clinton also loses in heavily campaigned South
Carolina. That could be nullified by campaign-free Florida, where polls
show Clinton's lead as high as 30 percentage points."
Ah yes, brilliant Bob Novak. A nullified election trumps an actual win even if the press refuses to report it in any meaningful way. Always creative in interpreting the slippery playing field of facts. It must be an advantage for sneaky conniving Hillary - where's our idiot savant to scream "It's EXCELLENT" - so now we can bash her a little bit more.
Comments (41)
Oops, forgot to click Link on post:
Hillary's Briar Patch
May 29, 2008 4:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!!! FOR ME!!!
Much Love,
Hillary 08.
May 29, 2008 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
But what is any of this relative to Hillary's latest efforts, a tee-shirt sale. And a tee-shirt sale is nothing in comparison to the information that I have recently acquired, which could have profound ramifications for the presidential contest.
"The Twelfth Cylon Revealed"
http://msa4.wordpress.com/
Enjoy....it's late at night. Might as well have some fun.
May 30, 2008 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spooky prediction. Great find.
May 29, 2008 7:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kudos for correcting the spelling of briar.
Otherwise, your point eludes me. Pivot?
May 29, 2008 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe correcting the spelling of briar was the point
Maybe it was that it was obvious in September that Florida and Michigan were very important to Hillary. And that she wasn't "inevitable" at all, not in the first 4 states, not in the campaign as a whole?
What if everything you knew were wrong?
May 29, 2008 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
But that's not what I took away from it. What I gathered was similar to what Alex39 suggests below. Hence, my question: pivot? Because, otherwise, I'm not sure how this feeds whatever narrative you're looking to bolster by highlighting this. If anything, I'm left more cynical than ever about your candidate's motives.
May 29, 2008 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shoes for industry! Shoes for the dead!
May 29, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Easy on the forty-weight, Mom!
May 29, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stop torturing me, Ethel.
May 29, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
No Irishman can stop you from being Dog Killer this time! You're a natural!
May 29, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The ministry of plenty reports that this year that shoe production is up by 47 million shoes, and also that HRC is already the Democratic nominee, we should just give up already.
May 29, 2008 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where does this inevitablity meme come from? I remember discussions at the very beginning of this season that predicted that Clinton would not easily win this nomination.
May 29, 2008 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least part of the inevitable idea comes from Hillary's comment that it would be over after Feb. 5. Her campaign didn't seem to plan for a hard campaign after that date and they gave the appearance, at least, of disarray.
May 29, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. The inevitability came from Hillary herself. The ultimate elitist: I deserve to be PRESIDENT! My husband got it, so I should too!!!
"It'll be over by February 5th."
"Michigan doesn't count"
As to blue collar workers during the Bill Clinton admin: "F*ck 'em" per Hillary.
May 29, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a person behind this tape machine?
May 30, 2008 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
The post pivots in the last paragraph by turning up the snark slightly. Point being, the "brier patch" strategy Novak attributes to Hillary is implausible.
I'm agnostic here.
May 29, 2008 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm rather agnostic as well, though Novak's impressions of the first 4 races seems pretty canny.
May 29, 2008 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nope, on reflection, not agnostic. Novak was right to suggest that, other things being equal, a no campaigning rule will benefit the candidate with greater name recognition.
May 29, 2008 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Depends first on whether name recognition comes with high negatives to that name.
The second issue was whether victory really mattered if the press ignored it.
May 29, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right. And on that one, I'm agnostic. I think it might be a 50/50 split.
May 29, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can there really be any doubt that having the Clinton 'brand' name was a huge net positive in a Democratic party primary?
Any present diminishment of that 'brand' was wholly at the hands of the Clintons themselves.
May 29, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
In a multi-way primary, name recognition is a net positive - even if you have high negatives, you've also got a lot of potential supporters (otherwise you wouldn't have the name recognition). Even if the majority want to vote against you, they likely would splinter among the remaining choices.
In the particular case of Hillary Clinton, she had both high name recognition and, in some quarters, high negatives. For a Democratic primary, especially in January, her negatives weren't nearly as high as they would be for the general election*. So I'd have to think she would be more likely to win contests where nobody campaigns, like, ostensibly, Florida. Other demographics in Florida likely favor her, so she probably would have won a "fair" primary also, but with what margins we'll never know.
* Admittedly her negatives for the general election are highest among committed Republicans, who would be highly unlikely to vote for any Democrat, but she also has high negatives among independents as well.
May 29, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
First, there is no plausible argument that name recognition hurt Mrs. Clinton in the primaries. Quite the` opposite. The gap between her favorable and unfavorables among republicans is quite large.
Second, Mrs. Clinton has been making the argument all along that her negatives were in fact a crucial asset since she had already withstood the decades long assault on her very being. No one could possibly think worse of her while her opponents had no where to go but down.
Third, we are playing the entirely pointless game of trying to discern ex-post what contest (or lack thereof)provided the decisive margin. There is no possible right answer since there are innumerable combinations of "what ifs" that would have changed the outcome.
May 29, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
That should read "The gap between her favorable and unfavorables among DEMOCRATS is quite large." Freudian slip or something.
May 29, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Freudian briar patch.
May 29, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It becomes clear why Hillary left her name on the MI ballot. Name recognition means even more when it's impossible for voters to select your opponent's name.
May 29, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a reason Novak is called the Prince of Darkness.
May 29, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is a fact Hillary never asked for her name to be taken off the ballot in MI (unlike all her competitors other than Dodd - who dropped out after IA and Kucinich) even though she told the people of IA and NH that MI and FL don't count. It is a fact that four days before FL voted she started publicly calling for their delegates to be seated.
These were moves to game the system, trying to steer the vote in those states her way before their primaries as it became abundantly clear she wasn't going to land a knockout blow before or on Super Tuesday.
May 29, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
This makes perfect sense, actually. Novak and the Clintons live in the same political world, and it's not a pretty place.
May 29, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary is Brer Rabbit.
Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada are the Tar Baby.
Michigan and Florida are the Briar Patch.
Robert Novak is Uncle Remus.
May 29, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
So who's Brer Fox?
Novak casts Obama as Brer Fox. But Desidero disagrees. I think.
Here's a version of the story (sans Uncle Remus).
May 29, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
In order for this to work, Brer Fox needed to play the role and free Brer Rabbit to run back to the briar patch. It's almost as if Brer Fox didn't free Hillary er... Brer Rabbit from the tar baby. Sensing time was on his side, he instead inspected the briar patch and saw a bunch of rabbit holes.
To take the analogy to the end, it looks like Obama er... Brer Fox cleared out the briers, used them to make a fire and returned to plan A; roast the rabbit.
Of course, Hillary did a really poor "Pllleeeease Don't throw me in the briar patch!" She used the more transparent "Dammit, I really deserve to win this thing so throw me in my f**king briar patch already!"
May 29, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree the story's not over yet. :-)
May 29, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, look, Desi. Someone at HuffPo plagiarized your briar patch idea (as well as my Brer Hillary reference). I think you should comment in his thread and provide a link to your post so his readers can appreciate the source of his inspiration. ;-)
May 30, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Novak offers no evidence it was a conscious strategy by Clinton, but by saying Michigan and Florida could be a firewall of sorts for Clinton, he's made an accurate observation. Or, rather, he's picking up on the observation he attributes to Bob Shrum:
It's certainly true that the uncertainty over how Florida and Michigan would be resolved has certainly allowed the Clinton campaign to argue that they still have a plausible, if long, shot at winning the nomination after her string of losses in February.
If it was a conscious strategy, it was brilliant.
May 29, 2008 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. That, and 11.6+ million dollars of your own money, plus the kitchen sink -- that'll get you all the way to June 3 with an argument that you've earned the nomination. I don't think it's a particularly good argument -- but that's not really up to me to decide. You've got to give her credit -- she's hung in 'til the bitter end, and kept her eyes squarely on the main chance.
May 29, 2008 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I have to admit, the title brings me back to my years in nursing school, when "briar patch" had a different connotation than you are making, I hope. What exactaly do you mean by this?
I would add parenthetically, that Robert Novak is a stupid pig and anything he says should be ignored. Not considered to be brilliant for its opposite karma, any more than for its positive karma. He is a creep! If one thing he says turns out to be either true, or so false that someone is reading tea-leaves about it, it is time to go and sit in the bathtub with a hot cup of tea.
May 29, 2008 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Hillary's Brier [sic] Patch" was the name of Novak's article. Ask him.
May 30, 2008 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillarys BRIAR PATCH?!? What's that supposed to mean? Is that some sort of a filthy euphemism? Shame on YOU. (And no wonder Bubba went elsewhere for his nookie.)
May 29, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great find! Thanks.
May 30, 2008 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Post a Comment