Wednesday editorial: An end…and a beginning
And so it ends, with a soaring call for change from the first African-American ever chosen as his party’s presumptive presidential nominee, and with a not-quite-concession speech from the candidate who almost became the first woman to claim that honor.
And so it begins, with a call for the “right kind of change” and persistence in Iraq from Republican John McCain of Arizona, who now knows that Barack Hussein Obama of Illinois and not Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York will be his opponent in November.
On this historic night, the prologue ended. The race for president now is joined. It took until June 3, until South Dakota and Montana, of all places, the last two states to hold primaries. But on Tuesday, Mr. Obama, 46, four years out of the Illinois state senate, claimed enough delegates to pull him past the 2,118 he will need for nomination at Democratic convention in Denver on Aug. 27.
Mr. Obama, speaking at the arena in St. Paul, Minn., where Mr. McCain will be nominated in September, said nice things about Mrs. Clinton, who dogged him sharply during the campaign. He said nothing about the vice presidency (possibly the only person in America who hasn’t) but did say that “when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country — and we will win that fight — she will be central to that victory.”
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, Mr. McCain, unwilling to concede the news cycle to the Democrats, unveiled a new grinning-and-smiling stump style in suburban New Orleans. “No matter who wins this election, the direction of this country is going to change dramatically,” Mr. McCain said, pausing to grin as if prompted by his speech text. “But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change, between going forward and going backward.”
Mr. Obama gave it right back, “There are many words to describe John McCain’s attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.”
Indeed, Mr. Obama’s eloquence in claiming his victory must have given pause to Mr. McCain and his strategists: “If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”
The night belonged to the victors, but Mrs. Clinton served notice that she won’t go away entirely graciously. Echoing Mary Martin in the long-ago TV version of “Peter Pan,” who urged children to clap if they wanted Tinker Bell to live, Mrs. Clinton urged her supporters to visit her website to tell her what they wanted to do.
It was typical of her cynical end game, reminding us of what bothered us about her candidacy from the beginning: the coyness, the parsing of political language, the sense of entitlement, the never-ending “triangulation” between tough issues.
It wasn’t that she refused to concede the field to Mr. Obama after the delegate math became obvious; she had that right. Rather, it was her desperate willingness to pander, to abandon principle in pursuit of political gain.
And then there was Bill. Always, there was Bill. The former president possesses an unmatched set of political skills, but also an unmatched collection of personal and political baggage. From playing the race card in South Carolina to his final days “scumbag” remark on a rope line in South Dakota, he brought on wave after wave of Clinton fatigue.
Ultimately, though, Mrs. Clinton, the first serious female candidate, lost the nomination the same way generations of serious male candidates have lost it: She was out-strategized, out-organized and out-worked. In that, in having made it OK for a woman to run for president, she made it OK for a woman to lose.
There were a few ugly incidents of sexism along the way, but her sex wasn’t the reason she lost the race. She emphasized her experience, underestimating the urgency in the Democratic electorate for change. Mr. Obama capitalized on that urgency in Iowa and rode it to a series of victories — including one in Missouri and another in his home state — on Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.
Mr. Obama’s staff had a better grasp of the arcane party rules in the primary and caucus states. The Clinton campaign didn’t make large mistakes — the “misstatements” about sniper fire in Bosnia and Robert Kennedy’s assassination came close — but a series of small miscalculations that allowed Mr. Obama to roll up his delegate lead.
She tried everything to overcome it. Let’s re-do Michigan and Florida, she said. Let’s let the super-delegates decide it, she said. Let’s focus on the swing states and the popular vote, she said, and she repeated it Tuesday night: “We won the swing states necessary to get to 270 electoral votes!”
Their race energized the Democratic Party, bringing out record numbers of voters and introducing a new generation to politics. We can only hope Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain do as well.
“Indeed, Mr. Obama’s eloquence in claiming his victory must have given pause to Mr. McCain and his strategists: “If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”
The Editorial Board has been caught in mid swoon. With palms pressed together beside their left leaning cheeks, the audible sighs of frenzied, pre-pubescent true love are expressed for their very own rock star. It must be the showy lighting.