Cardinal Murphy administers last rites to Hillary Clinton's campaign:
It'll never be the same again for the Hillary Clinton campaign. She is unlikely to recover. Everything has a tipping point, and in the Democratic race for president the ten day sweep that Barack Obama started on Saturday and is very likely to finish next Tuesday in Wisconsin is the final body blow the Clinton campaign will not recover from. It is not the simple fact that Obama has won a series of real states that is the crushing force grinding down the Clinton campaign. It is the powerful shockwave his string of victories is sending across the Democratic party. The message is clear and powerful: Obama is a winner. Clinton is a loser. Sure, there may be a final HRC win in TX or OH, but neither can deliver enough delegates in the Democrat's proportional system to stop Obama.
Although it will take days and weeks to show, the unsinkable Hillary for President operation has succumbed to an iceberg of titanic dimensions. The signs are everywhere. Super delegates are rethinking their position. Staff is leaving the campaign. Donors are in a panic. The race has tipped.
Dick Morris does the same:
Hillary Clinton has blown an almost sure shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. Having surrendered the lead to Obama, she is not likely ever to regain it. It is a fantasy that the Ohio and Texas primaries will be a "firewall" to contain the flames of enthusiasm for Obama and reverse her defeats of February. Just as with Giuliani's supposed Florida firewall, Hillary's will crumble as Obama's momentum carries him forward to the nomination.
Me? I'm just dumb enough to believe there's still at least a little life left in the Clinton machine. We've already seen one miraculous comeback this year, and Hillary doesn't have to travel nearly as far as McCain, though she has much less time to make the journey.
Then again, time is probably her enemy right now. The three weeks between now and March 4th are going to be the longest of her political life, and there will be precious few opportunities over the next 21 days to try and change the narrative. Negatives ads won't do it, and nor are the two scheduled debates likely to produce a game changing moment.
Yet, at least at the moment, part of me thinks that Clinton's base of Hispanics and working class whites are less likely to be bowled over by Obama's sense of momentum - in fact, if the press coverage turns into a coronation of the new superstar juxtaposed with coroner's reports of Hillary's campaign, they may even get angry enough to show up big on March 4th and tell the pundits where they can shove their prognostications.
Murphy and Morris may be correct, but like many others this campaign has made me wary of making any concrete pronouncements about the future - with the singular exception of predicting Mitt Romney would carry Utah on Super Tuesday.
It would not at all surprise me if the general election featured the two candidates who at different points in the race were both lying face down on the side of the road, struggling with every ounce of their being to avoid heading toward the white light. It'd be a contest that could aptly be billed the "Night of the Living Dead."
