Hillary Clinton is Doomed

A few days ago, I pointed out why Mitt Romney cannot win the Republican nomination for US president, and why Rudy Giuliani is the likely winner, based on the latest polls from Iowa.

Now I’d like to explain why Hillary Clinton is doomed.

She was likely doomed from the start for a simple reason—for a long time she has been the prohibitive favourite. This is no good for the press. They need a hose race to sell papers and ads, and so will do whatever they can to take her down. Democrats trust, believe, and obey the mainstream media. This is why it is always dangerous to be the frontrunning Democrat. Ask Gary Hart, Howard Dean, or Ed Muskie.

Hillary’s candidacy has so far probably looked stronger than it is because of a bandwagon effect: people seeking favours need to back a winner, and she looked like the winner. This means that, if her inevitability factor is lost, she could take a big hit suddenly—creating a substantial negative momentum.

And her apparent inevitability is probably now lost. She performed dismally in the already-famous debate a month ago. At the time, it did not seem to affect her poll numbers; but it may have just taken time. The results of such watershed debates usually do take time to register--what counts is not the immediate reaction of viewers watching the debates, but the legend that spins out in the press over the weeks to follow. A lot of people listening to the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960 beleived Nixon won. Now nobody thinks so.

Recent polls indeed show Clinton's support in decline, and she now trails Obama in Iowa.

So—Obama comes first in Iowa, and the press has their big story. They run with it. Everything is Obama for two weeks. We hit the big primaries with all the momentum on his side, and Clinton looking a lot like old news. By the time the press gets bored with Obama, it could easily all be over.

It gets worse. Edwards is running third in Iowa. For him, everything depends on an Iowa bounce, and it looks like he’s not going to get it. The money will dry up. So he is likely to drop out soon after.

This cannot help Hillary. Anyone who is likely to support Hillary is already on board. She is not going to pick up any of Edwards’s backers if he bails. They all go to Obama, presumably, giving him another huge boost at the crucial moment.

And Clinton may do worse in Iowa than even the current polls suggest. I think the Flora factor may be in play: people know it is politically correct to back a woman, and so may lie to pollsters that they intend to support her, when they do not.

Yes, in theory, the same factor could be inflating Obama’s vote as well; but I suspect not. I suspect there is no longer any marked discrepancy between public and private sentiments regarding black politicians in the US. People who support Obama seem to genuinely like Obama. Obama in any case may be among black politicians what Kennedy was among Catholic politicians, or Reagan among conservatives--someone personally likeable enough that people can embrace him despite their prejudices, without a twinge of fear.

The same cannot be said of Hillary Clinton among women.

Indeed, this makes it easy even for guilty liberals to switch away from Clinton. How can they be accused of prejudice? Isn't Obama black?

Obama could still lose the nomination. He could still make some rookie mistake that upsets this scenario. But he is not, in political terms, that much of a rookie.

If not, he is my current favourite to take the Democratic nomination, to face off against Giuliani next November.