Clinton, Catholics and Her Last Shot

Next month’s Pennsylvania primary has taken on a disproportionate importance. In fact, as recently demonstrated by Jim Vandehei and Mike AllenClinton has almost no shot at winning the Democratic nomination. Obama has already won a majority of the states and has an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. His lead in the popular vote total is 700,000 and even if you count Michigan where his name was not on the ballot and Florida where he did not compete, he leads by 198,000. (This last number includes estimates for the four states that have not announced their popular vote totals: Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington. Obama won 3 of those four states.) In Ohio, where Clinton posted an impressive 55-45% win, her margin in the popular vote in that state was 229,873, so even if she wins Pennsylvania by a similarly large margin, she might eke out a small lead in the popular vote (including MI and FL) but Obama is likely to erase that margin with an anticipated strong showing in North Carolina. In a nutshell, the only way Clinton can win is if she can persuade enough super-delegates that Obama has no chance in November, and the only way she can do that is to win big in Pennsylvania and specifically to win big among white, ethnic Catholic voters who are traditionally swing voters. If Obama strikes out completely with these voters, super-delegates, many of whom will also be on the ballot next November, might see the logic in over-riding the pledged delegate count and handing Clinton the nomination. Of course, there is also the banana peel possibility. The imbroglio over Obama’s former pastor is exactly the kind of story that can turn large swaths of voters against Obama, especially ethnic Catholics. As mentioned last week, the difficulty in Pastor Wright’s sermons was not his discussion of the race issue but his diatribes against America. Ethnic Catholics, who strove mightily to enter the mainstream culture, do not take kindly to anyone saying, "God damn America." Clinton has benefitted from Obama’s pastor troubles. She needs to up the ante with a more robust dose of patriotism in her speeches. She should avail herself of the countless sites with historical resonance – Independence Hall, Gettysburg, Fort Duquesne – that dot the Pennsylvania landscape as backdrops for her speeches. Her indictment of George W. Bush should be voiced not in the traditional left-right dialectic, but instead give voice to the ways that Bush has ignored or diminished those things that make America special. Her criticism of the war should focus not on the bumbling performance of Rumsfeld, but on the lack of shared sacrifice that has gone into this war effort. In World War II, citizens rationed important goods and women worked in factories, taking the places vacated by their husbands who had enlisted. What has been asked of any of us except those in the military and their families to support the Iraq war? Hillary needs to wrap herself in the flag, denounce flag burning, make calls for shared sacrifice, do whatever it takes to say that she, and not the former congregant of Rev. Wright, is someone who will never be ambivalent about American greatness. She may alienate black voters even further. Her charges may lack merit: Does anyone really think Obama does not love this country? But, wrapping herself in patriotic glory will be no less effective just because the issue is a false one. Michael Sean Winters