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HenchPAC NewsIt’s official: Rudy Giuliani is dropping out of the New York Senate race that he was never officially in. For political junkies, this was a race of almost science-fiction proportions, like finding out that Godzilla and King Kong are going to duke it out (which they did in a terrible Japanese film) or finally finding out who’s stronger, Superman or the Hulk (which was settled as a tie in an equally terrible comic book). But this race was going to be real and it was going to be fun. So this is a dark day for junkies of all parties.
But it isn’t necessarily a dark day for Republicans. Despite what the polls say, Hillary Clinton will not be the next Senator from the State of New York. Here are some reasons why.
A Woman Without A Plan
Hillary’s campaign has spent months — in cahoots with the sweatiest demagogue in politics, Al Sharpton — demonizing Rudy Giuliani. With him gone, Hillary is left without a plan or an enemy. Hillary Clinton without a plan is a boat without a rudder — she’s the sort of person who’s been using color-coded tabs in her appointment calendar since she was in diapers. Hillary Clinton without an enemy has to run on her experience (she has none) and her personality (not an asset) without playing a victim (never happened). Sure, she’ll probably try to demonize Peter King or George Pataki or whomever the Republicans nominate, but that will be very hard. First, it could backfire terribly — proving that despite what the press tells people, Hillary is actually a nasty attack dog who practices the politics of personal destruction. But more importantly, such a tactic would be very hard to pull off. There haven’t been any protests or editorials denouncing the “Gestapo tactics” of Peter King.
With Rudy out of the picture, the anti-Rudy forces lose their momentum, while the pro-Rudy voters would never switch to Hillary. In recent polls Hillary’s numbers remained static against other possible GOP opponents. Don’t be surprised if those numbers turn very fluid once a confirmed opponent emerges and people have a real choice.
Indeed, Rudy was never the best candidate in practical terms. New York City mayors are notoriously unpopular upstate. For many semi-rural communities in Northern and Western New York, a mayor from the Big Apple is almost more of a carpetbagger than an Illinois-born, Arkansas bred, humiliated wife of a lame-duck president. Which brings us to the second reason Hillary won’t win…
Carpetbagger Go Home
For all the talk of their “welcoming newcomers,” New Yorkers have little love for carpetbaggers. When Bobby Kennedy ran in 1964 he won his New York Senate seat by only a few hundred thousand votes, while Lyndon Johnson carried New York with over a million. Few dispute that the former U.S. Attorney General and brother of an assassinated popular president would have lost if LBJ hadn’t beaten Goldwater in a landslide. Al Gore will not have those kinds of coattails (see Why Gore is losing). Right now, Gore’s trailing George W. Bush among independents, married couples, Catholics, northeasterners as well as among people with pulses. No matter what, it’s very hard to imagine that Gore will whup Bush in a LBJ-scale landslide.
With the campaign no longer serving as a referendum on Rudy Giuliani, the more voters will start paying attention to the fact that Hillary is an outlander who’s running for very specific reasons. Which reminds us of another reason why Hillary will have trouble…
Clintons Go Home (And I don’t mean Westchester)
"I would not be standing here tonight if it were not for Bill," Hillary Clinton announced earlier this week upon accepting the Democratic nomination. Now, isn’t this a little bit like Konrad Adenauer saying if it weren’t for Hitler he would never have become chancellor?
Okay maybe not, but the basic point remains. Hillary’s carpetbagger status is deeply tied to the president’s pants, or lack thereof. She might as well have been a guest on the Jerry Springer show. Running for Senator is for Hillary the equivalent of taking self-esteem advice from the studio audience. “Girl, you should drop that man, and find your own place!” Indeed, Hillary’s popularity only really rises when her husband’s pants drop and people get to say “poor Hillary.” When his pants and numbers go up, hers go back down. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is an effort to break that cycle of dependence.
With Rudy out of the race and an unknown pol in, she becomes the only major personality for the major media to dissect. There will be no cutesy Richard Cohen columns about Peter King’s marriage. There will be no tittering schoolgirl hosts on MSNBC talking about Pataki’s personality.
To date, Clinton fatigue has mostly been discussed as a problem for Al Gore’s campaign. As the possibility of a Senator Clinton and a permanent Clinton presence in New York becomes more real, many voters may well say, “Enough of them already.” This is the best reason, in my opinion, for dumping Hillary.
And the last reason why Hillary will lose is that, well, damn it, she just has to.
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