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By Susannah Posted in Archived — Comments (32) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Hillary Clinton didn’t really win New Hampshire last night, so much as Barack Obama lost it. People are, now, saying that the polls were inaccurate—poppycock. The polls were totally accurate—on Saturday, three days before the NH primary. Several things happened between Saturday and Tuesday to drastically change the outcome of the NH primary. And, no, it was not that, “The white voters of NH were speaking to the pollsters with forked tongues.” If you're curious, I actually heard Chris Matthews utter the previous quote this morning on “Morning Joe”—someone, please, stop this guy from making an even bigger fool out of himself than he already has, but I digress. The real reasons why Obama lost are as follows:

1.) PEOPLE DON’T LIKE BEING TOLD WHO TO VOTE FOR—

The press wasn’t just giving Obama a free ride, they were actually shoving him down people’s throats. Poor Hillary Clinton couldn’t do anything right, and Obama was the fourth member of The Trinity. I must say, it was annoying as all hell. You even had Oprah telling people that they just had to vote for this guy. This whole Obama lovefest in the press had become apparent to me several months ago, during the Philadelphia debate. Even though Hillary Clinton had given a fairly good debate performance that whole evening, despite being piled on by everyone on the stage, when she flubbed the infamous illegal alien drivers license question, the press skewered her for weeks. However, in the Nevada debate, three weeks later, Obama flubbed THE EXACT SAME QUESTION—it was so embarrassing. The crowed even laughed at him; however, there was hardly a peep from the press about his flub.

Since that debate, the Obama lovefest has grown and grown, until it has become a full blown cult—oh excuse me, “movement”. Yes, I actually heard Democratic strategist, Steve McMahon, refer to the Obama presidential campaign as a “movement”—once on “Meet the Press” and once on “Tucker”. My husband and I even rewound the TV to make sure that we heard him correctly. As a voter, I want to choose a president. I have absolutely no interest in joining a “movement”—and from the looks of it, the majority of Democratic NH voters, over thirty, felt exactly the same way.

Now, I realize that the whole Obama coronation by the press wasn’t entirely Obama’s fault; however, he played it terribly. Obama should have resorted to self-deprecating humor, a la Mike Huckabee (“People buy all these ads saying that I’m a bum—well my wife could have told you that for free”), in order to not appear too pompous or self-important. Instead, he played the role of the “movement leader” for all that it was worth. The result was that Obama wound up turning off older voters (and probably scaring the heck out of some of them as well.)

2.) MANY WOMEN THOUGHT THAT THE ATTACKS ON HILLARY CONTAINED TOO MUCH SEXIST RHETORIC—

If you don’t believe me, just ask Joe Scarborough. This morning, on “Morning Joe”, he read an email from his very conservative mother stating that if she had been in NH, she would have crossed the aisle to vote for Hillary, because she was so disgusted with the coverage of Hillary Clinton. Not to mention, tonight, I even heard Pat Buchanan say on “Hardball” that his sister (who worked for Tancredo) felt exactly the same way as Scarborough’s mother. Furthermore, a Republican female fellow medical student that I talked to today at the hospital, said that she, also, would have voted for Hillary out of anger at the media.

Chris Matthews has said that she is “shrill”, has called her laugh a “cackle”, and has said that, “she would repel male voters, because she would remind them of a nagging wife”. Andrew Sullivan has said that she has “cooties” and said that she was “vicious” in her previous debate performance. Christopher Hitchens has referred to her as "an aging and resentful female". Oh, and how could we forget Matt Drudge finding the world’s most unflattering photo of Hillary and putting it up on his website with the caption, “Campaign taking it’s toll”. Oh come on fellas, we gals know what you really mean—we’re not stupid and we can read between the lines. Just get it over with, and call her a post-menopausal dried-up old hag, whose hormones are out of whack and who is too temperamental to be president.

On a side note, my husband told me that as he was briefly listening the Laura Ingraham show today in his car, he heard Ingraham’s male sidekick imply that Chelsea Clinton was a “dog” (Ingraham quickly and wisely distanced herself from the remark). Now, I happen to think that Chelsea Clinton is very attractive, but I digress. However, if anyone out there thinks that you can win over female voters by implying that Hillary’s an “old hag” and by inferring her daughter is a “dog”, then I’ve got a blind bird dog and some underwater real-estate to sell you.

Now, again, the sexist bile directed at Hillary was not Barack Obama’s fault, but once again, he handled it very badly. He never once came to her defense and denounced any of these attacks as vile and sexist. I’m sorry, but you can’t run as the uniting change candidate, but sit idly by while certain members of the media (one of them, Andrew Sullivan, being an ardent supporter of yours) make sexist comments against your female rival—it just doesn’t wash.

And finally, Obama made a “deal with the devil” so to speak when he and John Edwards repeatedly “tagged teamed” Hillary Clinton during the Democratic debates. Just my hunch, but I think that it made him look weak—like he was too cowardly to take her on mano-a-mano, so he needed Edwards to do his dirty work for him. And when John Edwards nastily referred to Clinton as “the status quo” in the last debate (translation—washed up old hag)—and was even so brazen as to say that he wanted Clinton out of the race so he and Obama could debate without her—Obama was tainted by it in the minds of women voters. And when Hillary teared up and John Edwards was asked about it, the following was his bone-headed reply-- “I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business.” Translation—Hillary Clinton is a weak, emotional woman who doesn’t have the strength to handle the job of president. Well fair or not, because Obama was last seen teaming up with Edwards against Clinton, in the Saturday night debate, and because he didn’t have the good sense to denounce Edwards’ remarks, the stink of Edwards’ comments rubbed off on Obama. In a nutshell, by the end of the Saturday night debate, the female Democratic voters of NH got the impression that it was Edwards and Obama together against Clinton. As my grandmother always said, “You lie down with dogs, you’ll get fleas.”

By the way, the following is an excellent column, written by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, regarding why it is political poison to make sexist comments or innuendos when campaigning against Hillary Clinton. She makes excellent points and I highly recommend it. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/powder_room_politics.h...

3) HILLARY KILLED OBAMA IN THE DEBATE SATURDAY NIGHT—

I know that to you guys she looked angry, but to Democratic voters, she looked impassioned and authentic. Not to mention, her response seemed proportional to her being “tag teamed” by two lightweights—one calling her the “status quo” and basically calling for her to get out of the race.

Hillary also seemed, well, pretty likable when asked why people “like” Obama more than they “like” her. Her reply was, “Well, that hurts my feelings.” Very funny and authentic, I must say.

Obama, on the other hand, sounded like something that rhymes with ooshbag, when he responded, “You’re likable enough, Hillary”. To quote Karl Rove, “He looked like a smarmy, prissy little guy taking a slap at her. I think that helped her."

And finally, when she challenged both Obama and Edwards on change, Hillary made them look like the lightweights that they are. She talked about concrete changes that she made, such as SCHIPS and health care coverage for National Guard members. Obama, on the other hand, was forced to confess that the “big change” that he made in the Senate was a bill that stated that lobbyists could still buy members of congress food, as long as they ate it standing up. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. And, Edwards was forced to admit that the only bill that he ever sponsored, while he was in the Senate (the Patients’ Bill of Rights), was killed in the House and never was passed. By the end of that debate, Clinton made Obama look like he was all hat and no cattle. By the way, this still doesn’t exonerate Hillary Clinton from running an abysmal campaign, because she should have pointed out these things months ago, instead of fixating on Obama’s kindergarten writings, but I digress.

4) OBAMA GOT OVERCONFIDENT—

First, Obama gave his victory speech in Iowa. I know that all the pundits were gushing about how brilliant his speech was, but many people I talked to said that he came across as aloof and cocky while giving the speech. Next, came his debate performance on Saturday night, where Obama mentioned his Iowa victory around four times during the debate, and then delivered that nasty, “you’re likable enough” zinger to Hillary Clinton. Contrast Obama’s Saturday night debate performance with Mike Huckabee’s. Huckabee never mentioned his Iowa victory the whole night, and even managed to congratulate Obama on his victory. The final nail in Obama’s coffin came when he uttered, “In one day, you can do what the cynics said could not be done”, in a speech the day before the NH primary. In a nutshell, by the time the NH primary rolled around, Obama had begun to sound like an arrogant jerk to a sizable number of NH voters--especially female voters. And, you know what people want to do to arrogant jerks--they want to take them down a notch.

So in conclusion my friends, the good news is that Obama is not Zeus throwing thunderbolts down from Mount Olympus. He is a mortal man who can be beaten in an election. In all honesty, he didn’t really lose the NH primary to Hillary Clinton--he lost it to himself.