The Human Conspiracy Blog-space

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Mrs. Clinton’s tightly scripted campaign has reached Stage Two.  In Stage One, her campaign’s goal was to clinch the nomination without ever having to go negative on Mr. Obama. That step, had it proved necessary, could have been a disaster in the general election because the wounds to the community of black voters would translate to diminished turnout in that critically important constituency.

Having made the calculation that the nomination is well in hand, the next stage is to tack sharply to the center before it’s too late.  Mrs. Clinton is at heart a Fabian Socialist (after the British Labour Party’s commitment to gradualism) and she is a foreign policy realist whose core ruthless temperament will not brook looking weak in the defense of the nation.  This has tempered her criticism of the Bush foreign policy that – when all is said and done – displayed a greater continuity with that of Mr. Clinton’s than the “Code Pink” crowd will acknowledge.

Senator Clinton’s “negatives” remain at an unprecedentedly high level for any national, viable candidate – somewhere between 47% and 50% if we are to believe pollsters Zogby and Rasmussen. This means that her general election race against Rudy, Mitt, Fred or John, might be decided by the turnout of the faithful. 

I suspect that voters are hungry in these troubled times for authenticity, the “real deal”, but they don’t want to be scared by too much of it.   If that assessment sounds a bit ambivalent or even schizophrenic, recall that this country is only apparently unified by dissatisfaction with Mr. Bush’s administration.  When you peel away the layers you see an electorate divided into three parts, left, right and center.  And the center – which holds the key to this election – is a good deal to the right of the activists who currently run the Democratic Party. 

The democrats need to notice that Mr. Bush is not running again.  Mrs. Clinton’s team already has figured that part out.  Her problem is whether the move to the center is sufficiently credible.  Hence the authenticity question.

Stay tuned….