WASHINGTON, 10 May 2008 — Sen. Barack Obama hasn’t managed after months of political combat to force Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the presidential race, so he’s about to try a new approach: ignore her.
With Clinton’s hopes of capturing the Democratic nomination dimming, Obama wants to start work on the prospect of a general election matchup with the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, aides said.
As Clinton made a last-minute trip to West Virginia and declared her intent to stay in the race, aides to Obama signaled Wednesday that he would move toward a general election strategy over the next month.
The contrasting game plans underscore the fundamental shift in the presidential campaign following Obama’s decisive victory in North Carolina and narrow loss in Indiana.
But Clinton has given no signal she is dropping out of the race after Tuesday’s split results, when she got a thumping in North Carolina and won narrowly in Indiana.
“We’ve seen the perils of saying ‘mission accomplished’ too early,” said Phil Singer, a Clinton campaign spokesman.
The phrase “mission accomplished” was famously displayed on an aircraft carrier in 2003, when President Bush came aboard and declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.
Obama’s pivot reflects a hardening belief in his camp that there are few realistic scenarios under which Clinton can capture the nomination.
But apart from George McGovern, a plainspoken man who knows something about losing presidential elections, not a single Democrat of national stature publicly urged Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday to end her campaign for the White House. They didn’t have to.
Because after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Sen. Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate.
The moment came, shortly after this week’s primaries, captured in a declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC.
Of course, the political news media have not exactly showered themselves in glory this year. They have frequently made predictions that have been upended by actual votes from actual people.
But their opinions matter as much as ever in this late phase of the primary race, when Clinton and Obama are battling to sway the opinions of the uncommitted superdelegates — the party leaders and elected officials with automatic convention seats, whose support Clinton will need if she is to snatch the nomination from Obama.
Politicos are also debating here whether Rush Limbaugh “tilted” the vote in Indiana.
The conservative radio show talker claimed credit this week for pushing Clinton to her narrow win in Indiana’s presidential primary.
Entitled “Operation Chaos” drive, Limbaugh urged his listeners to vote for Clinton in order to prolong the Democratic nomination battle.
Limbaugh told his audience before the primaries that Democratic Party officials in Indiana were trying to intimidate Republican voters with monitors at the polls. So he issued these orders: “Flood these precincts. Vote for Mrs. Clinton as an act of defiance against these police-state tactics as a form of protest.”
Those looking for evidence of Limbaugh’s influence pointed to Clinton’s edge among Republicans in Indiana and North Carolina. In Indiana, 10 percent of Democratic primary voters described themselves as Republicans, a higher rate than in any state but Mississippi, and they went for Clinton by eight percentage points, according to exit polls.
Indiana’s primary was open to Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats. Limbaugh urged Republicans to cross over and vote for Clinton to extend the Democratic nomination fight and, he hopes, further damage the eventual nominee.
