Clinton: Inevitable no more?

Judging by changing poll numbers, Hillary Clinton no longer has a lock on the Democratic nomination, said Monica Crowley in HumanEvents.com. It's usually unpredictable primaries that trip up front-runners, said Mortimer Zuckerman in U.S. News & World

What happened

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards stepped up his criticism of front-runner Hillary Clinton this week, saying that she did “what George Bush does” when her aides planted a question in the audience at a campaign event. Clinton, who has faced intensifying attacks from Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, said it was Edwards who was acting like Bush by attacking a Democrat.

What the commentators said

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

There goes Hillary’s inevitability, said Monica Crowley in HumanEvents.com. Her support is sinking in “the earliest voting states, Iowa and New Hampshire.” The Hillary train is suddenly going in reverse. “And that's made it safe for Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards to attack her. And THAT has had the effect of feeding into this downward cycle.”

And she was “so close” to locking up the nomination, too, said Mortimer Zuckerman in U.S. News & World Report. It’s supposed to be the unpredictable results of the long parade of primaries prevents the nomination process from becoming a coronation. But Hillary brought herself down with her lamentable performance in the recent Democratic debate, by fudging “replies on Social Security, the release of documents from her husband's administration, and most strikingly on issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.”

The question now is whether Edwards and Obama should keep firing broadsides at Clinton, said Jay Newton-Small in Time.com, or start targeting each other. They have both managed to boost their campaigns by “attacking Clinton as a polarizing or corrupt agent of the status quo,” but “the battle to be the viable alternative for anti-Hillary” is only beginning.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us