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Military hawks are known for adopting the strategy of shoot first and ask questions later. Political hawks often use the same approach when it comes to campaigns tactics: they go aggressively negative early to defeat their rivals as swiftly and decisively as possible. The problem is that political hawkishness may have some of the same pitfalls as military hawkishness: the propensity to over-commit and to land in quagmires from which there is no easy escape.
Hillary Clinton's political hawkishness, the ease with wish she has been willing to go negative in the form of her "kitchen sink" offensive may have precisely that consequence. By launching every attack her campaign can think of at Barack Obama over the last two weeks, Clinton has raised a multitude of issues--everything from national security credentials to experience, from real estate deals to ethics--for which she may be standing on quite precarious ground. Now, having raised these issues herself, she has no choice but to answer a series of very difficult and very damaging questions about her own history and qualifications.
There can be no doubt that Clinton has demonstrated the effectiveness of political lethal force. Hillary's "3am" ad truly seems to have moved votes in the final days before Tuesday's election, helping her secure popular vote victories in Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas. Five years ago in Iraq, coalition forces briskly toppled Saddam's government, with the same degree of effectiveness as Hillary's attacks that halted Obama's 12-state winning streak. But like in Iraq, Hillary now has to answer the question "What next?" Hillary's constant refrain that she is ready to lead on day one has now given way to questions about what will happen on day two. Her recent barrage has left her extraordinarily vulnerable to potent counter-attacks and a death by a thousand cuts.
In Iraq, the US occupation is probably doomed to failure, though it's leaders refuse to concede defeat. No matter how many ways the Bush administration shuffles and reshuffles the body counts, no matter how much taxpayer money they pour into the occupation and surge, the dream of stability in Iraq (to say nothing about Bush's visions of Jeffersonian democracy) seems more and more fleeting with each passing day. Iraq has long since been declared a quagmire by both the American and global press.
Hillary now faces an equally insurmountable challenge. At the end of the day, it is the pledged delegate race that truly counts. The simple reality is that superdelegates are not going to overturn the results of the pledged delegate contest. No matter how many ways Hillary's campaign tries to slice and dice the demographics or spin her campaign's victories, most pundits who have looked at the states ahead have already projected that there is no way for Hillary to recover a pledged delegate lead. Her promises of a Clinton restoration will soon ring just as hollow as Bush's mantra to "stay the course" and claims that we have "turned the corner," or for that matter McCain's constant refrain that "the surge worked." We can now see clearly that hawkishness, whether military or political, can deliver early victories but fails to bring promised change over the long haul.
Hillary needs an exit strategy from the campaign as badly as the United States needs an exit strategy from Iraq. Like Bush, McCain and the Republican base, Hillary, Bill, and their supporters categorically refuse to recognize this very basic reality. Perhaps, by some miracle she undoubtedly hopes, things will get better and she can retake the lead. Mike Huckabee learned last night that relying on miracles is not a strategy for success. It seems that both Bush and Hillary are determined to run out the clock, no matter the financial and political cost, and no matter damage it does to their party and to the country in the process.
Change will not come easy, Obama has repeatedly warned. It looks as though we're going to have to wait a bit longer for change.
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