The coronation of Hillary Clinton was interrupted this week. Her shaky debate performance and her campaign's foolish overreaction are now being followed by the mainstream media's (partial) turn on her. Frontrunner/inevitability campaigns are seductive but dangerous. The fickle and herd-like media can pivot from worshipping to sniping awfully quickly. Hillary is now, for a time at least, in for some rough sailing.
The question is: Can Obama capitalize? Surely this is the moment to spend some of the money he's accumulated. Why not go up on the air in Iowa with a contrast ad: "Barack Obama: Candor, vision, and change; Hillary Clinton: double-talk, triangulation, and the status quo" (or whatever)?
Think of the free media Obama would get from airing perhaps the first semi-negative Democratic TV ad of the cycle. (Every Sunday talk show would air it if he got it produced and distributed - even if not yet on the air in Iowa - by tomorrow.)
The key goal here would be to pick up a few points in the next set of Iowa polls. If the Obama campaign can get one Iowa poll showing him ahead, it could then start marginalizing Edwards and the others, and picking up some of their supporters. If a couple of rounds of polls show Obama ahead of or even neck-and-neck with Hillary in Iowa, the Hillary inevitability scenario would really start to be shaken. Then we'd see how Team Hillary performs under pressure. Obama should help us find out. Coronation interruptus could become coronation cancelled. Keep hope alive!
