What If It's Not About Ambition?

This thought came to me in a flash while watching Countdown; I'm not sure what triggered it, but it occurred while Keith Olbermann and Chuck Todd were talking about what Hillary Clinton would have to do to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Suppose this isn't about Hillary Clinton's winning the nomination this year. Suppose it isn't about her setting herself up to win it in 2012. Suppose Clinton isn't even trying to keep Barack Obama from winning the presidency.

What if the whole point of Clinton's negative campaign against Obama is to dispel the magic? What if it's not to undermine his presidential bid, but to undermine his ability to change how Washington works once he wins?

The whole hope and promise of Barack Obama's presidential campaign is that he can change Washington, and thereby the nation, for the better -- that he can change the atmosphere and accomplish things, with the help of Congress, that no other leader could accomplish. That he can inspire the nation to reach higher, think bigger, go farther.

Doesn't this seem like exactly the sort of thing that Clinton and her status-quo compatriots in the DLC would fear and resist? After all, they benefit, both politically and (presumably) in other ways, from the status quo that Obama is running against. They may not be able to stop Obama the man, but do they need to if they can stop Obama the movement?

Here's what I'm thinking: It truly is a matter of "kneecapping" Obama, not to the extent that he's completely disabled (though it might be no skin off the DLC's noses), but at least to the extent that he enters the White House hobbled, without a mandate for the kind of far-reaching change for which so many Americans hunger. He's forced back into "cautious politician" mode, hesitant to speak or to act, like the perpetually cowed Democrats of the '80s, the '90s and the first few years of this decade. He's put on notice that stepping out of line will expose him to a barrage of underhanded attacks. The threat of change is neutralized.

Could this also be why certain figures -- I'm thinking primarily of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- are allowing this slugfest to go on without comment? Could they be hoping that Obama will win, but win damaged?

America doesn't only need a Democratic president. It doesn't only need that president to be Barack Obama. It needs a Barack Obama to be president with his message, and his mystique, intact. It needs the hope and confidence of the American people to rescue it, and the future of the world. For reasons we can only speculate on, Clinton, the DLC, the Blue Dogs and other anti-progressive elements in the Democratic Party abhor this prospect. Some diarists have speculated that Clinton is pursuing a Pyrrhic victory; that's almost preferable to the alternative, which is that she and her ideological cohort are trying to turn Obama's victory into a Pyrrhic one.