Hillary can give more pain to Barack

The emerging shape of battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is not reassuring. Obama won hearts because he filled them with hope for an America marked by cleaner politics and more ethical interaction with the world. Clinton won many minds by making those who worry about America’s enemies and economic troubles feel that she offers a more masterly set of hands at the tiller.

She played dirty but Barack kept the high road until the shocks of Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. It now seems that he too is stepping into the dirt and readying for a knife fight with the wily lady. This should give everyone pause for thought because it opens new ways in which Hillary can give pain to Barack.

It’s early days but European analysts are already turning away from Barack. For them, he does not seem to have what it takes to change America. Instead the American electorate is changing him. He looked blue-collar America in the eye in Ohio and blinked.

Even that was done too late to convince the working classes that he is not an upper middle class white American who is using his black skin color to make us believe that he knows life on slummy urban streets or the red neck rural and industrial heartland.

He looked like a person on whose fresh vision we could depend without doubt. That seems dubious now. Suddenly, for him as well the race is boiling down to one word, “Character”. Does he have the spine to do what he promised to all those hundreds of thousands whose money contributions through the Internet have made him a candidate far richer than Hillary?

Like a crusty village battle-axe wanting to tear at her opponent’s hair in an alley, Hillary has needled Barack into losing his lofty composure. Her repeated taunts have made him doubt himself and he is preparing to knee-cap her if she tries to knee-cap him.

Whatever his skills at digging up her and Bill’s murky finances and cloaked shenanigans, he cannot hope to win a street fight with her. People always, in any country, go for the underdog in such cases and she is the underdog regardless of how deftly she knifes at his gut because she is a woman. There is no way in which Barack can change that.

The elite punditry of America seems mesmerized by the math of Barack’s lead and equates it with his popularity among people. Being close to the terrain, they are losing sight of the forest. Blue collar America rules the nation through the ballot box and Barack has failed to bring hope to that vital base of the pyramid.

In the end, the super delegates will do whatever they think will keep the Democrats united and in favor with voters. What they say now is not necessarily what they will do when the time comes, since even a day is a long time in politics.

Barack attracts the middle layer and some at the pyramid’s top with his fine thoughts about raising the human and moral quality of the average citizen. But that average citizen is more worried about bread on the table and adequate shelter right now than refining his self-development or making America more respected around the world for its moral values and love of peace.

Both Hillary and Barack plaintively suggest in turn that the media caused some of their reverses. This is a self-serving charge to cover their failures at communication since both are experts at manipulating the media for their own ends and each is surrounded by consultants familiar with how it works.

Barack is caught between a rock and a hard place. If he fights dirty, he will betray those who fought in his corner so far. Will he then reimburse those who poured millions into this campaign through the web?

If he sticks to the high road, he may lose the knife fight. The only way to win without rolling in the mud is to tell blue collar America why he can do more for it than Hillary. It may already be too late for that. In any case, he seems short on ideas.

Thus to the surprise of many, Hillary may laugh all the way to the bank. Math counts for less than irrational emotion in the privacy of the ballot box. Right now she has the kind of emotional high ground that appeals to voters struggling to make ends meet after pay day. The super delegates will not be insensitive to that.