The Upside of Being Knocked Around
By MARK LEIBOVICH
NYT Week in Review
WASHINGTON — So, now that it might finally be over (or maybe close to it, possibly, perhaps), does Senator Barack Obama come out a bloody mess, or a battle-tested warrior?
In recent weeks, a wiseguy consensus seems to have settled on the former: the idea that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has so weakened Mr. Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination — so diminished him, distracted him, exhausted him — that he could be a grievously damaged nominee.
The wiseguys invoke the Republican race of 1976 and Democratic contest of 1980 as examples of what happens when candidates — Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, respectively — get battered in primaries, emerging damaged in the summer and losers in the fall. They mention surveys showing almost 50 percent of Clinton supporters in Indiana telling exit pollsters that they would sooner vote for Senator John McCain or stay home than vote for Mr. Obama. They suggest that by staying in the race, Mrs. Clinton is playing a spoiler’s role.
But there is a competing view that says that Mrs. Clinton, rather than being a spoiler, has in fact been an unwitting mentor to Mr. Obama, a teaching adversary who made him better. Could competing against Mrs. Clinton have improved Mr. Obama as a candidate in the same way that competing against Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s made Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan champions in the 1990s?
(Continued here.)
NYT Week in Review
WASHINGTON — So, now that it might finally be over (or maybe close to it, possibly, perhaps), does Senator Barack Obama come out a bloody mess, or a battle-tested warrior?
In recent weeks, a wiseguy consensus seems to have settled on the former: the idea that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has so weakened Mr. Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination — so diminished him, distracted him, exhausted him — that he could be a grievously damaged nominee.
The wiseguys invoke the Republican race of 1976 and Democratic contest of 1980 as examples of what happens when candidates — Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, respectively — get battered in primaries, emerging damaged in the summer and losers in the fall. They mention surveys showing almost 50 percent of Clinton supporters in Indiana telling exit pollsters that they would sooner vote for Senator John McCain or stay home than vote for Mr. Obama. They suggest that by staying in the race, Mrs. Clinton is playing a spoiler’s role.
But there is a competing view that says that Mrs. Clinton, rather than being a spoiler, has in fact been an unwitting mentor to Mr. Obama, a teaching adversary who made him better. Could competing against Mrs. Clinton have improved Mr. Obama as a candidate in the same way that competing against Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s made Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan champions in the 1990s?
(Continued here.)
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