Someone Has To Win

During the mindless chattering accompanying the numbers during the Pennsylvania primary, someone on CNN started going off about what a great political campaigner Barack Obama is. Well, maybe, but the most important factor in these things is still luck.

Sure, you need the ambition, and persistence, so you're in the right place at the right time. And you need to have the talent and intelligence to seize the opportunity when it presents itself. But no one gets elected without a dollop of serendipity. Change the rules just slightly, and Clinton destroys Obama. (Perhaps even Edwards could have won, though I can't imagine what it would take beyond some sort of plague to make Kucinich a winner.)

Look at the man called the greatest politician of the last generation, Bill Clinton. How did he get elected President? Well, George H. W. Bush looked so unbeatable in 1991 that the top opposition of the time, like Mario Cuomo and Al Gore, refused to run. It left the field wide open for guys like Clinton, who many thought was running for the experience, so he could go at it seriously in 1996. And then, once he entered, someone had to win, and he still had trouble shaking the other B-list Dems even though the schedule (and the media) favored him. Then the memory of the successful Gulf war started to fade (if Bush had waited a year to invade, he could have had two terms) and the economy started to look bad. Plus Clinton had Ross Perot self-destruct during the Dems' national convention. (He still ended up with 19% of the vote.) Any nominee who wasn't hopeless would have won then.

Now look at Clinton today. Since the time is right for Obama, Clinton--the most successful Democrat of our lifetime--is practically treated as a pariah, and everything he says is greeted with derision. Why can't he turn it around, isn't he a great politician, after all?

Obama may be talented, but he didn't look like much of a candidate when he had six weeks and limitless funds to take Pennsylvania. But what he has had, all along, is amazing luck. And that goes double for McCain.