Hillary Just Going Through the Motions

Hillary is a woman scorned. Barack Obama, after a fierce primary campaign in which he limped to the nomination, cast the former First Lady aside in favor of a career politician with a record of sleazy deals and jaw-droppingly stupid utterances leaving Hillary with nothing.

Then, when it became evident that Sen. McCain had outwitted Obama with his selection of a little-known but likable governor, Obama called on Sen. Clinton to campaign for him and counteract the effect Palin was having. Clinton, being the good soldier, agreed.

Quite simply however, she's been less than enthusiastic and her campaigning is actually having a detrimental rather than desired effect. She's half-assing it and the press is noticing:

Depending on who’s doing the telling, the reason the Clintons have been apportioned such a modest role—even as the Obama campaign gets pasted on a daily basis by the opposition—is either that remarkably little has been demanded of them, or simply that they don’t feel up for doing much more.

Most of the former and present Clinton staffers interviewed for this story, as well as Mr. Obama’s campaign, say that the limited role she has taken in advocating Mr. Obama’s candidacy is by design, and that she is doing precisely what is asked of her.

Clinton sees the entire Obama campaign imploding and is laughing at him and his flailing responses to daily events. I imagine her line of thinking is to allow him to tank, become the party leader and start gearing up for 2012 and another shot at the Oval Office while acting the team player.

The entire essay is a scathing indictment of a campaign that's poorly run (something Clinton should know about firsthand) and the inability of Obama to take an opportunity that was handed to him and run with it. With a hated GWB in the White House and a poor economy dragging people down, Obama should be up 10% but is now down and seems to be running in quicksand.

All these things are to Clinton's advantage. Triangulation baby, triangulation.