Clinton's apparent loss of the nomination was a consequence of her campaign's incompetence, but it was also a result of her reliance on the same-old. The shameless populism that seemed a possible game changer to media observers, micro-ideas like the gas-tax holiday, the willingness to go negative — which Obama tried intermittently, in halfhearted reaction to Clinton's attacks — appeared very old and clichéd to Obama's legion of young supporters, who were the real game changers in this year of extraordinary turnouts. That, and the fact that Democrats have been the party of government, tragically hooked on the high-minded: they don't react well to flagrant pandering or character assassination. This has been a losing position these past 40 years, and the media — like pollsters and political consultants — tend to look in the rearview mirror and pretend to see the future. Read more.
A truism about the establishment is that the world in which it operates is the already established. And the people who have succeeded and made their careers in that already established world mistakenly assume that it rigidly defines the limits of possibility. Hillary and her campaigns are establishment creatures, and that's why she did not take, even now cannot take, Obama seriously. They are not oriented at all to the future but to a restoration of the '90s. And the voters who have instinctively supported Clinton are those who accept this establishment-centered understanding of political reality, and similarly are unable to take Obama seriously. They see him as an idealist will-o'-the-the-wisp.
These establishment oriented types thought earlier this year that Obama and his campaign would evaporate in the heat of front-runner scrutiny. They have been incapable of seeing what he represents because they can only see the future in the rear-view mirror. This statement by Klein is unusual for him, because he is as predictably establishment in his perceptions and judgments as any Beltway courtier you might read. He's one of these journalists who still thinks of McCain as a respectable, honorable candidate. So it will be interesting to see if his perceptions change as the Obama contest with McCain evolves.
My guess is that he and his cohort will will continue to give too much credit to the old tired ways. They have yet to learn what "game changing" really means, because Obama represents a new impulse that has more power and substance than they, in their rear-view mirror perspective, are capable of grasping. The old interpretive framework that has provided valid predictable interpretations for the past forthy years has now become obsolete.