Last night’s debate ended with a riveting moment that left many Caucus Readers suspecting that Senator Hillary Clinton was conceding the race.
“You know, no matter what happens in this contest, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama,” Mrs. Clinton said, extending her hand toward his, then resting it near him on the table. “I am absolutely honored,” she said again, looking at him, whereupon he took her hand and, with his other hand, reach around her for a quick half embrace. The audience started applauding. “You know, whatever happens, we’re going to be fine,” she said, the audience now on its feet in a standing ovation.
Caucus readers immediately interpreted the moment as her valedictory.
“She just conceded,” one reader wrote at 9:44 p.m., the moment the debate ended (and before TV commentators started their own chatter along those lines).
“Personally, I think her campaign is over,” wrote another, “but perhaps this is a signal that she’s going to go out gracefully.”
Wrote another: “It’s clear she plans to withdraw after her losses in Texas and Ohio and get behind Barack with her full support. Kudos to you Hillary, you had some low moments, but in the end you’re showing that the best is still in you!”
From another: “Hillary wasn’t prepared for a long Campaign and it shows. Old themes. Old messaging. She rightly is beginning to understand she is losing, evidenced by her ending comments at the end of the debate. She seems to only be authentic when she has a realization of the fact she is losing as in NH when she teared up.”
As that last comment suggests, some readers associated last night’s closing with the moment in New Hampshire when Mrs. Clinton’s eyes welled with tears — a moment that some perceived as a deliberate strategy to get people to feel sorry for her.
Others further doubted her sincerity when the blogosphere erupted with videos that showed Mrs. Clinton’s final words were almost exactly the same as those John Edwards had used to close his debates and that her husband had used in 1992. One especially resourceful reader on another blog unearthed a similar-sounding passage from “Primary Colors,” all of which led these readers to question Mrs. Clinton’s authenticity last night.
“It was the posturing of a soulless politician using the suffering of brave people to make herself look good,” wrote a Caucus reader. “Her words were empty, making her criticism of Obama particularly hypocritical. The reports that these words were lifted almost verbatim from John Edward’s signature closings is an irony that’s almost too rich to bear.”
Wrote another: “I’m surprised at the ‘concession’ speech idea. Hillary is in it to win it, as she said at the start of her campaign. I seriously doubt that she will give up before she really has to. And maybe she can pull it off with superdelegates.”
But that’s the funny thing. When she was asked in the debate about the superdelegates, she almost shrugged them off. “I think that it’ll sort itself out,” she said.
Now, maybe her campaign is scraping behind the scenes for more delegates. But by not making the case for superdelegates — and not taking the bait when asked if Mr. Obama was qualified to be commander-in-chief — she may have been sending signals that she was beginning to prepare herself, if not the audience, for the end.
Many Caucus readers felt that somewhere during the course of this debate — perhaps after her “Xerox” line was booed — she began to absorb the idea that she had probably lost.
“Thank god Hillary is finally coming to terms with the fact that she can’t win,” wrote one. “And in this moment she is realizing that keeping the democratic party together is more important than tearing it apart fighting a losing battle.”
As for those readers who doubted Mrs. Clinton’s authenticity, some readers rose up in her defense, even if they harbored a little skepticism themselves.
“As an Obama supporter I think we should all lay off of Hillary’s closing remarks,” wrote one. “It is easy to get into the habit of assuming evil intent where there is none. I took it as her letting us all know (finally) that she and her husband are not in this to tear the party apart and not in this for an all out convention war. (Though of course if Howard Wolfson comes out tomorrow with a renewed call for seating superduperdelegates from Timbuktu I will clearly be proven mistaken). It doesn’t change my vote and perhaps it was not intended to have the wistful finality which it had, but I respect her all the more for the acceptance which she appeared to express.”
Her campaign immediately sent out a video of her closing comments, which came with a mixed message. Howard Wolfson, her spokesman, seemed to want to reassure supporters and donors that the contest wasn’t over because he included a statement in which he said her closing comment was “the moment she retook the reins of this race.”
But for many more, it was the moment she let go.
“The closing was Hillary’s Moment,” one reader wrote. “It was, perhaps, the best moment of her entire campaign. Her story was moving, personal, and seemed to get to the core of what she’s all about. I’m not often moved by political speeches, but her closing did bring me to tears. I’m not sure why, just that whatever she channeled in that moment, got to me.”
Finally, along about 1 o’clock in the morning, Terry McAuliffe, chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and her fundraiser-in-chief, sent out a link to the same video again. Usually, the Clinton campaign accompanies debate highlights with a plea for more money. But Mr. McAuliffe made no such plea this time.
“There was a remarkable moment in tonight’s debate that we had to share with you,” was all he wrote. It had the feel of a campaign souvenir.
On the television shows this morning, Mrs. Clinton was asked what those final words meant to her. She said they were not a valedictory.
“No, of course not,” she said on CBS’s “Early Show.” “It is a recognition that both of us are on the brink of historic change.”
Asked if she had lost some of the fight for the nomination, Mrs. Clinton said that if she had looked tired, it was probably because of a lack of sleep, “which finally does catch up to you with all of the cross-country traveling we are doing.” She then repeated her campaign mantra, saying said that voters believed that “we are going to make a difference, that as president I would be able on Day 1 to begin turning the economy around, and I could step in and deal with the problems.”
But on NBC’s “Today Show,” asked whether she would continue her campaign regardless of what happens in Ohio and Texas on March 4, she said: “I don’t make predictions.”
It was a far cry from her bold assertion when she began her campaign more than a year ago, when she declared: “I’m in it to win it.”
UpdatedThe Obama campaign has also noticed that the blogosphere and television are becoming increasingly obsessed with Mrs. Clinton’s closing remarks. In a slightly jarring note, Obama aides want to try to refocus attention on the substance of the debate.
There has been a lot of discussion this morning about what ‘the moment’ in the debate was,” the Obama campaign said in a statement. “In our view, the moment that most clearly demonstrated the difficulty Hillary Clinton would have drawing a clear contrast with John McCain in a general election was when she, quizzically, attacked him for supporting the war in Iraq. Clinton also voted for the war.
On issue after issue, the statement said, “Clinton and McCain were on the same side.”
In case you didn’t get the message, it is Mr. Obama, the statement said, who “offers the opportunity to choose change we can believe in versus a third term of George Bush’s policies.”