The Last Hurrah

Congratulations to Hillary Clinton and her supporters on a well-earned win in Pennsylvania tonight.  She's tough and persistent, and she's certainly doing the best she can in a very disadvantageous situation.  She had a respectable win, but not a win that was the game changer she needs.

But with a bad loss looming in North Carolina in two weeks, possibly reinforced by a loss in Indiana, her campaign's days are numbered.  Hillary's in the sudden death round now, with any further loss threatening to unleash the superdelegate tidal wave that could drown her presidential ambitions.  

Despite her current celebrations tonight, I'm reminded of an old Spencer Tracy movie, one that has somehow acquired new relevance in the first Twenty-first Century campaign.

The Last Hurrah is a classic American political novel by Edwin O'Connor, made into a memorable 1958 movie starring Tracy as Frank Skeffington, the old Democratic machine pol running his last race.  Wikipedia's plot synopsis is helpful:

Skeffington is a veteran and adept machine politician, and, arguably, corrupt as well; the novel portrays him as a flawed great man with many achievements to his credit. At the beginning of the book, Skeffington, who is 72 and who has been giving signs that he might consider retiring from public life at the end of his current term, surprises many by announcing what he had always intended to do -- to run for another term as Mayor. The main body of the novel gives a detailed and insightful view of urban politics, tracking Skeffington and his nephew through rounds of campaign appearances and events. In the actual election, Skeffington is defeated. One of Adam's friends explains that the election was indeed a last hurrah for the kind of old-style machine politics that Skeffington had mastered; the changes in American public life, including the consequences of the New Deal, have so changed the face of city politics that Skeffington no longer can survive. Kevin McCluskey, a neophyte candidate with a handsome face and good manners and a good World War II record but no political experience and no real abilities for politics or governing, defeats Skeffington.

The parallels are not exact:  our Kevin McCluskey is hardly bereft of political abilities.  But the larger theme of the old machine pol whom time has passed by, reaching for one more brass ring and just missing, is stunningly apt.  Hillary Clinton has run a 20th century campaign, one appropriate for the 1980's or 1990's but not for the post-Bush era.  She has ignored and bad-mouthed the grassroots until she ran out of money from any other source.  She has squandered her funds on overpriced pollsters and wrong-headed advice from the usual suspects.

Hillary Clinton is enjoying a win tonight, and she deserves it.  But it's her last victory in this campaign, one suspects, and the tone of her voice tonight seemed to hint that she knows it.