Bosnia story is Hillary's watershed

Hillary's predicting a close race in PA. I think PA is going to be another Ohio. That is, if Hillary wins, but it is actually close. Then Obama fans are going to stage an intervention and press her very hard to drop out. She won't, but they'll continue the pressure.

Hillary has to be so furious at Obama. Her $20 million month gets overshadowed by Obama's $40 million. But under normal circumstances $20M would be an incredible haul, and everyone would be lauding Hillary for doing such amazing fundraising. (McCain hasn't released his figures yet, but he raised $11M the month before.) Instead the story is how exhausted her fund raisers are as she falls behind Obama.

A new poll in PA shows a race too close to call, and everyone's going crazy over it. One poll does not a trend make. However, there is a definite trend of Hillary slipping in the last week. Why is that?

The reason is the Bosnia story sinking in. That was just a killer for the Clinton campaign. That is the kind of thing that reminds everyone of what they don't like about the Clinton's--the petty lies. This is what killed Gore in 2000: he tried to distance himself from the Clinton's, but then got caught up in a bunch of petty lies, at which point the Bush campaign started gaining traction in the polls.

I talked with a non-political person last weekend who was utterly dismissive of Hillary because of her Bosnia story. It is the most damaging thing, practically, she could have done. It not only rekindles the bad Clinton memories, but also highlights the main flaw of her argument against Obama--that he's not experienced--by pointing out that even though she was in the building when the big decisions were being made, she wasn't necessarily involved in making them, and desperately wants to make it seem like she was.

The Bosnia story might turn out to be the point in which Hillary lost the nomination.