If Hillary Clinton takes the stage as the party nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next July, we may well look back on October as the month that turned everything around. After a dispiriting summer, she has good reason to think the worst of her campaign travails are behind her. Clinton has enjoyed a considerable reversal of fortune this month, with rising poll numbers, largely favourable press coverage and a cameo on Saturday Night Live. These developments are a combination of luck and skill, but mostly skill. And they have revolved around three big events.
First, Clinton performed masterfully in the Democratic debate, acquitting herself better than almost anyone predicted. Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin gave her a perfect A grade. A poll found Democrats thought she beat her top competitor by a margin of roughly two to one.
Second, she managed to successfully box Joe Biden out of the race. While his decision not to run may sound like good luck for Clinton, the vice-president’s announcement didn’t occur in a vacuum. Rather he said he wouldn’t run for president because he saw no path to victory: “I believe we’re out of time. The time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination.”
Third, the House of Representatives’ Benghazi committee handed Clinton another unvarnished political win on Thursday. The 11-hour grilling (which revolved around a 2012 US diplomatic mission in Libya attacked by militants and how Clinton, then secretary of state, handled it), ended up casting her as a sympathetic figure in trying conditions. It also proved she can take a high degree of political heat in difficult physical circumstances, helping to put to rest questions about her age.
Of course, Clinton is not totally out of the woods. The FBI has launched an investigation into the personal email server she used as secretary of state, the results of which are yet to be determined. And the state department is set to release another batch of emails in January. But a new poll suggests the email controversy has lost some of its punch.
While Clinton can’t take her path to the presidency for granted, there’s no one in the race with the kind of magnetic appeal Barack Obama demonstrated back in 2008 – which is to say there’s no Clinton-slayer. In 2008, Obama drew huge crowds with charisma and a knack for public speaking, something Clinton will never do. But she’s self-aware enough to play to her strengths. Clinton shines in the grinding work of government, a grit and determination that was on display as she soldiered through the Benghazi hearing. And it was on display in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, when Clinton talked about how her mother might have felt seeing her subjected to 11 hours of questioning at the Benghazi hearing: “She was someone who lived a really tough life, and she knows that everybody gets knocked down in life, and the question is whether you get back up, or whether you allow yourself to be – you know, not only knocked down, but knocked out. And that’s the way she raised me.”
That’s Hillary Clinton at her best, and we’re seeing much more of it these days. One thing’s for sure, she’s never been this close to the presidency.
