The Empire Strikes Back

The conventional wisdom formed and coagulated and solidified within hours of Barack Obama's stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses. Hillary Clinton was a dinosaur, oblivious to the incoming asteroid. She was doomed, a paleo-pathetic throwback to the 1990s. Her husband had become a buffoon. When the campaign moved to New Hampshire, her sharp attack on Barack Obama at the debate was considered the moment she lost it. She was too shrill, too angry, too bitchy. And when she nearly cried, it was considered a weird, bizarre moment at best and a sign of the impending doom, maybe a flicker of humanity but surely too late. When Bill Clinton lashed out at the media and Obama and called the candidate of Hope, "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen" it was seen as the end of the the Clinton duet.

And now the great Obama blowout didn't happen. She came back.

No one I spoke to in the Clinton campaign thought this would happen and no one I spoke to in the Obama campaign thought this would happen.

Sure the second wave of exit polls showed a three-point race but after the exit polls anointed President Kerry in 2004 no one really believed it.

So what changes and what does it mean?

First, Hillary is now no more inevitable than Obama was. It's likely she'll lose South Carolina and maybe Nevada, too. But the hemorrhaging of fundraisers and surrogates and supporters isn't going to happen now. Obama could falter or continue to rise. Edwards can keep altering the dynamic.

Why did she come back? (Disclosure: my spouse works for Clinton.) I have a few thoughts. First, I think all of those things I mentioned above actually helped her. The flash of anger helped her. The tear. Bill Clinton's harangue. They caused New Hampshire Democrats to stop in their tracks. I also think Obama played it too safe the last week. He almost stopped talking about ideas to help the middle class and did all kumbaya. He didn't do interviews of any seriousness or take audience questions. He was too regal, too ready for a coronation. That's why his concession speech was better than anything he'd given in days. It was more pointed, more specific, more agenda driven.

Hillary also won on class. The Clintons have staved off the candidates of the affluent like Paul Tsongas and now Obama who, according to the exit polls, was the overwhelming choice of the economically affluent and confident while Hillary was the choice of the economically anxious. These days the candidate of anxiety, whether its Clinton or Huckabee, will prevail.

I think there was something else and that's a rejection of the media. When the pundits say one thing, people like to stick it to them. Bill Kristol smugly made his debut column in the New York Times about how Obama had ended the Clinton era and every time I heard him this week he was talking about the double-digit blowout to come. I tended to think he was right but I think the sheer act of media prediction now makes people bristle.

Women came home to Hillary. The Gloria Steinem op-ed about how No Woman is a Front Runner that ran on election day was the most emailed Times piece. It struck a nerve for women who thought that the election of the first woman president was not a status quo moment. I think seeing the Hillary getting a tag team beating, getting ridiculed and belittled elicited a sympathy reaction. But I'm just guessing about what brought back the Comeback Gal. If there's one thing certain this year, it's that nobody knows what the hell is going on.