The defining moment, the real turning point, the key to the whole thing for The defining moment, the real turning point, the key to the whole thing for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire was… - stop! I'm not going there. I have no idea what the "defining moment" or "turning point" was. And having spent five hours last night listening to Chris Matthews and pals tell me that one thing or another that seemed insignificant or even negative at the time was actually the moment everything changed, I refuse to join that game. We construct enormous narratives on one or two data points. Imagine how different the story would have been if the results in New Hampshire were the same, but Obama had lost Iowa by five points? Then the story would not be comeback, but a credible challenger on the rise. That said, for all the turning points that are being posited, most have one thing in common: They don't have much to do with Obama. Other than the "you're likable enough, Hillary," aside in the debate, if the press reaction to Hillary Clinton's emotion on Monday provoked women, Obama didn't exacerbate it (John Edwards did); if the sense of guys piling on Clinton in the debate provoked a voter reaction, that too was Edwards' doing. Obama responded gracefully to Bill Clinton's fierce attack on his rise as "a fairy tale." It's hard to make an argument that Obama made evident tactical or strategic mistakes in New Hampshire. Except this: He is falling into the tendency that many "wine-track" candidates do of talking about his candidacy as if it were some sort of other-worldly cause: "something happening,"…"it's about you," etc. Howard Dean's "people-powered politics" had the same flaw. That kind of language is inspirational in the moment, but quickly makes a campaign seem vapid and vain even if it isn't. It leaves a listener open to the sense that you're the candidate of process, feeling, and personality, which allows the hard-work-and-experience candidate to claim the mantle of substance by comparison. But Obama didn't get through 15 debates without substance. (Which is why the Clinton claim that "he's gotten a free ride" is unpersuasive.) He's got an elegant, expansive pitch-perfect take on foreign policy that's markedly different from Clinton's; he has good proposals on poverty, climate change, and a defensible health proposal. (The specifics aren't important, but the commitment they represent is.) And he's got an argument about how he will actually get these things achieved that is distinctly different from Clinton's, and to my ears, more persuasive. Last night, Obama put five solid paragraphs of pure substance into his speech, moving from health care to international issues in a smooth passage. He should do that all the time -- the inspiration and movement and people power will still be there. They can go unstated now. And with Edwards probably a less-significant factor in the race, Obama also has an opportunity to move left onto his more populist, but also extremely substantive ground, without jeopardizing his promise to reach out to independents and Republicans, in pursuit of progressive goals. --Mark Schmitt
