Two Kinds of Hillary Hubris

As New Hampshire prepares to vote, pundits are filing Clinton campaign death notices as confidently as they trumpeted her inevitability only weeks ago.

The coronation was premature, and the obituaries may be, too. The last time anyone looked, Matt Drudge was not empowered to pick convention delegates.

Observers detect a few tears and deride the woman who sheds them, forgetting that John Boehner, the House Republican leader, weeps buckets all the time.

Bill Clinton seems to lose his mojo with New Hampshire crowds for a day, and the New York Times finds a headline in it.

There is at least as much hubris in the herd journalism that is trampling the Clintons now as there was in their presumption that the Presidency was theirs by right of succession--and considerably more nastiness.

These observations come from a non-admirer of the Clinton campaign who suggested last summer that playing it safe could lead to a 21st century version of what Harry Truman did in 1948 to the poll-anointed sure bet, Gov. Thomas Dewey of New York, who squandered a big lead in the polls by taking voters for granted.

Hillary Clinton's hopes for the Presidency may indeed be thwarted, but it's not over until it's over, no matter what the often-wrong-but-never-in-doubt political pundits say.