The Wall Street Journal-20080213-The Phenom

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The Phenom

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The rise and rise of Barack Obama is a remarkable political event, and to judge by last night it is only gaining speed. With three more victories in the "Potomac primary," including a crushing rout in Virginia, the Illinois Senator must now be judged the favorite for the Democratic nomination.

Let that one sink in for a moment. The rookie candidate from Illinois, whose policy views most Americans still know little about, is leading the most successful Democratic machine of the last generation. Less than a year ago we recall sitting down with a Democratic power broker on Capitol Hill, an African American who supported Hillary Clinton and told us that Mr. Obama was a talented young man with a bright future -- in 2016. With eight victories following the draw on Super Tuesday, Mr. Obama has put Team Clinton into a position where it desperately needs victories next week or March 4 in Texas and Ohio.

Some of this results from the political moment -- an unhappy public looking for "change" -- and Mr. Obama's skill in meeting it. His theme of optimistic, post-partisan, post-racial politics isn't so much defeating Hillary Clinton as transcending her. It must be maddening to Mrs. Clinton, the uber-wonk, that Mr. Obama's success is rooted in his style more than his substance. He is suddenly a phenomenon, of the sort our pop culture throws up every few months but that our politics rarely does.

Yet his success also owes something to the Clintons and their strategy. To an electorate looking for new ideas, Senator Clinton and her husband promised explicitly to go "back to the future." They've campaigned on a return to the "peace and prosperity" of the 1990s, while asking Democrats to forget what else happened that decade: The loss of Congress, the pardons as political favors, the scandals, the rise of al Qaeda, and the failure to achieve much of a lasting legacy.

You can almost feel, listening to Mrs. Clinton, that she wants a second chance at the White House to make up for the two terms they squandered -- first with her policy overreaching, and second with his self-indulgence. Likewise, you can detect among many Democrats a sense that the Clintons had their chance and it is time to break free. What Democrats have needed is an excuse to liberate themselves from the fear that only the Clintons are tough enough to defeat Republicans, and they are now finding that liberation in Mr. Obama.

We aren't counting the Clintons out. They are tenacious, and they are right when they complain that the Illinois flash has lived a charmed campaign life, with little scrutiny and almost no negative press. Senator Clinton also still does well among Democrats who didn't attend college and aren't well-to-do, as well as with older voters who can recall other stars who lit up the sky only to burn out. Her problem is that the positions that John McCain will be able to exploit in the fall -- on security and taxes -- may not matter among liberal Democrats who dominate primaries. Still, we expect she has a few more punches to throw.

As for John McCain, his victories in Maryland and Virginia should persuade Mike Huckabee to give up his campaign, lest it seem a vanity project. The Virginia GOP electorate was even more conservative this year than in 2000, yet Mr. McCain still won. The talk show hosts and other anti-McCain conservatives will lose their hostility as their commercial interests begin to require it. Their Newsweek minute is up.

The votes that Mr. McCain should really be worrying about, and preparing for, are those being cast for Mr. Obama. If he does go on to defeat Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama will only become more of a legend and more of a media favorite. The Republican won't be able to win in November with the kind of trench-warfare, turnout fight that might work against the Clintons. He's going to need his own reform agenda, one that competes for the "change" mantle and is about the future more than the past.