NEW PITCH

Hillary Clinton has changed her pitch, if not her tone. Last week she was the candidate who would be ready to lead on day one. Obama, for all his good intentions and good looks, was little more than an apprentice, a wanna-be.

This week, after Obama’s sweep of the Potomac primaries and the undeniable power of his growing momentum, she is coloring her opponent with a harsher shade of contempt. “Obama has speeches, I have solutions,” she said in Wisconsin. “He’s all hat and no cattle,” she said in Texas. She is, in essence, accusing him of being an empty suit, which is, to say the least, empty rhetoric.

Clinton’s accusation is no more substantive than, “We have to beat ‘em over there, or else they’ll follow us back here.” It is a slogan, a product ad, a plea. It can neither be proved nor disproved, it is simply aired in the hope that the voter, like the consumer, will believe it because they heard it on TV.

I noticed, too, that Hillary couldn’t complete a sentence without referring to her script on the podium, leaving the impression that whatever she was saying, it wasn’t from the heart and may not even have been from her. Obama, on the other hand, speaks without notes – he may be using a teleprompter, but if he is, he has gotten so skilled at it that you can’t tell – leaving the impression that, like a rock star, he is spontaneous, unrehearsed, a man inspired, which is why his speeches are so inspirational.

If I were Mrs. Clinton, I wouldn’t be so quick to criticize Obama for his speeches, not when those speeches are at the top of the charts. Not that I would count her out yet, but she is definitely back in her corner, breathing hard.

a foot on either side