Iowa confirmed that the message the campaign has used to date — experience — is D.O.A.-By FRANK RICH

Op-Ed Columnist
They Didn’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

By FRANK RICH
Published: January 6, 2008

The “they” who did not see the cultural power of these men, of course, includes not just the insular establishments of both their parties but the equally cloistered echo chamber of our political journalism’s status quo. It would take a whole column to list all the much-repeated Beltway story lines that collapsed on Thursday night.

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But if, as the new narrative has it, Mr. McCain will ride to the party’s rescue, the Republicans’ relief may be short-lived. He is their most experienced and principled horse, but he’s also the oldest and the most encumbered by Bush and Iraq baggage. The NBC News analyst Chuck Todd may be on to something when he half-jokingly suggested last week that there was a 5 percent chance that the G.O.P. may have to find a nominee not yet in the race.

Mr. Obama is in a far better position in his more-or-less ideologically united party than Mr. Huckabee is among Republicans, but, of course, he could lose for a myriad of reasons. Mr. Obama could make some world-class mistakes; the Clinton machine could land some attacks more devastating than its withering critique of his kindergarten paper.

But if Clinton operatives know how to go negative, they don’t have the positive balance of a 21st-century message. Iowa confirmed that the message the campaign has used to date — experience — is D.O.A. in post-Bush America. It was fascinating to watch that realization sink in on Thursday night. In her concession speech, Mrs. Clinton had her husband, the most tangible totem of her experience, standing right beside her, yet she didn’t mention him or so much as acknowledge him.

Even before that tableau was swept away by the sight of the Obama family all but dancing across the stage in celebration, it looked like the passing of an era.

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