WHERE THE SIMILARITY REALLY HITS HOME...:

Brown should have learned from Hillary Clinton's defeat (James Forsyth, 8/12/08, The Spectator)

With hindsight it is clear that Hillary Clinton should have either hugged Barack Obama so close from the outset that he couldn’t wiggle free or set out to destroy him as soon as he announced his candidacy. Hillary, though, tried an odd mix of the two, giving Obama just the opening he needed.

Gordon Brown had the same two options after David Miliband’s infamous Guardian op-ed. Team Brown, though, like the Clinton campaign couldn’t decide which option to choose.

...is in Hillary's need to be far Left if she was to win caucuses but Bill to win primaries. Being a parliamentary party leader is all caucus, so Mr. Brown is stuck between being anti-Blair enough to keep his post but Blairite enough to win an election, a balancing act that proved impossible once David Cameron made the Tories Blair's heirs.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 12, 2008 6:46 AM