OK, Hillary won tonight. Oh, waiter, two orders of crow, please. This is what happens when you ignore your own advice to let the people vote first.

In late November 1950, U.S. Marines at Chosin Reservoir in North Korea fell under withering assault by a massive force of 18 divisions of the Chinese army, which had crossed the Yalu River into North Korea despite Gen. Douglas MacArthur's absolute assertion that American forces could conquer the North without fear of a Chinese response. Faced with the disastrous results of MacArthur's overconfidence, Maj. Gen. O.P. Smith ordered his 5th and 7th Marine Regiments to fall back. When asked by a reporter about the retreat, Smith said (or at least the reporter had him say), "Retreat, hell! We're just attacking in another direction!"

Now is the time for Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani to heed those words. For each of these candidates—at one time or another front-runners in either the national or Iowa and New Hampshire polls—the prospect of early defeats (or, in Giuliani's case, severely anemic showings) raises the political version of the North Korea question: Can a one-time favorite who suffers early setbacks revive a campaign by attacking in the other direction?

It has happened in the past. And so a look back suggests various approaches that today's upended front-runners could take.

1976—Reagan vs. Ford

In 1976, former Gov. Ronald Reagan challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. The unelected president was at a low point, with a job approval rating of 39 percent in December 1975, and an image as a stumblebum (which Saturday Night Live's Chevy Chase helped shape). In New Hampshire that year, Reagan battled Ford to a virtual tie. (Ford won by only 1,500 votes.) But because Reagan's state chairman had all but promised a landslide victory by a 2-to-1 margin, Reagan looked down. Ford then reeled off a string of victories, including Florida and Illinois, and a Reagan withdrawal seemed certain.
But in North Carolina, two weeks after the Florida loss seemingly doomed him, Reagan found his mark: the impending return of the Panama Canal to Panama as an embodiment of weak foreign policy. With a televised speech attacking the deal and the "détente" Cold War policies of "Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Ford" (a possibly accidental evocation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), along with the backing of Sen. Jesse Helms' political machine, Reagan won the North Carolina primary and began to pull himself back in contention. By the time the primary season ended, Reagan had won 10 primaries and earned almost as many votes as Ford. Only a series of deals with prominent conservatives and the dumping of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller saved the president, who won renomination by a narrow margin of delegates (1,187 to 1,070). From political near-death, Reagan had come closer than any challenger before or since to denying a president the renomination of his party.

Lesson: Sound the tone that sets your party's base vibrating and you will get your second chance....

Arnold Shcherban - 1/15/2008

is a power-hungry lier and hypocrite that changes her views and ideas in unison with the slightest oscillations in the percentage of folks potentially voting for her.
She belongs to senatorship (not mentioning presidency) as much
as chimpanzee belongs to world's beauty pangeant.
But if it is possible for Cheney-Bush clique to remain in White House for 8 years, this country may vote for chimpanzee, as well.

Michael Green - 1/11/2008

Very interesting. But this also gives me the chance to make a point about Mr. Greenfield.

Tuesday morning, I chanced to hear and see him on the CBS morning program with Bob Schieffer. On the topic of Bill Clinton's complaint that the media had subjected Barack Obama's record to far less scrutiny than that of his wife, Greenfield and Schieffer dismissed the issue. One of them--I wish I remembered which--said when you're losing, blame the media. But the other agreed, so I will lump them together.

This kind of "commentary" is one of the reasons that so many have been so cynical about politics. Whenever the media decry the absence of meaningful policy discussions, they need to look in the mirror. Or, sad to say, Messrs. Greenfield and Schieffer, whom I have considered two of the better television news political correspondents, will begin to resemble the sad, latter-day version of David Broder.