'A machine like Clinton's feeds on the negativity'

I've never bought the pre-championship palaver that the Republicans were itching keen to face Hillary Clinton in the fall, that her mere presence in the race would energize their white-dumpling demoralized base into mobilizing into peasant mobs ready to storm Frankenstein's castle. The party's true savants had underestimated Hillary when she first ran for Senate and saw Rick Lazio's ears get pinned to the mat, and were unlikely to duplicate that error. I believe that they're far more wary of the Clinton machine than the Obama phenomenon because a phenomenon can be pricked or pop of its own accord, leaving behind a melting irridescence, whereas a machine like Clinton's feeds on the negativity thrown at it, a juggernaut nightmare designed to keep the opposition guessing over every move and plunge Andrew Sullivan into clammy angst ("I woke up in a cold sweat early last Wednesday").

~ from Beware of White Men Bearing Gifts ~