Clinton Campaign Bids for Second Life
“So the Clinton campaign shifted from complaining about the complexity of the Texas rules to complaining about the fairness, even implying it might sue. That kept the story bubbling and spread the notion that the Texas results might not be legitimate. Surely, Hillary Clinton could not be asked to drop out if she wins Ohio and only 'loses Texas' because of some silly, unfair rules. ”
Long before the votes were counted -- or even cast -- in the primaries of March 4, Hillary Clinton and her campaign were building a case for her to stay in the race indefinitely.
She might not need it. If she rides a late shift in the polls to big wins in Texas and Ohio, she'll be the new star of the campaign, the belle of the ball once again -- The Comeback Kid.
But she couldn't count on that. So the case was really about staying in the chase even if she does not do well in both Texas and Ohio, the latest of her firewall states to come under siege.
In the two weeks since her 17-point drubbing in Wisconsin, Clinton heard people say she should pull out of the race unless she could reverse Barack Obama's fortunes with smashing victories of her own on March 4. Even Bill Clinton said his wife needed to win both.
This looked like a tall order even as he spoke it. In the last week of February, Hillary Clinton's lead in Texas dropped from the teens to a tie, while in Ohio her even more formidable advantage was reduced to single digits. It appeared that Obamamentum was rolling once again. Major tracking polls showed him pulling ahead nationwide for the first time.
It got gloomier still in Clintonville when she failed to break through in either of her debates with Obama, in Houston on Feb. 21 or in Cleveland on Feb. 26. Newspaper columnists penned summaries of her candidacy that read like obituaries. People wondered aloud who might be tasked with telling Hillary her run was done.
But from deep in the innermost of the Clinton campaign there came a response -- in fact, a flurry of responses. One was the ad about the White House phone ringing at 3 a.m. The pictures of sleeping children awakened all the deep-seated instincts of parental protectiveness and wariness. Remember the "security moms" who were pivotal to the outcome in 2004?
In response to this ad, Obama said good judgment was more important than experience, even at 3 a.m. But in this exchange, as in several over recent days, he was on the defensive, and it slowed his upward trajectory in the polls.
In the final hours before the voting, Clinton was reaching out on youth-oriented TV such as "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." And even as she tried on a hipper persona, her team was raising the heat on their opponent.
They wanted to know why Obama's economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, told some Canadian officials the anti-trade sentiments they were hearing from Obama in Ohio were just political posturing. The Canadian prime minister was chided on the issue in the House of Commons in Ottawa. The embassy released a statement saying the meeting had been mischaracterized. But the issue had been on the TV news all day and the damage was done.
In addition, the Clinton camp made sure the media were flogged for not reporting more about Chicago financier Tony Rezko -- a former fundraiser for Obama -- on the day Rezko's trial began on federal charges of political corruption.
The Rezko story is not new, but most Americans have not stopped to focus on it. The same can be said of Obama's reluctance to honor his public funding pledge in the fall campaign, now that he has such a marvelous money machine of his own. The Clinton camp has stressed these issues for weeks, hoping to knock Obama's halo askew. Their effort has had scant success, but in these crucial hours, it's worth trying again.
It's also apparently worth it to Clinton to cast doubt on the results from Texas. While the state once epitomized her dominance, it has lately come to symbolize her decline. Inroads by the Obama campaign made the state a toss-up, and even endangered Clinton's big margin among Latinos. A fiasco in the Lone Star state could be her undoing.
So the Clinton camp went after the Texas Democratic Party's rules for apportioning delegates. Those rules are based on the number of Democratic votes produced in recent fall elections in each state senatorial district. The rules reward districts for party loyalty and penalize districts where apathy or crossover voting for Republicans are evident. Right now, that works out to a big boost for votes cast in African American districts and a steep discount for those cast in Latino areas.
And that could spell trouble for Clinton, especially if the post-primary caucuses (allocating a third of the pledged delegates) turn out to be another Obama coup d'etat.
So the campaign shifted from complaining about the complexity of these rules to complaining about the fairness, even implying it might sue. That kept the story bubbling and spread the notion that the Texas results might not be legitimate. Surely, Hillary Clinton could not be asked to drop out if she wins Ohio and only "loses Texas" because of some silly, unfair rules.
That will be half the argument. The rest will be that the country is just now waking up to Barack Obama, the man, in full. Is he deserving of all the adulation? Is he even trustworthy?
And having said that, the candidate will rest her case, and continue her campaign.
7:18 PM ET | 03- 3-2008 | permalink
