The Day After: Is Hillary’s Campaign DOA?

Imagine the morning meeting of the Hillary Clinton campaign brain trust on this the day after she was crushed in the latest of eight straight contests.

If you were one of her advisors, desperate to acquire that West Wing power broker job you believed was your destiny until the Iowa Caucuses, what’s your bright idea to turn this around? Because one thing’s for sure, stay the course won’t work.

Interesting comparison of some of the options likely being discussed behind closed doors detailed in today’s Fix:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/02/post_5.html

They could go negative. It’s not pretty and people say they hate it, but fighting dirty works. Bush used to defeat McCain. Bush used it against Kerry.

But they don’t seem to have anything left to throw at Obama. Hillary already hit him in a debate with his ties to “slum lord” Tony Rezko. Plus, Swift Boating Obama is risky because it deprives her of her victim status. We saw how sympathy helped push her over the top in New Hampshire.

There’s the economy, which seems to be spinning out of control like Iraq was last year. Trouble is, you have to get into the details and being the better policy wonk pales in comparison to Obama’s lofty, but vague Camelotesque call to action. Also, Bill Clinton is the one with the record on that front and reminding us of the positive elements of the 1990’s also brings flashbacks of the drama laden nature of a Clinton White House.

The spin from the campaign to date is that they are focused on big states with large numbers of delegates at stake, Texas and Ohio on March 4 and Pennsylvania on April 22. They’re writing off Hawaii since Obama’s childhood home is expected to give him another win.

Right now, Clinton has signaled that she is also resigned to losing Wisconsin on February 19, which would be her chance to derail the Obama juggernaut and give her a chance to regain some traction headed into the critical face-offs in Texas and Ohio. Perhaps she’s trying to downplay expectations, but last night she was in Texas and Obama was in Wisconsin. Clinton could have a good shot there so it would seem foolish not to put some serious effort into the race there. Go figure.

Does this strategy seem familiar? Remember Rudy’s plan that Florida would bail him out? Granted, unlike Giuliani’s operatic march to his own doom, Clinton has won a bunch of states, but there’s only so long you can keep losing before voters start viewing you as, well, a loser.

The remaining path to the nomination is ugly, perhaps handing John McCain a much better chance of winning in November. In this scenario, the super delegates and the tainted contests in Michigan and Florida decide the nominee. It would be the Democrats version of Bush vs. Gore 2000. If that’s the road Hillary takes to the nomination, the contagious enthusiasm that is driving record numbers of new voters to the polls is likely to disappear and independents may move to McCain.

Hillary’s not the type of politician to go gently into the night. She doesn’t have many options left and they're all bad.

See if you can find a vintage “Hail to the Thief” sign on eBay.