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.

Potomac Primary Preview: Why the Delegate Count Doesn't Add Up

Who's ahead? Depends on whose count you look at because they're all over the map.

A lot of media are reporting the Associate Press counts:

Clinton: 1147
Obama 1124

with 2304 remaining. You need 2025 to win the nomination.

Doing the math is harder than you might expect. New York Times doesn't count their chickens until the hatch.

Their count:

Clinton 1045
Obama 922

"Many news organizations include delegate projections in their counts that are based on nonbinding votes for candidate preference, such as the Iowa caucuses. The New York Times counts only delegates that have been officially selected and are bound by their preferences."

Today's Potomac primary looks good for Obama. Virginia's a close call, but he could well win all three on top of winning for states and the Virgin Island this weekend.

Hawaii follows, but Obama grew up there and is expected to win. After that is Wisconsin on February 19, but even if Hillary wins there will that be the tourniquet that stops the bleeding? Polling data available online doesn’t paint a clear picture in Wisconsin, but wasingtonpost.com's overview of the state's demographics might tend to favor Hillary:

(http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/primaries/states/wi/r/)

Wisconsin 2006 Census
Population: 5,556,506
Gender: 49.6 male, 50.4 female
Race: 87.5 white, 5.9 black, 2.0 asian, 0.3 indian, 0.0 pacific islander, 4.6 hispanic,
Age: 76.3% 18 years and over; 13.0% 65 years and over; Median age:
Median Household Income: $48,772
Families Below Poverty Level: 7.3%
Education: 11.1% of those over 25 have a bachelor's degree or higher

Next big stop, Ohio and Texas, where conventional wisdom seems to think Hillary will win, based on the relatively fewer affluent and educated types that tend to be in the pro-Obama demographic. But if people only vote because they're in a certain category, what happened in Massachusetts? I've been there and the place is full of six figure PhD's, so it's anybody's guess why Hillary cleaned Obama's clock there despite (or because of?) the Kennedy's anointing him the heir apparent to Camelot.

Ohio and Texas don't vote until March 4. In political terms, it's a couple of lifetimes between now and then so if Obama makes a clean sweep today, he may suck all the oxygen out of the room as the Clinton campaign tries to spin us on why she's not losing.

Don’t Cry for me Louisiana

After Barry Hussein served up a double order of whoop-ass on Billary in the primaries in Kansas, Louisiana and Washington, she may be tempted tear up once again reminding voters that she actually can mimic human emotion. Probably can’t go back to the well again, but what can we expect from the Clinton campaign moving forward? They are likely to be casually dismissive of the Louisiana results because of the predominant role of black voters and say they expect to do very well in big states like Texas and Ohio later.

Momentum, which is with Obama right now, hasn’t been much of an asset so far this year, as it keeps shifting. Obama seems well positioned for the upcoming Potomac Primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington. D.C. That makes the subsequent primaries in March in Texas and Ohio especially important because they are home to fewer of the better educated, higher income voters that are part of Obama’s core supporters.

That’s a problem for Obama. There are a lot more poor and stupid voters than ones who are affluent and educated. Poverty and ignorance are renewable resources. Too bad we can’t use them to run our cars or heat our homes.

But If Obama can win in Texas or Ohio, the hill Clinton must climb to the nomination gets a lot steeper. Expect Obama to devote a significant portion of his campaign warchest flooding the zone with operatives and TV spots in those two states.