Democrats are turning on the Clintons

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

Even Chris Matthews said he had a "feeling go up his leg" listening to his speech (fair and balanced!)

[JaJae]

Texas is now up for grabs:
Texas poll shows dead heat among Dems - CNN.com

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll suggests the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois is a statistical dead heat in Texas, which holds primaries March 4.

In the survey, out Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters support Clinton as their choice for the party's nominee, with 48 percent backing Obama.

There's still time before elections. If Obama can steal Texas from Hillary her candidacy will probably be finished.

[motivez]

I think she's done and has been done for awhile. She counted on Obama's momentum after Super Tuesday to not matter, but it has.. and most people I talk to (including folks who support Hillary) have pretty much resigned themselves to her defeat at this point

[JaJae]

I think it's a little early to count the Clintons out. Texas, Ohio and PA will likely determine her fate. But there's something about Texas that the Clinton camp seemed to have overlooked.
System Worries Clinton Backers

Supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are worried that convoluted delegate rules in Texas could water down the impact of strong support for her among Hispanic voters there, creating a new obstacle for her in the must-win presidential primary contest.

Several top Clinton strategists and fundraisers became alarmed after learning of the state's unusual provisions during a closed-door strategy meeting this month, according to one person who attended.

What Clinton aides discovered is that in certain targeted districts, such as Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa's heavily Hispanic Senate district in the Rio Grande Valley, Clinton could win an overwhelming majority of votes but gain only a small edge in delegates. At the same time, a win in the more urban districts in Dallas and Houston -- where Sen. Barack Obama expects to receive significant support -- could yield three or four times as many delegates.

"What it means is, she could win the popular vote and still lose the race for delegates," Hinojosa said yesterday. "This system does not necessarily represent the opinions of the population, and that is a serious problem."

Texas Democratic Party officials said there is a good reason that some senatorial districts yield two or three delegates while others yield seven or, in one Austin district, eight. The numbers are determined by a formula that is based on the number of voters in each district who cast ballots for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) in the 2004 presidential campaign and for Chris Bell, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2006.

The higher the turnout in each district in those years, the more delegates the district will get to select this year, explained Boyd Richie, the state party chairman.

"It's not that anyone's trying to penalize anyone," Richie said. "That's the last thing I want to do. What I want to do is encourage people to come back and vote. We want to have everybody participate."

Basically the more people who turned out to vote in each district during the last election determines how many delegates they'll receive for upcoming elections. The Hispanic and pro-Hillary districts had a very poor turnout last election. So even if Hillary pulls off the popular vote, it won't help her if they turn out in areas where there aren't a lot of delegates. The Clinton camp blew off a lot of states to ensure she would win the delegate rich Texas, but I don't think they realized it might have been futile. And now with recent polls show Obama making a climb, she may not have much of a shot.

However, she still has an astounding lead in Ohio. I haven't seen recent polls on that, but if she can break even or win Texas and take Ohio, there's a good chance it could go to convention. And that would be a very divisive and unpredictable outcome.

[JaJae]

Here's another campaign blunder:

John Baer: How Pa. extension benefited Clinton

Philadelphia Daily News
HERE'S A LITTLE political banana peel.

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign failed to file a full slate of convention delegate candidates for Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.

This despite the possibility the primary proves critical and despite Clinton owning the full-throated support of Gov. Rendell, state Democratic Party leadership, Mayor Nutter and, presumably, the organizational skill all that entails.

And despite a Rendell-ordered extension of the filing deadline that could be viewed as more than just coincidental.

"There are a number of Clinton delegates that did not file for reasons of illness or other issues," Democratic state chairman T.J. Rooney conceded yesterday after being questioned by the Daily News.

He initially said he was unaware of the fact, but confirmed it after checking with Clinton's state delegate petition organizer.

It appears Clinton came up 10 or 11 candidates short across a number of congressional districts, including two in Philadelphia.

That's close to 10 percent of the 103 delegates to be decided by voters.

It appears the shortage would've been double that if Rendell hadn't extended last week's candidate filing deadline by a day and a half, ostensibly due to bad weather.

John Baer: How Pa. extension benefited Clinton | Philadelphia Daily News | 02/19/2008

Shaking up her campaign staff was probably a smart thing to do.

[JaJae]

In just a week's time:




This trend could be dangerous to the Clinton campaign come early March. She needs to put a stop to it.

[JaJae]

NYC Mayor Bloomberg makes accusations of voter fraud:
MIKE BLOOMBERG CLAIMS VOTE 'FRAUD’ - New York Post

MIKE BLOOMBERG CLAIMS VOTE 'FRAUD’

David Seifman

February 19, 2008 -- Mayor Bloomberg charged yesterday that "fraud" was behind the unofficial results in the New York Democratic presidential primary that produced zero votes for Barack Obama in some districts.

"If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud," said the mayor.

Unofficial tallies on election night gave Obama no votes in 78 out of more than 6,000 election districts.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

I think she's done and has been done for awhile. She counted on Obama's momentum after Super Tuesday to not matter, but it has.. and most people I talk to (including folks who support Hillary) have pretty much resigned themselves to her defeat at this point

I won't be certain until somebody brings me the broomstick!

[JaJae]

This article outlines the spin. I've heard Obama's campaign giving the talking points today about Hillary spinning the primary results. TIME puts those points into a comprehensive article.

Clinton's Spin Machine: Spun Dry -- Printout -- TIME

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the ninth and tenth straight time last night, with blowouts in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Needless to say, this means nothing. As Clinton strategist Mark Penn explained yesterday, Wisconsin has a lot of independent voters, so it doesn't really matter. And Hawaii is practically Obama's home state, so it obviously doesn't matter. Anyway, as Penn said recently, "winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election." It's apparently not even a sign of who can win the Democratic nomination — at least not when the victories are Obama's.

The Clinton spin machine has been consistent about this. Nebraska, Idaho and Utah didn't matter because they were deep-red states. South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia didn't matter because they had large percentages of black voters. Maine and Washington didn't matter because caucuses aren't truly representative. Maryland and Virginia didn't matter because Obama was expected to win there. For a moment, it looked like Missouri might matter when the networks called it for Hillary — her campaign quickly bragged about winning a "closely contested toss-up state" — but the networks were wrong. On the other hand, it looked like Nevada wasn't going to matter at all because there were polling stations in casinos, but it ended up huge because Hillary won.

It turns out that the only state Obama won that could have mattered was Illinois, his real home state; unfortunately, home-state victories don't really count, except when they take place in New York. "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states outside of Illinois?" Penn recently asked.

Well yes, in fact, it's starting to look like we could. So maybe all these Obama victories mean something after all. Maybe they mean that voters are sick of the perpetual Clinton spin machine. At the very least, they've made it clear that the machine is broken, if not dead.

Spin is about framing a coherent narrative, and Team Hillary's narrative borders on self-parody. When Hillary was getting lots of endorsements, it showed that she was the people's choice. Now that Obama's getting lots of endorsements, it shows that he's the "establishment candidate." When Hillary was doing better than Obama in head-to-head matchups against Republicans, it showed that she was more electable. Now that Obama's doing better, it shows that he hasn't been vetted. Obama was naive for saying he'd meet with foreign dictators; he was also deceitful for claiming that Hillary would refuse to meet with foreign dictators.

But at least Huckabee isn't trying to claim that his race is actually neck-and-neck, or that he wasn't really trying to win states where he campaigned and lost, or that one failed prediction after another just proves what he's been saying all along. Spin works best when it's intermittent and plausible; the Clinton camp's has been constant and ludicrous. Is it really wise to dismiss the vast majority of the United States as insignificant? Does anyone believe that the misguided attack on Obama's kindergarten ambitions was "a joke"? Explain to us again why Michigan's delegates should be seated even though Democrats agreed not to campaign there and Obama wasn't even on the ballot? Why are we supposed to ignore Wisconsin when it's got exactly the demographics that Penn has assured us are part of Hillary's "enduring coalition," back when Hillary had a massive lead in the state and just about every other state?

[Scrum]

This gave me a laugh.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by JaJae

This article outlines the spin. I've heard Obama's campaign giving the talking points today about Hillary spinning the primary results. TIME puts those points into a comprehensive article.

Clinton's Spin Machine: Spun Dry -- Printout -- TIME

Good article. But this line:

the Clinton camp's has been constant and ludicrous. Is it really wise to dismiss the vast majority of the United States as insignificant?

This isn't just a Clinton thing. That is a Democrat thing.

[JaJae]

Despite "pimping out" their daughter, college student Jason Rae's delegate vote goes to Obama.

ABC News' Karen Travers Reports: Marquette University junior Jason Rae had a personal breakfast with Chelsea Clinton and was wooed on the phone by Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright.

But after seeing the enthusiasm for Barack Obama in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Rae tells ABC News he is supporting the Illinois senator in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Political Radar: Youngest DNC Superdelegate Backing Obama

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Despite "pimping out" their daughter, college student Jason Rae's delegate vote goes to Obama.


Political Radar: Youngest DNC Superdelegate Backing Obama

how the hell did a 17 year old kid become a superdelgate

[JaJae]

This is what I've been saying about the Clintons and the Hillary bringing back all those bad memories.

It should come as no surprise that Democratic Party officials haven’t exactly been rallying to Hillary Clinton in her time of need.

While most Democratic voters remember Bill Clinton’s presidency with fondness, as the era of peace and prosperity and two straight wins in presidential elections, more than a few elected officials and Democratic leaders remember him as the selfish careerist who, time and again, threw them all under the bus.

Sure, he won re-election in 1996—the first Democrat to do so since Franklin Roosevelt—but at a steep price for the party.

While he was still in office, his would-be Democratic critics mostly stewed in silence. Bill was too popular with the masses to oppose, so they were stuck with him—even at the height of impeachment, when his approval rating was still almost twice what George W. Bush’s now is.

But now, their chance to get the last laugh seems to have arrived.

Their grievances with Bill (and Hillary) go beyond the hit that the party’s down-ballot candidates took at the polls in the ’90s. If that had happened because Bill was out fighting the good Democratic fight, it would have been forgivable. But all too often, he seemed perfectly willing to serve up his own partisan allies, presenting himself to the public as the centrist hero between the extremes of the left and right—“triangulation,” this was called.

It reared its head in 1995, when he was on the comeback trail to re-election. Appearing before a group of wealthy business leaders, Bill Clinton brought up his 1993 budget, a tax-hike and (modest) spending cuts package that had cost his party dearly at the polls. Not a single Republican in the House or Senate had voted for it, and Democrats across the country went down to defeat in 1994 because they had dared to defy public opinion and to stand with their President.

But when Bill spoke about the budget in ‘95, he didn’t praise his fellow Democrats for their courage: He buried them.

For Some Superdelegates, a Chance for Revenge | The New York Observer

[JaJae]

Consultant spending saps Clinton campaign - Kenneth P. Vogel - Politico.com

About $15 million — or more than half of the New York senator’s January spending — went to a cadre of high-priced consultants. Though much of the cash went through the campaign media buyer for ad time, the considerable payments to outside consultants mark an increase in a pattern that has irked campaign insiders. From the beginning of the race through the end of last month, Clinton paid the consultants $33 million — nearly one-third of the $105 million spent by the campaign.

That provides some of the backstory behind Clinton’s staff shake-up, her public appeals for campaign cash in the past two weeks and even her string of 10 straight losses to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama since Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

She simply did not have the cash to compete in the post-Feb. 5 states, mostly because her campaign spending blueprint was built around two flawed premises: that no one would be able to match her fundraising and that the nomination would be decided on Super Tuesday.

The January payments to Penn’s polling firm brought its total haul from the campaign to $8 million. That doesn’t include the $2 million the campaign owed the company at the end of January or the $125,000 it paid to the fundraising consultancy run by Penn's wife, Nancy Jacobson.

Mandy Grunwald, Clinton’s ad-maker, pulled down $762,000 in January, bringing to $2.3 million her total from the campaign, not including the $240,000 she’s owed.

The firm that places the campaign’s ads on the air, Denver-based Media Strategies & Research, run by former Clinton Senate campaign staffer Jon Hutchens, in January was paid $10 million, bringing its tally for the campaign to $22 million. Much of that money likely went to television stations to buy air time, but the firm got a cut, too.

And the firm of Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s top PR guy, was paid $267,000 last month, bringing its total to $688,000 from the campaign, plus the $16,000 the campaign is in debt to the firm.

Those payments, and others to top consultants, have prompted grumbling by campaign insiders who believe some of the cash flowing to Clinton’s Washington-area brain trust could be better spent elsewhere, given the cash pinch that kept the campaign from matching Obama’s investment in recent states.

I've read other reports that show Hillary's campaign is in the red while Obama is pulling strong. She's spending all her money on the old school Clinton cronies and it's not getting her anywhere.

[JaJae]

Townhall.com::Blog
Bad news for Hillary:

According to my initial projections off this crowdsourced spreadsheet of Obama donations I set up after the Wisconsin victory, Obama has already raised at least $45 million for February and is on track to raise $60 million for the month.

And an ABC/WashingtonPost poll shows Hillary up by 1 in Texas and 7 in Ohio. Obama is cutting into her lead. At this rate she may not be the front-runner come March 4th. She put a lot of stock in these states. It could turn ugly for her on the 4th.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I've read other reports that show Hillary's campaign is in the red while Obama is pulling strong. She's spending all her money on the old school Clinton cronies and it's not getting her anywhere.

Hillary Rodham Clinton ended January with $7.6 million in debt — not including the $5 million personal loan she gave to her campaign in the run-up to the critical Super Tuesday elections, according to financial reports released Wednesday.

In contrast, Democratic rival Barack Obama’s campaign’s finances continued to be robust.

He reported raising nearly $37 million and spending nearly $31 million. His cash balance was $25 million, of which roughly $20 million can be spent on the primary. He reported a comparatively small $1 million in debts, owed largely to just three vendors.

January yields debt for HRC, cash for Obama - Kenneth P. Vogel and Jeanne Cummings - Politico.com

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Hillary still has:
The Single White Female Vote
Most of the white female vote
most of the hispanic vote
most of the gay vote

not any more