Shaken Clinton Camp Prepares For Trench Warfare After NHJanuary 6, 2008 08:56 PM
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Hillary Clinton's campaign, anticipating probable defeat here in New Hampshire on January 8, is gearing up for an extended trench-warfare battle against Barack Obama.
The former First Lady is planning to fight Obama in South Carolina on January 26, and in the gargantuan nationwide primary on Tuesday, February 5 -- with contests in 19 states, including New York, California, New Jersey, Georgia, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Colorado. If she remains competitive, Clinton's plan is to continue to compete in Louisiana on February 9, in Virginia and Maryland on February 12, in Wisconsin on February 19, in Ohio on March 4 -- and beyond, if necessary.
In an approach redolent of Walter Mondale's 1984 "Where's the Beef?" tactic against Gary Hart, Clinton has adopted the less memorable slogan "Rhetoric vs. Results, Talk vs. Action."
The Clinton campaign is sparing no effort to pressure the media to lean on Obama's perceived vulnerabilities. Looking to leverage Obama's slender resume,
a Clinton operative argued to HuffPost that the campaign will be able to demonstrate that "Obama is just not a plausible person in this environment of international peril," and that the longer the primary campaign can be extended, the better chance Clinton will have to prove that "there is not even a second level to Obama, there is no depth."
The results of this gambit are far from certain. Many political observers here see Hillary on the ropes. "I think Iowa was the best she is going to do. Now she has the stink of a loser on her," said an official from the upper echelons of the 2004 Democratic campaign. In the upcoming states, voters "are just now starting to pay attention, and all they know is that he
is a winner and she's a loser."
Political analyst Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute warned, "Tactical maneuvering at this point is of limited value, but all may be able to do for the moment is to try tactical stuff, and lash herself to the mast to withstand the wave."
Like Mondale in 1984, Clinton is configuring her campaign to win in states where independents cannot vote. "Clinton got killed among independents and those few Republicans who crossed over," an Iowa operative noted about last Thursday's caucuses. After this Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, where independents can cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican contest, "We are just going to go to the big Democratic states with closed primaries" says a member of the Clinton inner circle.
Of the upcoming nineteen February 5 primaries and caucuses, however, ten are "open" (meaning that independents can vote for a Democrat) and only nine are "closed" (meaning independents are barred).
The question all over Democratic circles today is, what can Hillary do? Is time running out? The consensus is that she has "a real uphill fight -- a tough pull," according to observers.
The Clinton campaign counters that it is banking on the support of voters with "deep and ingrained loyalty" to the Democratic party and to the presidency of Bill Clinton -- especially on the support of poor to lower-middle class Democratic voters who are seeking government aid to pay for health care and other necessities, and who can be convinced that Clinton is best equipped to win enactment of such policies.
Many of these voters, however, are black, and African American voters have, over the course of the past year, been moving steadily to Obama. While both Bill and Hillary Clinton have had substantial support in the African-American community - Bill Clinton got roughly 90 percent of the black vote in his two presidential elections -- there could be an Obama groundswell among minority voters. "If Obama wins two white states in a row, that is going to send a signal to African Americans around the country. The African-American population is going to be excited beyond belief by the prospect of a black president," says Ornstein.
"The sixty-four thousand dollar question," according to a Democratic operative, is "whether whites will continue to vote for Obama once the novelty wears off."
Most of those interviewed for this story do not believe the novelty will wear off.
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Much More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/06/shaken-clinton-camp-prepa_n_80125.html
Can ya hear the war drums ??? Yikes!
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