The pressure
The media/narrative pressure I outline in the next post, but the backroom pressure will be just as interesting to watch. Hillary Clinton is meeting with superdelegates today (some hers, some undecided) and she also has an (open to the press) Washington DC fundraiser scheduled tonight.
There's also a floating question about her money. Her campaign is set to release information today on financing with one of the big questions being whether she loaned her campaign more money.
(Update: She loaned her campaign another $6.4 million.)
Will people in and around her campaign begin to push? Does the enthusiasm inside the campaign die? Does this "over" narrative fade or grow in the days ahead? Do we see significant superdelegate movement or defections from Clinton?
If you're looking for a definitive answer this morning, there isn't one, but, it does appear that "the tide has turned."
There's also a floating question about her money. Her campaign is set to release information today on financing with one of the big questions being whether she loaned her campaign more money.
(Update: She loaned her campaign another $6.4 million.)
Will people in and around her campaign begin to push? Does the enthusiasm inside the campaign die? Does this "over" narrative fade or grow in the days ahead? Do we see significant superdelegate movement or defections from Clinton?
If you're looking for a definitive answer this morning, there isn't one, but, it does appear that "the tide has turned."
posted by mikevotes at
7:46 AM
7 Comments:
I still don't know what the Clintons want, except to win for winning's sake. They've surrounded themselves with characters that will do and say anything for money and influence (Mark Penn, Lanni Davis, Carville, etc.) so as long as there's a reasonable expectation their checks will clear (eventually) I don't know who is going to give the Clintons honest counsel. The whores will say what they're paid to say....
With the Wright issues having run it's course, and no Obama "scandal" for breathless talking heads to go on and on and on about, the narrative of negativity turns back to Hillary: delegate math, pandering gas-tax holiday, campaign shake-ups.... Bill and his big pie hole. I expect there to be more "news" coverage about The Clintons, in a dynastic (dare I say elite) context. More talk about being driven by blind ambition... inability to accept defeat. That sort of thing. It will be more retrospective and eulogy than cheerleading.
The Clinton campaign has limped along not so much on it's own merits (though certainly they have merits), but by tearing down Obama through innuendo and straw man controversies and then saying, "That guy's scary! Vote for me." I think they've run out of "that guy's scary" material and all they're left with is "I'm Bill's wife. Vote for me!" Apparently this is good enough for many voters in her base demographic. But I don't think it's enough to base a campaign on.
We'll see how the West Virginia contest gets framed... That should tell us something about the Clintons and the corporate media
By
-epm, at 8:39 AM
RE: $6.4m self-loan
I think this is moot. Can't she -- I mean "the campaign" -- just pay her back whenever they want? I mean, the campaign's already in debt, isn't it?
Maybe it's seed money to attract more donors, but I think those birds have flown. Or maybe she has gone all Slim Pickens on us and is riding the campaign bomb all the way to Denver... kicking and jeering all the way. We'll see.
By
-epm, at 9:04 AM
I think you hit the big point, that the narrative spotlight has swung back hard on Clinton and that will have its effects.
And, I think the tone over the next few days will tell us alot about why they've stayed in the race so long.
I also think that the campaign they've run (as you describe as so negative) has done her a great disservice. Certainly he signed off on it all, but on paper, she's such a strong candidate. She just chose poor people around her and trusted them.
.....
The loan is somewhat moot. The campaign is in tremendous debt right now and cant pay her, but over time, the Clinton's will certainly be able to get enough donations to pay it down.
The difference between this loan and the last "seed money" one is that it was announced openly and portrayed as a statement of commitment. This one was hidden and comes across as weakness.
By
mikevotes, at 11:14 AM
"I also think that the campaign they've run (as you describe as so negative) has done her a great disservice. Certainly he signed off on it all, but on paper, she's such a strong candidate. She just chose poor people around her and trusted them."
She started strong. I remember how impressed I was with her early debate performance. Not just her policy positions, but the way she carried herself as a strong, intelligent, leader.... someone comfortably experienced among a group of other strong intelligent candidates. She was tough, but not what I'd call negative. Somewhere around SC, she started chucked it all. By TX/OH she had gone full bore for the Tanya Harding m.o.
Did this make her any less intelligent? Any less experienced? No. But for me it called into question her character, judgement and trustworthiness.
(I refuse to give people at her level any slack for just following bad advice from untrustworthy advisors. Running an effective -- and ethical -- campaign is the first test of leadership and executive management. She's hardly some wet behind the ears nobody Podunk, Arkansas running for state rep.)
By
-epm, at 11:34 AM
Oh yeah. She was phenomenally strong in 2007. More money. She had a national lead in the polls through Feb.
They lost, and they panicked. To me, it was their response to South Carolina that started the swing. By Texas we got to the kitchen sink and that just reinforced it.
And I didn't mean to cut her slack over her staff. She chose them, she signed off on it all. In the end it is her campaign.
I'm just occasionally amazed that this campaign managed to squander such a strong candidate.
In my mind, they never believed they could lose, and when they started to, they flailed badly.
I have a post I haven't put up yet that parallels her campaign with the Iraq mistakes. Shock and awe of inevitability. Unpreparedness when it didn't work. Fallujah and the kitchen sink. Finally firing Penn/Rumsfeld.....etc.
By
mikevotes, at 11:40 AM
"They lost, and they panicked"
Kind of sums it up.
In their panic they seemed to dig deeper and deeper into the Republican playbook and a Bushian mindset, as your teaser for a future post kind of suggests.
At this point I hope her campaign is on a slow glide to a gracious exit. And just as importantly, toward a mission of Democratic unification.
I'm getting the same vibe I had with Romney shortly before he pulled out.
By
-epm, at 2:14 PM
Yeah. That's the classic playbook. Get behind go negative, but they didn't take into account that it's a primary rather than an election and every bit of damage they tried to do blew back.
I think the thing to watch is how much she talks about Obama, whether it's "contrast" or outright negative, to listen to what her people are saying publicly, because if they stop any negative or challenges at all, it's the path on the way out.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they started laying the groundwork.
Has a Clinton ever lost an election?
By
mikevotes, at 2:34 PM
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