To say that that the Clinton campaign was preparing for the worst understates the deep sense of gloom that settled over Hillaryland. Several senior staffers were MIA.
Clinton had taken the reins of her inner circle, self-strategized, rewritten her stump speech and generally decided to shed the hardened political shell around her personality. It worked, although she did not know it.
Yesterday morning, some of her aides dressed casually; there was no reason to spruce up.
On Monday night, the press corps had carpooled to her final campaign event; some called it the “Clinton swan song.”
The final Clinton campaign internal tracking poll projected an 11 point loss. Early in the day, a senior campaign official said the campaign’s boiler room canvasses of targeted precincts predicted a major Obama victory.
Continue reading "In HillaryLand, Doom, Gloom, Then Shock."
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This was a win for Hillary and all her fans: the degree of relief and joy are well-deserved. But, when the story of the NH primary is told, it will be a story of the Clintons and McCain working together to try to take down the Kid. I wondered about the smirking exchange they shared, and now I get it. Clinton needed desperately to seem as if her campaign was as energetic as Obama's, but no one was coming to her rallies. The whirling Whouley called up his Boston friends (including the radio jocks who yelled "Iron my shirt") and every out-of-state person they could find and filled her rallies. More importantly, when watching C-SPAN, I noticed a large number of the Republicans at Obama rallies were McCain supporters. Hillary and McCain colluded to fill his rallies with people that they thought (knew) could not be persuaded: from McCain they sent Republicans (not independents); from Hillary they sent committed women. It was very smart and completely legal, but it clearly means that they believed hearing him speak was a danger to their ability to sway voters. Bill Clinton left Iowa before the caucuses and made sure that McCain and Hillary got nods from most of the smaller area papers: he needed McCain to draw independents out of the Dem race. They finally dropped the deceptive abortion flyer on NH. In the end, the women came home, even though they don't like her, because she was being attacked, but the fact of keeping real undecideds away by populating his rallies with your own folk was the tactical turn. Bravo! Now, bring that to SC, and let's see how it works out.
Posted by Michael's Mom | January 9, 2008 10:57 AM