Strategery

It’s worth noting that nothing about yesterday’s results necessarily vindicates the Clinton campaign’s strategy of effectively conceding most the states between Super Tuesday and Texas, and allowing Obama to run up huge margins, both in votes and delegates, in nearly all of them. It isn’t as if the firewall strategy allowed her to barely stave off an Obama surge that might have succeeded if she’d spread her time and resources around. The Obama surge did succeed, in Texas at least, thanks to his momentum out of the Mid-Atlantic: He swamped her firewall and pulled into the lead, and it appears that she only regained the upper hand thanks to some hard-edged last-minute campaigning. If she could have narrowed his margins in states like Virginia and Wisconsin, she might not have lost the lead in Texas in the first place – and more importantly, she’d have higher delegate and vote totals to carry into the looming argument over whose “moral claim” on the nomination is the stronger one.

I suppose that if you buy Mickey Kaus's friend S.'s argument about how Hillary tends to win and lose - with voters rallying round her when they think she’s down for the count, and spurning her when she’s just scored some victories – there’s a sense in which she needed to get hammered for a month before Texas voted to have any chance of winning there. But even if the friend-of-Kaus diagnosis of voter motivation is correct, trying to create a situation in which your candidate scores a big pity vote seems like a lousy way to run a Presidential campaign.

Comments

He swamped her firewall and pulled into the lead, and it appears that she only regained the upper hand thanks to some hard-edged last-minute campaigning.

You have no idea if that's true. Clinton won 2 of every three white Democrats, and the same margin of Hispanic Democrats. That's a huge number, and it wasn't generated in the last three days.

More likely, the polls were wrong.

Posted by Cal | March 5, 2008 9:17 PM

>>You have no idea if that's true. Clinton won 2 of every three white Democrats, and the same margin of Hispanic Democrats. That's a huge number, and it wasn't generated in the last three days. More likely, the polls were wrong.

Posted by SK | March 5, 2008 9:29 PM

I think Kaus has out-counter-intuited himself (once again). He's fond of these "stupid like a fox" arguments, where the person who is obviously in trouble and/or incompetent is really just playing politics at a higher level than anyone (except Kaus) can comprehend. The only difference here is that he's describing a supposed tendency among voters, rather than a deliberate strategy.

But what's the evidence? That Hillary lost Iowa when she was "supposed" to win it, and then won New Hampshire when she was "supposed" to lose it? The simpler explanation is that commentators underestimated Obama in Iowa, and then over-corrected by writing off Clinton in New Hampshire. And what's so special about Texas and Ohio? She lost A LOT last month without inspiring any sympathy wins. It's almost as if the demographic and political realities in each state determine who has the best chance of winning--but, no, that's far too mundane an explanation. It must be that the laws of political momentum not only exist, but have also been repealed in this one case!

Anyway, Kaus' argument (or his friend's argument, I guess) assumes that average voters are repelled by how Hillary Clinton behaves when she's feeling confident and expecting victory. That seems to be true of many commentators and reporters, but doesn't seem to be true of the general public. She's never going to pack halls full of swooning fans like her opponent does, but most people seem to like her just fine.

Posted by JB | March 5, 2008 9:56 PM

By Kaus's logic, doesn't she go on to lose PA now or something if this pattern holds? It may be a factual argument, but it still is a bit odd.

Posted by Reality Man | March 5, 2008 11:26 PM

Clinton had a 20 point lead in TX three weeks ago, and she ended up winning by 4 points (actually, winning by 4 points in the primary and losing by 12 points in the caucus).

Caucuses have nothing to do with polls. They're a joke.

As for Clinton having a 20 point lead three weeks ago, I don't see that. Earliest polls I see have her up by about 8, and that was Dems only. Do you have a link?

There's not much reason to think that Obama made the sale. More likely, the polling samples weren't sufficient.

Posted by Cal | March 6, 2008 1:08 AM

Hillary and Camp Clinton made a big deal about Barack Obama returning money from Tony Rezko, at the same time she refuses to return money back from a firm allegedly accused of sexual harrasasment. Read the report below:

Sen. Hillary Clinton has declined to return $170,000 in campaign contributions from individuals at a company accused of widespread sexual harassment, and whose CEO is a disbarred lawyer with a criminal record, federal campaign records show.

The federal government has accused the Illinois management consulting firm, International Profit Associates, or IPA, of a brazen pattern of sexual harassment including "sexual assaults," "degrading anti-female language" and "obscene suggestions."

In a 2001 lawsuit full of lurid details, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims that 103 women employees at IPA were victimized for years. The civil case is ongoing, and IPA vigorously denies the allegations.

"This is by far, hands down, the worst case I've ever experienced," said Diane Smason, one of the EEOC lawyers handling the lawsuit. "Every woman there experienced sex harassment, they were part of a hostile work environment of sex harassment. And this occurred from the top down."

Sen. Clinton's spokesman, Howard Wolfson, told NBC News in a statement that the senator decided to keep the funds because the lawsuit is "ongoing" and because none of the sexual harassment allegations has been proven in court.

"With regard to the pending harassment suit, as a general matter, the campaign assesses findings of fact in deciding whether to return contributions," Wolfson said.
From NBC's Lisa Myers and Jim Popkin

Posted by Julie Mack | March 6, 2008 5:59 AM

HRCs big day of victory yielded 10-12 delegates. She cant win on merits. It may be she can push enough buttons in the party to win the nomination.

But if she takes away Obama's chance in this manner, a lot of African American voters will be sitting home on election night.

Her path to the White House is by stealing the nomination and hoping for tragedy in the Middle East. I'll be shocked if she plays that through, but not surprised.

Posted by Kim | March 6, 2008 8:34 AM

Logically, the Kaus scenario ends with Hillary losing the general election and then whining her way to... oh, but there isn't a "pity poor Hillary" general election after the real general election, is there? Guess the pity-fifty-state stragegy really ain't that impressive after all.

Posted by maraschion | March 6, 2008 8:41 AM

Logically, the Kaus scenario ends with Hillary losing the general election and then whining her way to... oh, but there isn't a "pity poor Hillary" general election after the real general election, is there?

You're forgetting the members of the electoral college vote after the general election. So technically Clinton could lose the general election and then win the electoral college "election" in the manner Kaus suggests.

Posted by Just Dropping By | March 6, 2008 10:06 AM