Clinton thread
Out of context: Reply #122
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"Clinton's "discredit Obama and the process" strategy
by kosAt this point we know that 1) Obama will end the contest with the most pledged delegates, 2) Obama will likely end the contest with the popular vote tally, 3) Obama will end the contest with the most money and greatest fundraising potential, 4) Obama will end the contest with the most states, 5) Obama will end the contest with the best poll numbers against McCain, and 6) Obama will end the contest with the most primary state victories and caucus state victories.
So what's left for Team Clinton? She has to convince a majority of the super delegates to cast their vote for her, so how does she get those supers to ignore all of the above Obama advantages in order to cast their ballot for the candidate who is losing?
Apparently, it's a two-pronged strategy.
The first is what we've been seeing this week -- tear down a candidate who has inspired and given hope to millions by appealing to white resentment and turning him into the "black candidate". It's ugly and revolting, but the Clinton campaign is banking on it scaring people away from Obama. And by "people", I mean "super delegates".
So the Clinton campaign is left arguing that Obama, because of his lack of "experience" and his blackness can't win the nomination, flying in the face of all evidence to the contrary, evidence that suggests that Obama, unlike Clinton, will be a map changer. Clinton, on the other hand, is already fighting last cycle's battle (which in turn -- as Jerome Armstrong and I mocked in Crashing the Gate, was an effort to refight the 2000 battle).
The second is to discredit the process of the campaign. You see this over at MyDD, were Jerome refers to the Obama campaign as the "process-powered candidate". Clever, I'll grant. But it's odd to suggest that playing by the rules is supposed to be a bad thing.
That the primary system needs reform is obvious. It would've been nice to have Team Clinton's support in the last few years as I railed against the caucus system. But you don't change the rules mid-game. You change them after the election.
Still, the Clinton campaign is desperate, in "Hail Mary" territory, thus they're reduced to disparaging any state that didn't vote for her and minimizing the importance of its delegates -- whether they be small states, or red states, or states with black people, or states with coffee shops in them. In fact, Clinton herself makes a curious distinction:
There are elected delegates, caucus delegates and superdelegates, all for different reasons, and they're all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose.
Why differentiate between "caucus delegates" and "elected delegates"? They are all pledged delegates, and they are all "elected". It may be subtle, but the implication is clear -- delegates elected at caucuses aren't "elected". They are ... something less.
Remember, Clinton can't win based on the math. The rules -- the "process" -- are her enemy. The only way she can win is by having the super delegates ignore all of Obama's clear advantages -- a coup by super delegate. And the way that coup is by tearing Obama down and discrediting the process that gave Obama those advantages.
But here's the rub -- the "process that gave Obama those advantages" includes latte drinkers, and black people, and young people, and red state Democrats, and small state Democrats, and blue states that voted for Obama.
So it's a sort of Catch-22 -- she needs the super delegates to abandon the winner for her loser campaign, but the way she's trying to win them over is by insulting their very states and constituencies. Harry Reid, for one, is tired of her antics.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday defended his state’s January caucus, saying it created a "tremendous sea change on how politics are looked at in Nevada."
His comments came as the campaign for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has increasingly criticized the caucus system, which has favored Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the two senators’ quest for their party’s presidential nomination. Clinton won the popular vote in the Nevada caucus, but she has fallen short on a number of other caucuses, including Saturday’s in Wyoming.
And as Democrats around the country see Clinton insulting their states and constituencies, don't think they're not taking that into consideration as they mull their own votes. And don't think the matter of coattails -- witness IL-14 -- is going unnoticed.
Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who at first endorsed Clinton but then switched to Obama, said he thought Obama would do more to help Democratic candidates in his state by boosting Democratic turnout. He said the nominee’s influence on other races "is a general thrust of the conversation" in the House between Obama supporters and lawmakers on the fence.
That argument has proved persuasive with many red-state superdelegates, whose votes would go toward determining the party nominee at a brokered convention. Obama has won a slew of endorsements from Democrats representing solidly Republican states and districts. Obama has picked up congressional endorsements from Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Dakota, Mississippi, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Clinton has not collected congressional endorsements from any of these states, according to a tally kept by The Hill.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), an Obama booster, touted the disparity during a recent appearance on NBC’s "Meet the Press."
"You ask any elected official, virtually any elected official west of the Mississippi, and they say, without equivocation, ‘We want Barack Obama at the top of the ticket.’ They’ll say that privately," said Daschle.
Several Democratic governors from Western states that Bush won have endorsed Obama, including Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Janet Napolitano of Arizona.
Clinton is in a bad place. She is behind in every metric that matters, and has been relegated to trashing our likely nominee and entire Democratic Party constituencies and states in order to make the case that she's somehow "more electable" despite all evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately for her, the super delegates aren't all cloistered in New York or in DC.
They represent the United States of America. And outside of Clinton's Blue bastions, her insults aren't winning any new converts."