Clinton Campaign Post-Mortem

The Atantic's much-awaited article on Hillary Clinton's ill-fated campaign says that her divided staff didn't serve her well, that she didn't make hard choices, and that she rejected her chief strategist's suggestion to go after Barack Obama on his "lack of American roots."

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel.

This is sure to make waves in the media and blogosphere. It was mentioned on CNN earlier tonight before it was even posted online, in the context of having more ammunition to attack Obama now that we know what Mark Penn' suggested line of attack for the primary. I am happy that Hillary didn't follow Penn's terrible advice.

You can also check out all the details from the "Hillary Clinton Memos" yourself.

~BT

My Obama Prediction Explained

Given the push back I have received from my last post on the state of the primary race, I thought I would further elaborate my thinking behind predicting an Obama victory this early.

After further thought, I realize that it was way premature to be making any predictions but I guess I'm getting antsy with this primary that just keeps dragging on. Don't get me wrong, I am loving all the excitement, the incredible turnout on the Democratic side, and the two wonderful and extremely capable candidates. I just want this thing to be decided and hope that whoever wins makes the other his/her running mate. It seems I'm a "bi-candidate" like Margaret Cho. In a recent article at The Huffington Post, Cho said:

I am bi-candidate. I like Hillary and Obama. I like Obama and Hillary. I think it is wonderful that we have not just one, but two great candidates to choose from. It is an embarrassment of riches really. Not just one amazing politician. But two! We have the incredibly exciting Barack Obama, who represents hope and change and who can get a whole generation of disillusioned voters excited about politics again, which I think I is a miracle in itself. Then we have the amazing Hillary Clinton, who has already proved herself to be a great leader, who can and will clean up after the Bush administration just like she did the last time she was president.

So, we have two great candidates, I like them both, but why do I think that Obama is going to win?

1. Obama will win Wisconsin decisively.

• As Dan, who is from Wisconsin has noted, his state has historically been quite progressive and according to a number of reports, Obama has an advantage in terms of organization and key endorsements.
  
• Last night, Obama delivered a speech to a soldout 18,000+ crowd in Madison, WI. These crowds continue to be amazing and they are not only coming to hear Obama speak but also turning out to vote.
• The latest poll, from Feb 8-10, already has Obama ahead and doesn't include any momentum from the decisive wins in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
  
• Update: New Rasmussen poll shows Obama up 47 to 43.
  
• Clinton also has been campaigning in Texas and seems to be not contesting Wisconsin with the full force of her campaign.
• Wisconsin is an open primary so independent voters should also help Obama.
  

2. The Clinton campaign is in the midst of internal turmoil at its highest ranks with the top two campaign staff leaving as well as two key staffers from the internet division. Also, Clinton is raising half as much money as Obama and he will be able to outspend her in the weeks leading up to March 4th.

3. After three full weeks of positive media coverage for Obama and clear momentum against Clinton, I think it is likely that she lose one of Ohio or Texas.

• Looking at the exit polling from Virginia and Maryland we see that for the first time Obama beat or broke even with Clinton in certain key demographics. Obama tied Clinton among Latino voters and white women. Further, Obama beat Clinton among voters over the age of 60 and among voters who earned less than $50,000. Both groups had previously been solidly behind Clinton.
• The process for apportioning delegates in Texas benefits Obama, especially since he will gain more delegates from his margins of victory in urban areas. Even if Hillary wins the statewide vote, the delegate count will likely be a draw.
  

If the above takes place, I believe Clinton's support among super delegates collapses and that she won't stay in until Pennsylvania votes on April 22.

~BT

State of the Primary Race

After 8 straight wins for Obama, the media is talking about Obama's momentum and his newly acquired lead in all the various delegate counts. The Clinton campaign now finds itself in a precarious position as it tries to regain its footing to be competitive in Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas.

Given all the talk about super delegates, Michigan and Florida being stripped of delegates and all the spin coming from both sides, people are rightfully asking where do things stand now?

First, the super delegates: Super delegates are elected Democrats from across the country who are able to vote for who they want at the convention. I think all the talk of super delegates deciding the race is overblown, given that super delegates will end up voting for the presumptive nominee as they have done in the past. According to Democratic Convention Watch, Clinton currently has an 86 delegate lead over Obama. As I am writing this post, I noticed that Chris Bowers just announced the creation of the Super Delegate Transparency Project, which should help to clarify things.

Second, Michigan and Florida: For those of you not keeping track, both Michigan and Florida held primaries before they were allowed to under the DNC rules. As a result, both states were stripped of their delegates and both candidates didn't campaign.

So, what's next for the campaigns?

Wisconsin votes on February 19th and the latest poll has Obama leading Clinton 45 to 41. This will be followed by two debates that have been announced so far, one on CNN and one with NBC.

Then on March 4th, we have Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont going to the polls. Ohio and Texas have large numbers of delegates at stake and Clinton must win by large margins in both. Even James Carville, a big Hillary supporter, has admitted as much saying, "She's behind. Make no mistake. If she loses either Texas or Ohio, this thing is done."

It seems to be that it is highly unlikely for Clinton to come back and win the primary at this point. For Clinton to make up the difference in the delegate count, she would have to win Ohio and Texas by 20 points and that's considering she can squeak out a tie in Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, it looks like the race will be over by the time Pennsylvania votes on April 22nd. I think that Clinton will drop out after March 4th after she realizes that she no longer has a viable path to the nomination. I had been really excited that we would have almost a month of campaigning and attention given to Pennsylvania voters, but by the look of it, the race will be over after March 4th and Obama will win. That is my prediction.

Any thoughts? Disagreements?

~BT

Update: I have further explained my Obama prediction.

Obama and Clinton Should Focus on McCain

In last night's victory speech, Obama added some extra lines to provide a better contrast with McCain. TPM's Greg Sargent highlights this part of Obama's speech (emphasis mine):

When I am the nominee, I will offer a clear choice. John McCain won't be able to say that I ever supported this war in Iraq, because I opposed it from the beginning. Senator McCain said the other day that we might be mired for a hundred years in Iraq, which is reason enough to not give him four years in the White House.

If we had chosen a different path, the right path, we could have finished the job in Afghanistan, and put more resources into the fight against bin Laden; and instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Baghdad, we could have put that money into our schools and hospitals, our road and bridges - and that's what the American people need us to do right now.

And I admired Senator McCain when he stood up and said that it offended his "conscience" to support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in a time of war; that he couldn't support a tax cut where "so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate." But somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight Talk Express lost its wheels, because now he's all for them.

Well I'm not. We can't keep spending money that we don't have in a war that we shouldn't have fought. We can't keep mortgaging our children's future on a mountain of debt. We can't keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace. It's time to turn the page.

Clinton needs to do the same thing and keep her focus on McCain and the Republicans. Some of the so-called pundits, like Pat Buchanan who I had to endure watching on MSNBC's coverage last night, are claiming that Hillary has to go negative on Obama. I disagree. The last time the Clinton campaign went negative on Obama, leading up to South Carolina, there was a huge blowback from Democrats. Rather, Clinton should focus on how she is better equipped and capable of beating John McCain in the general election.

~BT

Activists and Donors for Obama and Clinton

This is great for American Democracy! Matt Stoller puts the Obama activist and donor numbers in perspective.

What is remarkable about the last 48 hours is the haul by the Hillary Clinton campaign of around $7 million from 45,000 online donors or so. These are suburban women who probably haven't been part of the culture of online giving, and who for some reason have started to contribute.

This primary battle between Obama and Clinton is simply incredible to watch.

~BT

Keep going after young voters!!

I have been following and linking to Mike Connery's ongoing coverage of the progress being made in youth mobilization and voter turnout as well as the efforts by the various campaigns to attract young voters.

Like we saw in Iowa, young voters turned out en masse in South Carolina, as Mike reports,

Turnout in the Democratic Primary in South Carolina almost tripled yesterday. According to CIRCLE, 74,245 young voters went to the polls, 19 percent of eligible young voters. In 2004, only 26,181 voters aged 18 to 29 participated. As a share of the electorate, young voters made up 14 percent of the electorate, an increase of 5 percent over the previous cycle.

Also of interest were two videos by the Obama and Clinton campaigns targeted at youth. Check them out.




I liked both videos and hope that the campaigns continue to target youth and build excitement around the 2008 election.

~BT

Edwards and Clinton speak on the heals of Obama

Edwards delivered a gracious concession speech that reassured his supporters that he is staying in the race. He focused on how his campaign is giving a voice to the disenfranchised and that he will continue to be that voice.

Hillary addressed South Carolina in little more than a sentence. It is clear they are trying to minimize this loss and refocus everyone's attention on Super Tuesday. She is delivering her regular stump speech and isn't being broadcast live. Chelsea continues to accompany Hillary and hope that means that Clinton will continue to target young voters.

~BT

Clinton Speech in Missouri

Bill Clinton is currently speaking in Independence, Missouri. I'm not sure if we will see Hillary.

The first thing that jumps out at me is all the young people, mostly young women, who are standing behind the podium. The Clintons are continuing to court the youth vote.

Bill Clinton's message:

• "He [Obama] won fair and square and we congratulate him for that but we now move on to February 5th where millions of voters get to vote."
• Talked about the success of the Clinton Global Initiative, although not sure why. Shouldn't the focus be on the candidate
  
• Reclaim the future for our young people
• Most Americans are already in a recession

Sounds like he is going back to campaigning against Bush, which I really like and hope continues.

Both CNN and MSNBC have cut away from the speech, so that's all I have for now. I will try and post the link to this speech once it goes up on Youtube.

Hillary will be speaking at 9:30pm EST in Nashville. From Chris Bowers,

While Obama and Edwards are in SC tonight with supporters, Clinton is travelling to Tennessee tonight, to give the perception that she is focusing on February 5th instead of South Carolina.

~BT

And the Winner Is...

Only 1 minute after the polls closed, MSNBC, NBC, CBS have called it for Obama. CNN hasn't yet.

What matters will be the actual breakdown of votes, especially for second place. But results after 1 minute? Seriously?

CNN has now called it for Obama and is now going through every demographic group broken down by gender and race to see who they voted for. There wasn't a gender gap among black voters who went to Obama. Among white voters, men went for Edwards and women for Clinton. As far as I can tell, Obama did reasonably well among white voters.

The infamous exit polls results.

African-Americans

Obama 81%
Clinton 17%
Edwards 1%

African-American Women

Obama 82%
Clinton 17%
Edwards 0%

Whites

Edwards 39%
Clinton 36%
Obama 24%

Just in, Obama will give his victory speak at 9pm and I'm sure it will be carried live on cable news.

And for those that are wondering, I would be commenting on Fox News coverage, but students living on-campus have not had access to Fox News for over a month. As much as I don't like Fox News or "Faux News" as I like to call them, it is ridiculous that Penn Video Network has not fixed the problem.

8:30pm Update via Dailykos,

With 55% of the vote in, Obama now has garnered more votes than John McCain did in the Republican primary. Additionally, Clinton has received more votes than Thompson (3rd place), and Edwards has received more votes than Ron Paul and GOP "front-runner" Giuliani.

~BT

Liveblogging South Carolina Democratic Primary #2

Polls are about to close and I just watched a great interview that Keith Olbermann had with South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, the House Majority Clyburn commented on the injection of racial politics into the race and the backlash from voters that is being seen in the exit polls. It seems that South Carolina voters, regardless of race, were displeased with the negative campaigning and bickering between the camps.

Christy Hardin Smith over at Firedoglake.com had this great post about the influence of the economic disparities on the racial divide that the media has been focusing on.

Shaila Dewan (whose reporting I generally love) had a glimpse of economic disparities along the racial divide in South Carolina today that is worth discussing at length. She focuses on a town called Orangeburg -- Mr. ReddHedd and I always joke that all roads in SC lead to Orangeburg because, truly, they all seem to do just that when we are driving down that way. And this struck me in her piece:

“My cousin works at McDonald’s,” she said. “She said some people like working there because they get benefits. That’s what they go for now.”

Because Orangeburg is a blue county in a red state, it has been visited by all the Democratic candidates, some more than once. Health care, gasoline prices and trade imbalances are all pocketbook issues here....

Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a state legislator who represents part of Orangeburg County, said some of the unemployment among blacks stemmed from poor education by the state’s money-starved rural schools. The school system was recently portrayed in a documentary about education along Interstate 95 called “Corridor of Shame,” a phrase Mr. Obama used in the debate in Myrtle Beach on Monday.

“The issue is education and the effect of a lack of a quality education on the level playing field,” Ms. Cobb-Hunter said.

I'm hearing so much economic uncertainty and fears across the economic divide -- and from readers everywhere across the country. Much more than concerns about any other issue at the moment, and I'm wondering if this election cycle is going to sustain an "it's the economy again, stupid" line of electoral questions all the way through -- or whether this is a temporary outgrowth of market/housing volatility. Somehow, I think the questions are going to keep on coming for quite a while. Anyone else sensing that "kitchen table" pocketbook politics is going to be key this year?

Any doubts that the media is enjoying stoking the race versus gender questions? Read on. Jeffrey Feldman has a thought-provoking piece on indentity politics worth your time today, which makes an excellent riposte.

And the winner is...

~BT

Liveblogging South Carolina Democratic Primary

Let the fun begin. I am watching MSNBC and checking CNN on television and Brave New Films & Young Turks' coverage online.

At 6:02, we should now have exit polls. The results? coming soon...

Matt Stoller, who is on the ground in South Carolina, offers his closing thoughts:

The frame I want to offer is rooted in talking to voters. The primary questions on their mind seems to be who can win the White House, and who can fix what Bush did to the country. It is not which Democratic surrogate said what about which person, and race and gender in the negative sense are annoying everyone, unless it's framed as a positive, in which case all sides are proud that a black man and a woman are running. There is worry about a black man winning the Presidency, and Clinton being polarizing, but it's rooted in electability. These are Democratic partisans.

With Obama up around 12% in polls leading into today, the more exciting question is how well did Edwards do? Can he get past Clinton and take second? Edwards has outspent both Clinton and Obama and we can't ignore the appeal of his economic message.

First exit polls to hit the wire:

6:15	AP exit polls: 75% say country is ready to elect a black President, and the same percentage said the same about a woman.

6:15	AP exit polls: Roughly 80% of Dem voters would be satisfied if Clinton or Obama won the nomination

more to come...

~BT