Do-or-die Hillary turns bully as Obama starts to pull away
With her rival ahead in the polls and wooing her bedrock Hispanic and female voters, Clinton is trying to force her way back with a risky strategy that could split her partySarah Baxter, Columbus, Ohio
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THERE is an air of desperation in Hillary Clinton’s camp. The New York senator has embarked on a door-die mission to hector and bully her way to victory, putting her on a potential collision course with Democratic party leaders.
It is a risky strategy that could leave her more isolated and unpopular as voters defect to Barack Obama, the new front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama, 46, is being tarred as a cultish, messianic figure who talks big but cannot deliver.
Clinton, 60, is being driven into her last redoubts as white women, blue collar workers and Hispanics – her core supporters – have begun to peel away. In public she is adopting a feistier tone and a more populist message against the Illinois senator in a bid to stem her losses.
“Speeches don’t put food on the table. Speeches don’t fill up your tank, or fill your prescription, or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night,” she said at a rally in Ohio, a swing state with a heavy component of “rust belt” working-class voters who are already feeling the effects of looming recession.
Privately, her mood has darkened after losing eight primaries and caucuses in a row. The reali-sation that without a series of huge victories in the remaining contests it is impossible for Clinton to win enough “pledged” delegates to clinch the nomination has sent her staff into shock.
Al Gore, the former vice-president, was revealed yesterday to be waiting in the wings to broker a deal should the “superdele-gates”, comprising 796 party figures, end up with a casting vote.
The New York Times reported that he had held talks with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the former presidential candidates John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd over how to avoid a bruising party battle. Tempers have been running high within the Clinton camp.
Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, got into a slanging match with the media consultant Mandy Grunwald at Clinton’s campaign headquarters. “Your ad doesn’t work,” he fumed.
“Oh it’s always the ad, never the message,” Grunwald shot back. Insiders say the atmosphere is dark, even though the fight is not over yet. Loyalty to Clinton remains strong, but there have been too many chiefs and not enough Indians, they complain.
The friends of Bill or “white boys”, as Penn and Terry McAu-liffe, the campaign chairman, are known, have long viewed “Hillaryland” – the closed circle of female friends – with suspicion.
Patti Solis Doyle, who coined the term “Hillaryland” and was axed as Clinton’s campaign manager last week, found herself in the midst of rows. “There was a feeling that nobody was in charge,” said one observer. “She would try to play honest broker and go to Hillary with, ‘Mark says this, Mandy says that, Howard
says this’ when what they needed was a general.”
Despite Solis Doyle’s legendary status as a second daughter to Clinton, she did not have the nerve to tell her the campaign was haemorrhaging cash at an alarming rate, a troubling sign of the fear and apprehension that Clinton inspires among staff. Clinton repaid the favour by not telling Solis Doyle she was going to put $5m of her own money into propping up her campaign.
Time that should be spent courting voters is now being devoted to fundraising after staff blew through a mind-boggling $130m and still ended up out-organised by Obama. In Wisconsin, a largely white working-class state that Clinton should be able to win on Tuesday, precious resources are being spent on a blast of negative advertisements challenging Obama’s refusal to debate with Clinton.
The latest polls put Obama ahead by 47% to 43%, but this weekend Clinton was fighting a rearguard action to restore her standing in the hope of pulling off a comeback reminiscent of the first primary in New Hamp-shire, which revived her fortunes after she finished third in the Iowa caucuses. Bill Clinton is also campaigning with begging bowl in hand for funds.
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More: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3382295.ece
Ouch...
:shrug: