Please see Update on Financial Times UK editorial: Clinton must step aside today..
In my opinion this priceless post by a commenter at The Plank, TNR, that Clinton remains undefeated in uncontested elections, mirrors the thinking in the Clinton camp.
“”Yeah, but this just goes to show that Obama only wins in states that hold contested elections. Sure, he wins big in caucus states, he wins big in primary states, he wins big when turnout is low, and he wins big with record-high turnout.
But what the Obama-worshipping media is overlooking is that in each of the 25 state contests Obama has won so far, his name appeared on the ballot. It’s time to stop giving Obama a pass on this critical issue.
Remember, if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama’s name will not be on the ballot in November. And only Hillary Clinton has demonstrated that she can win when Obama’s name is not on the ballot. In fact, she’s undefeated in contests where Obama is not on the ballot, making her clearly the more electable general-election candidate.”” (H/T: The Daily Dish)
No doubt you’ve read that caucuses and red states don’t count and other remarkable silliness from Clinton’s chief strategist.
I’m just saying there’s now a mounting chorus for Hillary to call it quits. May I suggest she does so right after March 4. The Hillary campaign discovered only this month, that the Texas rules may dissolve their firewall.. They failed to do their homework.
Bill Clinton offered, we’ll make a last stand – It’s do or Die in Texas
There’s a Texas-sized stumbling block on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s comeback trail.
Even Clinton’s most devoted surrogate — her husband, Bill Clinton — acknowledged the do-or-die stakes on Wednesday in Beaumont, Texas, conceding that a loss in Texas or Ohio would likely doom her candidacy..
“If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don’t deliver for her, I don’t think she can be. It’s all on you,” the former president told the audience at the beginning of his speech.
Mayhill Flower, Huffpost, finds Clinton’s Texas Ground Game Plunges Into Chaos
Although the Clinton Campaign has been telling the press that they have the ground operations to pull off a win in Texas, those ground operations have not been in evidence when I’ve traveled to small towns to see how Bill Clinton is doing on the Texas stump.
Wednesday evening in Victoria, down in the southeastern part of the state, incipient chaos threatened to overwhelm the “Early Vote” Rally precisely because there was no ground operation.
The well-oiled, beautifully constructed state-level HRC campaign machine, focused and determined in Iowa, Nevada and California, is beginning to break down.
“It’s a clusterfuck! Just a clusterfuck!” the Corpus Christi producer for a local news affiliate shouts into his cell phone. He’s telling his boss that there will be no coverage of Bill Clinton’s visit to Victoria for the 6 o’clock news.
“Who’s running this campaign anyway?” the producer asks, of no one in particular. “And now five hundred people have stomped away mad.” He shakes his head.
At that moment, twenty well-dressed elderly and middle-aged dignitaries and politicians exit the back of the local arts center and walk slowly for the intersection of Goodwin and Main. Presumably, they are Hillary Clinton supporters; however, given their dazed faces, they look more like commissars who have been turned out by the NKVD and cannot believe how suddenly their fortunes have changed.
With his Secret Service agents at his side, Bill Clinton walks the short block without acknowledging the little group of eminent supporters. (They are never introduced or explained.)
Maybe it’s The money woes.
My approach is from an old adage. In business, always know when to cut your losses. Never throw good money after bad. The Clintons miscalculated, planned a budget on the premise the inevitable nomination would be sealed on February 5.
Obsidian and Politco crunch the numbers.
Hilzoy, Obsidian
“I was somewhat puzzled by Clinton’s statement, though. On the one hand, her campaign clearly took in considerably less than it paid out. About nine million dollars less. And that can hardly be good news.
Moreover, she has a mass of debt: $7,576,700.48 worth, to be precise (not including the loan she made to herself.) Moreover, while some of it is large sums (over $2million owed to Mark Penn, for instance), there are a lot of pretty small unpaid bills to places throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. (Honestly, why not pay the $500.12 they owe to Premier Pizza in Algonquin, Iowa? Or the $615.25 they owe Depot Deli of Shenandoah, Iowa? Your average pizzeria or deli is not made of money, after all.)”[.]
Vogel and Cummings at Politico takes a look at the two campaigns’ finances
January yields debt for HRC, cash for Obama
Hillary Clinton ended January with $7.6 million in debt – not including the $5 million personal loan she gave to her campaign in the run-up to the critical Super Tuesday elections, according to financial reports released Wednesday.
In contrast, Democratic rival Barack Obama’s campaign’s finances continued to be robust. He reported raising nearly $37 million and spending nearly $31 million. His cash balance was $25 million, of which roughly $20 million can be spent on the primary. He reported a comparatively small $1 million in debts, owed largely to just three vendors.[.]
But the Clinton report paints a picture of a one-time front-runner under enormous pressure after miscalculating that she would wrap up the nomination before or on Feb. 5. According to the reports, Clinton raised about $20 million in January, including her loan. She spent nearly $29 million during the month.
She reported a cash balance of $29 million. But more than $20 million of that is money dedicated to the general election. Her personal loan accounts for more than half of the remaining approximately $9 million, leaving just about $4 million in cash raised from donors.
But even that money is illusionary when measured against the reported $7.6 million in debts.
More than $2 million of the red ink is owed to chief consultant and adviser, Mark Penn. But the lengthy laundry list of IOUs also includes unpaid bills ranging from insurance coverage, phone banking, printing and catering at events in Iowa, New Hampshire and California.
The chink is Clinton’s financial armor actually predates the latest reports.
Clinton’s 2007 year-end report showed her owing more than $5 million to vendors ranging from phone bank firms and pollsters to charter airline operators and telephone companies.
Her campaign last month dismissed those debts as a matter of bookkeeping. “These are not true debts accruing by the campaign, but simply unpaid invoices,” said spokesman Blake Zeff.
[ED:] oh my, I’m looking at my unpaid bills and after reading Zeff’s statement do you think I should give a call to my creditors…let them know …
But I can’t see Hillary’s creditors being worried; not with Bill’s ability to bring home the bacon deals.
Hillary should write herself another loan to pay off the small creditors. Hey, they’re bragging on having raised $15 million in February.
But here’s the real reason it’s time to call it a day: when you’ve hit a brick wall and are in double bankruptcy – Not just the money woes but they’re facing a deficit of ideas.
Yes, it’s time to fold, when a campaign does this:
–From The Hill
Clinton camp looks to supporters for advice
(H/T: Drudge-The Hatman)
“Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) campaign, reeling from 10 unanswered losses to rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), is giving supporters a chance to weigh in on the campaign with senior officials Thursday morning.
Supporters who phone in will be able to ask questions and offer advice to campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe, political director Guy Cecil and Roy Spence, a senior adviser, according to an e-mail obtained by The Hill.
In the e-mail, the Clinton campaign invites those on the list to join the call at 11:30 a.m. because “we want to hear your thoughts, advice and questions as we move forward to the March 4th primaries.
The e-mail could suggest that Clinton’s campaign has hit a wall after a string of decisive defeats and been confronted with a media environment that is increasingly skeptical about the New York senator’s ability to right her listing ship. The former first lady’s camp has also pursued an increasingly negative tone with regard to Obama, citing plagiarism charges and arguing that the Illinois senator offers only rhetoric.[.]
On the call, senior campaign advisers made it clear they plan to campaign hard through the end of the process. Harold Ickes, a senior adviser, said the campaign thinks it will be in a position to clinch the nomination about the time of the Puerto Rican caucuses on June 1.”
(emphasis added)
The HRC campaign staff and advisers have proven themselves woefully incompetent. They’re not in any shape to mount a national general election campaign for the presidency. Certainly Hillary’s, “35 years experience” has not served her well.
Wrong experience. She’s not ready to lead from day one.
Instead of moving the goal post from February 5 to March 4 and now June 1 -(aka Freidman units). It’s time to give the Party a break. Give us time to heal together, drive our focus on fund-raising and policy issues for that great day, 04 November, 2008.
Bill and Hillary, I hope you will read this editorial.
From The Financial Times, UK US Edition (reg. required)
Clinton must step aside today to win tomorrow
The time has come for Hillary Clinton to make a historic announcement, certain to dismay her friends and confound her enemies, demonstrating her undeniable strengths – intelligence, ambition and resolve.
Following on her massive Wisconsin primary defeat, she ought to surprise the nation and the world by announcing her decision not to contest Texas, Ohio or Pennsylvania, accepting Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee in opposition to John McCain.
Though she has been intermittently hostile in her comments on Mr Obama, it should be possible for her to say that she will do whatever she can to prevent a Republican victory in November.
She needs to represent her withdrawal not as a personal sacrifice, but as a refusal to play the Republican game that could lead to a McCain victory and the elevation of justices to the US Supreme Court hostile to her most cherished values.
The time has come to say that Republican rule, as exemplified by the Bush administration and McCain pledges, offer prospects too dangerous to contemplate.[.]
(emphasis added)
The time to go is today.
That is so not the person I want running the country. If you can’t even hire people to run a campaign, or worse you hire your friends and loyal buddies to run your campaign, you get an ineffective mess. Haven’t the Clinton’s not watched Bush these last 8 years?
If you hire your friends and loyal buddies for your administration (or campaign), they had better be the best people available for the job. The prime example of this I can think of is JFK appointing his brother to be Attorney General. A lot of people cried “Foul!” and “Nepotism!”, but Bobby proved to be a pretty good AG and had some pretty good successes taking on the Mob.
I don’t get the idea that Hillary Clinton’s people are doing that good a job. In fact the fact that she hasn’t yet fired Penn, among others, tells me one of two things: Either she is willing to stick with her friends even when they are running her out of her campaign, or she really, truly can’t find anybody better to do the job. Neither one makes me feel particularly good.
Hilary can’t fire Penn without paying what she owes him: $2 million and counting.
so in a struggling campaign, with negative cash flow and ineffective employees, like any business, it ends in bankruptcy.
The point I attempted to flesh out -this is an incompetent group bereft of cash and ideas.
The campaign is now getting interesting…Ohio, Texas, then PA…heavy blue-collar states that Clinton needs to win by more than 57% of the votes. The unions have endorsed Obama and will play a crucial role in these three states…imo.
Watch this video
then compare
With this Video
The second video makes it seem like Hillary is running to be the wacky new neighbour on Three’s Company or Family Ties.
Well, she probably could, but frankly I think if she did things would go from ugly, to uglier, to even uglier than that.
so sorry, should have given a caution.
to make up for that, here’s the video of what she need to do:
Is Texas Hillary’s Alamo???
Good article. Thanks for pulling it together.
Increasingly Clinton’s campaign reminds me of a sports team that has done well over the season but starts to break down during the playoffs. I can’t give you a specific team I’m thinking of, but most sports fans have seen it. A team whose defense has held the line and whose offense has moved the ball well all season, and then you get to that one critical game at the end of the year, and suddenly the team that looked so good all season turns into The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. The normally solid defense misses key blocks, the quarterback can’t hit his targets, the running backs can’t find the openings in the opposing defense and can’t exploit them when they do find them.
Or my favorite season of my favorite team, the 2001 Seattle Mariners. They were seemingly unstoppable during the regular season, winning 116 games, only to barely squeak by the Cleveland Indians in the first round of the playoffs and get clobbered by the Yankees in the league championship 4-1. Why? The Yankees had a better playoff team, for whatever reason. The Mariners got outplayed. And so it is today with Clinton; she had everything planned out for the type of campaign she thought it was going to be, and so far has just gotten out-maneuvered.
thanks for your kind words.
imho, the Clintons went into shell shock, as a deer frozen by headlights; shocked that Obama, the ‘upstart’ – has out-campaigned their invincible machine.
They never saw Obama coming.
This Peggy Noonan article Can Mrs. Clinton Lose?
captures the flavor.
Since this was written, (Feb. 08), I think the Dems have found their candidate. The Clintons are in denial.
The thing that surprises me is basically how easy it has been for Obama to thrash the Clinton machine.
I didn’t doubt that he would win ever. I just never imagined that the momentum would be so one-sided.
not well known is that Obama hired a superb team, -at the campaign HQ and on the ground. – So far, they’ve paid attention to every detail, the correct spelling the names of states:
Hawai’i.
Also they have themes within the main theme (message) that drives the campaign as it empowers.
‘Change we can believe in. Yes, we can. As primaries move forward, it’s joined by
“Ohio, your moment is now.”
“Texas, Yes we can.” Pecan.
In Wisconsin, Obama asked the crowd, “What’s Up Cheeseheads?”
To counter any potential GOP mischief-mailers misdirecting the voters with the wrong date,- campaign ads include the date of the primary.
At this late date, Hillary is thrashing around for ideas to reformulate her message.
Btw, Obama’s sister, who lives in Hawai’i, managed the campaign there. Obama did not campaign in the state.
the record speaks for the quality of the team he’s assembled, also his advisors list is pretty impressive.
they’re young, aggressive, smart, media savvy, and practicing a new form of politics for the 21st century.
l’ve said for a long while that hillary’s people, the DLC, etal, are running, or attempting to run, an outdated 90’s style campaign.
to use a sports metaphor, it’s like walsh’s west coast offense that took the nfl by storm and catapulted joe montana and the 49er’s to fame…same kind of watershed movement.
if clinton doesn’t make HUGE gains in tejas and ohio, and stays in beyond march 5, all doubts as to her/their motives will be destroyed, as will their legacy.
it’s going to be very interesting to watch this play out.
excellent diary.
Thanks, please see my Update citing The Financial Times, UK, -US Edition- calling on Hillary that she needs to step aside – go today before the March 4 primaries.
Bill won’t be pleased but, after his ‘Texas do or die’ rah, rah, he should not be surprised.
mr. graubard certainly lays it out nicely. that essay aligns closely with my thoughts, especially the potential she has by remaining in the senate.
however, hoping that she may choose the high road, given the current state of affairs, vis-a-vis the arc of the campaign, may be nothing more than an exercise in abstraction.
we shall see.
but it appears Hillary intends to carry on;
Here’s a hard-no-holes-barred interview with the Texas Monthly, to be aired statewide just before the Texas primary’
(H/T: The Daily Dish)
Hillary: Seat Michigan, Florida Delegates
Friday, February 22, 2008
Hillary has a truthful deficit. She left her name on the ballot in Michigan after other candidates had withdrawn their names!!!
It depends, on what the meaning of a pledge, “Is”
an exercise in abstraction
slash and burn all the way to the bottom.
Exactly. As I commented somewhere else, they probably figured Edwards was going to be their main competition, such as he was. Biden and Richardson were lightweights, no one would take Kucinich seriously, Gravel even less so, and c’mon, who would vote for a guy whose first name rhymes with “Iraq”, whose middle name is “Hussein” and his last name rhymes with “Osama”?
Well, as it turns out, about 2/3 of everybody out there so far.
Didn’t you see the look on Sen. Clinton’s face right after Obama gave his speech at the 2004 convention? She was pissed. We all watched that speech going, “That man’s going to be President of the Unite States.” Right after that, CSPAN panned over to Clinton who was waiting just off stage a bit. She looked pissed.
After talking to family for the next few hours, I told my husband, “The Clinton’s better co-opt that guy right now or he’s going to be a thorn in their side.” To me, that was a no brainer. My thinking was that if Obama didn’t run in ’08 and Clinton one, he’d be the one who’d run against the incumbent regardless of the party politeness of letting the sitting president have a 2nd term.
Steve Clemons, fan of Hillary, has a take on the Debate in Austin last night:
Btw, it appears Obama is well on the way to raising $50 million this month. An astounding figure.
Just as long as that “embrace of some of her staff” does NOT include Mark Penn.
hope Penn saved some of that $10 million. ..b/c imho, after this campaign he’ll be in a long dry spell.
unbelievable that one third of the HRC budget- $35 million- went to consultants, media and polling.
Incompeetence. Absolutely.
The Mariners. I know EXACTLY what you mean.
Hilariously, I commented before I read your paragraph about the Mariners. I was a huge fan all that season -was living in Seattle and went to several games at Safeco Field (LOVE that stadium, btw. Talk about a perfect view, too!)
As soon as you wrote the first paragraph I realized the Mariners were a perfect analogy. They had done so well. They had so many players make the All-Star team. Everything was working, until suddenly, it wasn’t.
Hillary could always quit and pledge her delegates to John Edwards..
Edwards gave up. Would that not place the Party behind..running to catch up with the GOP in the process?
we need to heal; to turn our focus on raising funds for the GE campaign.
we need to get a majority of seats in the Senate and House, and as well sign our lease on the White House… Plan the fumigation; restore habeas corpus; do away with that hideous name “Department of Homeland Security”.
“Homeland” reminds “fatherland” = police state. We’re there – religious ministers and businesses have been deputized…our computers’ hard disk searched at the border without a warrant. WHY?
Imho, what we are witnessing is an emotional release from terra, fear of our government..-think PAA subset of FISA- the very idea we can recover our civil liberties. That’s my hope.