Clinton Sightings
Election’s far from over, way too early to award the line of the 2008 campaign to NYT’s Mark Leibovich. But this one is going to be hard to beat:
DURHAM, N.H. — Is this what it would have been like had Elvis been reduced to playing Reno?
Former President Bill Clinton has been drawing sleepy and sometimes smallish crowds at big venues in the state that revived his presidential campaign in 1992. He entered to polite applause and rows of empty seats at the University of New Hampshire on Friday. Several people filed out midspeech, and the room was largely quiet as he spoke, with few interruptions for laughter or applause. He talked about his administration, his foundation work and some about his wife.
“Hillary’s got good plans,” Mr. Clinton kept saying as he worked through a hoarse-voiced litany of why his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, is a “world-class change agent.” He urged his audience to “caucus” on Tuesday for Mrs. Clinton, before correcting himself (“vote”). He took questions, quickly worked a rope line and left.
Maybe the sluggish day was a blip. It was, in fairness, the day after Mrs. Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses, behind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina. Mr. Clinton was working on 30 minutes’ sleep. He traveled to New Hampshire from Iowa in the wee hours, and the university was on winter break.
But there was a similarly listless aura at the previous stop, in Rochester. And again, on Saturday in Bow, at just the sort of high school gym that the master campaigner used to blow out. Only about 225 showed up in Bow — about one-third the capacity of the room — to hear Mr. Clinton hit his bullet points on the subprime lending crisis, $100 barrels of oil and how “10 of Hillary’s fellow senators have endorsed her.”
“The crowd seemed very passive,” Arthur Cunningham of Bow said after the speech. “Maybe they were tired.”
Politico: Hill’s advisors fear NH loss, opt to withhold negative ads.
On Sunday, the Clinton team was out instead with a new game plan, sharpening points she made in Saturday night’s debate and trying to undermine Obama without going nuclear.
“Rhetoric vs. Results, Talk vs. Action,” is the new formula.
Wash Times: Clinton Recruits Out-of-Staters to Pack Rally.
Reporters who walked into this Nashua high school today were immediately struck by the crowd — there are visibly more people here for Sen. Hillary Clinton than were here for Sen. Barack Obama yesterday in the same location.
The Clinton crowd was loud and boisterous and their foot-stomping was thunderous.
Many of them were also from Massachusetts.
Elvis impersonators, always a hit with the faithful.
Riehlworldview: Jury’s in, Clinton’s out. Or looking that way, anyway.
Gateway: Clinton, Obama camps dicker over who’s more pro-abortion.
Drudge speculates on a Clinton disappearing act:
Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!
“She can’t take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada,” laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. “If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn’t want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats.”
OK, if Drudge’s source says so, but once she bails, the Clinton brand’s all done.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:23 am on Monday, January 7, 2008
9 Responses to “Clinton Sightings”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:39 am
He may play in that Nevada town, but I doubt even Bill Clinton would ever do Reno. No man would
January 7th, 2008 at 9:30 am
“Rhetoric vs. Results, Talk vs. Action,” is the new formula.
0 equals 0. That’s the real Clinton formula.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
“The crowd seemed very passive,” Arthur Cunningham of Bow said after the speech. “Maybe they were tired.”
Maybe they are tired. Tired of the Clintons at long last.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Hillary, tears up. I didn’t know that to be possible.
January 7th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
“…melting, melting! Oh, what a world…”
January 7th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hillary tears up:
I saw the video.
Not good, staged or not. Wrong message - getting teary-eyed - when claiming to be ready from “day one” to lead the nation.
January 7th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Yeah, I recall then Gov Blanco started crying in the middle of Katrina. Even though that was a weather related issue, something Democrats tell us they can do something about on a global scale. On a state scale I guess its beneath them.
“Madame President, bombs are going off in New York City.”
Cue Lucille Ball: “Waaaaaah!”
January 8th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Perhaps it’s because of the Clinton brand.
They keep talking about change (which is sorta like “climate change” when it comes to actual definition). I, for one (or two, with a nod to RebeccaH) am decidedly ready for a change from these people. Have been.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hillary’s campaign has been based on ‘being inevitable.’ And so it should have been, except that Obama (who looked to me like he was trying out this time, for a serious run in 2012) is magic onstage.
Just one little loss, the Iowa caucus… and she’s not inevitable.
It’s like the Wizard of Oz, really.