UpHill Battle
When the going gets nasty, the nasty get nasty. In tough fight, pro-abandonment Hill is soldiering on. It’s an irony fest, starting with AFP:
White House hopeful Hillary Clinton launched a scathing attack on Democratic rival Barack Obama Saturday in a bid to restore her front-runner status ahead of key nominating contests next month. After a day of denying that a series of 11 straight losses to Obama left her campaign teetering on the edge of defeat, Clinton changed to a sharper tone and went on the offensive.“Shame on you, Barack Obama,” Clinton said during a campaign rally in Ohio, which along with the southern state of Texas holds key Democratic nominating contests on March 4.“It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.”The 60-year-old New York senator — who accused the Obama campaign of sending out misleading policy mailings about health care and free trade — and the 46-year-old Illinois senator are to meet for a final televised debate on Tuesday in Cleveland, Ohio.
Clinton’s campaign also dismissed as “nonsense” a Washington Post report that quoted an unnamed campaign aide as saying Clinton saw Obama’s win in Wisconsin’s state primary earlier this week as a “decisive blow.”
“She knows where things are going. It’s pretty clear she has a big decision. But it’s daunting. It’s still hard to accept,” said the adviser.
“The mathematical reality at that point became impossible to ignore,” the adviser said. “There’s not a lot of denial left at this point.”
Clinton has so far won 1,275 delegates, compared to 1,374 for Obama according to RealClearPolitics.com. A total of 2,025 are needed to secure the party’s nod.
“This story line is nonsense,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. “The mood is upbeat. Senator Clinton is working hard every day to do well in Texas and Ohio and secure this nomination.”
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Polls released this week have suggested Obama and Clinton are in a dead-heat in Texas. RealClearPolitics’ average of Ohio polls, however, has Clinton at 50 percent and Obama at 42 percent there.
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Obama’s campaign accused Clinton of engaging in negative attacks and stood by the statements in its campaign flyers.
“Everything in those mailers is completely accurate, unlike the discredited attacks from Hillary Clinton’s negative campaign that have been rejected in South Carolina, Wisconsin, and across America,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
“We look forward to having a debate this Tuesday on the facts.”
NYT: Somber Hill soldiers on.
“When this is all over, I’m really looking forward to seeing you,” she told one of those supporters by phone the other day.
Mrs. Clinton has not given up, in her head or her heart, her quest to return to the White House, advisers say. But as resolute as she is, she no longer exudes the supreme confidence that was her trademark before the first defeat, in Iowa in January. And then there were more humbling blows, aides say: replacing her campaign manager on Feb. 10, then losing the Wisconsin primary and her hold on the women’s vote there last Tuesday.
If she is not temperamentally suited to reckon with the possibility of losing quite yet, advisers say, she is also a cold, hard realist about politics — at some point, she is known to say, someone will win and someone will not.
“She has a real military discipline that, now that times are tough, has really kicked into gear,” said Judith Hope, a friend and informal adviser to Mrs. Clinton, and a former chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Party. “When she’s on the road and someone has a negative news story, she says, ‘I don’t want to hear it; I don’t need to hear it.’ I think she wants to protect herself from that and stay focused.”
All those military stalwartness analogies are a little odd, given how she threw Iraq under the bus.
Washington Post picks apart the picture: Obama’s Red State prospects unclear.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:19 am Comments (3) on Sunday, February 24, 2008
3 Responses to “UpHill Battle”
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February 24th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
“White House hopeful Hillary Clinton…”
What an odd phrase to characterize the former First Lady, “White House hopeful”…
I think that’s the first time I’ve seen that. Must represent a turning point, or tipping point, of some kind.
Jamie Irons
February 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
She isn’t going to go down without a fight, I’ll give her that. And while I wouldn’t vote for either one of them, if I had to choose between them, I’d choose her. Maybe.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Oh, Billary is infinitely superior to The Messiah™, Rebecca. I’ll take unenlightened self-interest over naive platitudes any day.
But that’s more of a choice of which hand basket to ride into Hell in.