The big political news of the day is that in the first primaries/caucuses after Super Tuesday, Obama won - by fairly big margins: Obama won Louisiana 57% to 36%, Nebraska 68% to 32%, and Washington (state) 68% to 32%. Washington and Nebraska were both caucuses. Louisiana was a primary. Obama won (or will win or whatever the NYT says) 74 delegates. Not a big haul.
In other news: Hillary Clinton has started threatening to pull out of a debate sponsored by MSNBC because one of their anchor commentators, David Schuster, refered to the Clinton campaign use of Chelsea Clinton to lobby for celebrity and super delegate endorsements as "pimping" her out. Yikes! That's in bad taste. Schuster has apologized for the comment and been suspended. Of course, Hillary is making this into a HUGE deal. She's saying she won't debate on that network anymore.
In isolation, I'd take her word for it as an angry mom. But given that her campaign plays the "victim card" whenever they get behind the eightball, I'm a little suspicous about motives. Is it that Hillary is only doing this as a angry parent or has she "run the numbers" and figured that she'd get more of a "bounce" in support from making a fuss about a thoughtless comment about her daughter than she would debating Obama in the run up to another round of big state primaries?
I'm not saying that's absolutely what her motives were but I do think, given past behavior, it is a reasonable candidate for an explanation. Oh, and by the way, it also gives her cash poor campaign a good deal of free air time as long as this fracus stays in the news cycle.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Obama Wins a Several More States, Clinton Plays the Victim Card - again.
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 5:37 AM
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5 comments:
Hillary has raised $10 million from 100,000 donors since Super Tuesday. Obama has pulled in more money, but neither campaign is really "cash-poor" at this point. They're both rolling in it. If you want to know what a cash-poor campaign is like, try McCain... :-)
OK, point taken about McCain.
But a campaign that is rolling in it wouldn't need a $5 million loan from the candidate's personal account.
Assuming the Clinton campaign has about $15 million on hand, a third of it would then come from their own personal account. I'd go for the free press option if I were them under those circumstances.
I don't mean to disagree with you there. I'm quite sure they are happy to make as big a meal out of this as they can. Free press is always good, and especially so when your opponent can outspend you.
There may be more to it though. Not only have the Clintons alwasy been fiercely protective of their taughter, but there's also some history, in that Shuster was vehemently anti-Clinton during the Clinton administration. So Hillary probably takes it as a personal insult, as it was likely intended. Apparently the head of NBC was so incensed at Shuster he nearly fired him, but Tim Russert intervened. At least, that's the rumor I read. Which isn't saying much.
Thing is, the minute you start using your child to help you lobby for endorsements for your campaign, you give up the right to be super-protective of them, because YOU have brought them into it. That's just in my humble opinion of course.
HRC is, I think, just trying to get out of these debates. Her prior campaign manager obviously believed that debates allowed her to shine by being more policy-oriented. That really didn't happen. What did happen at the LA debate (the one-on-one) was that Obama and Clinton appeared to share the stage as equals. That is precisely the image she cannot afford to project. She must portray him as inexperienced, as lesser, not share a stage as her equal.
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