I'm Embarrassed for my Party

**pippadaisy**[$] · #1 02-21-2008, 01:53 PM

ARG. Stupid LAT.

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Please tell me she will come out and say please don't make me look like this.

brian_igo · #2 02-21-2008, 02:49 PM

She technically can't say anything about it because 527 groups have to be wholly independent from candidates and vice-versa. But I don't expect this to get very far. The group has said in other reports that it would release its list of donors, which is going to be a real detriment to anyone hoping to get the ear of Obama if he wins the WH.

The Clinton campaign is dying. They're doing everything that every failing campaign does. Stuff like this is the frustration of staff that has worked their asses off for a couple of years and is seeing it go down the drain. A lot of talk about the delegates came from the same place.

I think Wisconsin was her real last stand. If she had kept it close she might have got a bump going into Texas and Ohio, but that didn't happen. Texas and Ohio are very expensive states to campaign in. She was running about $20 million behind Obama in primary fundraising before Wisconsin, if she's not broke she's close and it's going to be very hard for her to raise money after ten straight losses. (To back this up, she made an immediate fundraising appeal in her Ohio speech Tuesday night and left Ohio and Texas on Wednesday morning for a fundraising event in NY.)

Also note how the tone of her rhetoric towards Obama has changed since Tuesday night. She's really dialed it down and spent a lot of time yesterday going after McCain. If she's really going to fight it out to the bitter end she'd be attacking Obama constantly.

**lynnzop**[$] · #3 02-21-2008, 03:25 PM

"Vice-President Clinton"?

brian_igo · #4 02-21-2008, 04:02 PM

Quote:

lynnzop said

"Vice-President Clinton"?

No. It does more damage to the whole ticket in a general election than good, and I think the race baiting her campaign did before SC caused real damage in their working relationship.

**jgibson2**[$] · #5 02-21-2008, 07:27 PM

Maybe Bill didn't want to be first husband? He had to know better. He didn't make that kind of mistake when he was president -- many other mistakes, but not that one.

brian_igo · #6 02-21-2008, 08:34 PM

I don't think Bill willfully torpedoed her campaign. Being a spouse of a candidate requires an entirely different skill set than being the candidate. When the campaign got tough he totally forgot how to be a support player, and that hurt her.

They've made much bigger mistakes in the structure and strategy of their campaign. They ran a totally top-down campaign instead of building grass-roots organizations in the states, which cost a fortune. Then when Obama showed that he was a force to be reckoned with, they made a bunch of incredibly stupid personal attacks and said they would muscle the super delegates to get the nomination no matter what voters said. The Clinton campaign really believed they were the inevitable choice for the nomination and when that was challenged, they fell apart.

Obama, by contrast, has run the best political campaign I've ever seen. They've been brilliant at highlighting its strengths and keeping displays of his weaknesses to a minimum.

**pippadaisy**[$] · #7 02-21-2008, 10:08 PM

Not to mention that every single communication that has come out of his campaign staff has been amazing. They make every single supporter feel valued even if they haven't donated, which of course, makes more people want to contribute.

**jgibson2**[$] · #8 02-21-2008, 11:31 PM

Quote:

brian_igo said

Obama, by contrast, has run the best political campaign I've ever seen. They've been brilliant at highlighting its strengths and keeping displays of his weaknesses to a minimum.

Teddy nailed it when he compared him to JFK. I had been thinking that for weeks before Kennedy actually said it.

brian_igo · #9 02-22-2008, 02:44 AM

Quote:

pippadaisy said

Not to mention that every single communication that has come out of his campaign staff has been amazing. They make every single supporter feel valued even if they haven't donated, which of course, makes more people want to contribute.

From a commenter at Daily Kos, speaking about the Texas campaign:

Quote:

(Obama's) ground game in Houston is already awe-inspiring, and it's just gearing up. We have 16 GOTV parties scheduled within 4 miles of my apartment next week. Sixteen.

Several other Texans reported similar GOTV and volunteer saturation. This isn't sent down from the campaign top to the grass roots. Everything is ran through Obama's website but they are just a facilitator for what is a massive level of viral marketing. If you want to host a GOTV party, put in your info and you appear on an event board and calendar for that area, and you get information via e-mail from the campaign tailored to what you're doing (phone banking, canvasing, etc.) taken from earlier events. If you want to participate just put in your zip code and a map and calendar appear. It's not only easy on everyone, it also allows seamlessly refining the process. At this stage of the campaign they know exactly what to tell volunteers to get the most effective results from phone banking or whatever. If any abnormal results show up in feedback from people in Texas, they can be quickly incorporated for the next states.

All of this only works if you have a great candidate. I loved the guy, but Paul Simon could not run this campaign. But the Obama campaign deserves massive credit for realizing early on how to take his ability to get 20,000 people to come out for a rally and turn that into the best ground operation in the history of American politics. I'm not exaggerating one bit. Obama has sixteen GOTV parties in one Houston neighborhood in one week - and that's not an exceptional case. By contrast, two days ago the Clinton campaign was bragging about having 20 storefront staff offices across the entire state. They don't know what's hit them.

Take a good look at the rest of the race, because national political campaigns are never going to be the same after this. Obama's use of the internet in this cycle is going to have the same kind of seismic effect on campaigning as the Kennedy/Nixon TV debate in 1960.

**pippadaisy**[$] · #10 02-22-2008, 03:10 AM

His understanding of how to leverage the Internet is nothing short of amazing. Ron Paul had a little bit of it, but it only went with money, not actually getting the rest of the campaign running with it as well. It isn't just about the money, although it helps.

frazzledspice · #11 02-23-2008, 01:46 AM

I think that "Bush, the Sequel" has been so disastrous for America (and the world) that people are terrified to trying "Clinton, the Sequel."

If Clinton loses the nomination, she will still be a respected and powerful Senator from NY, where her re-election seems to be almost a lock every six years (she won 70%-30% last time.)

The former President will still have an excellent chance of getting a plum assignment in an Obama administration--it's said he wants to be UN Ambassador, and the wonderful work of his foundation worldwide make him a wonderful candidate for that post.

Here is Arkansas, Clinton is very much loved. I like her, too, but I want to go with the likeliest winner, and I think it's Obama.

He might even be bi-partisan--I could picture him appointing the nicey-nice straightlaced Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of Protocol.