I suggested earlier that Hillary Clinton may have little choice but to embrace Rudy Giuliani’s strategy of betting everything on a Super Tuesday strategy. Tom Edsall reports that this may soon be adopted as the campaign’s official strategy moving forward.
A panicked and cash-short Clinton campaign is seriously considering giving up on the Nevada caucuses and on the South Carolina primary in order to regroup and to save resources for the massive 19-state mega-primary on February 5. […]
The Clinton campaign has raised over $100 million, but has “only” $15 to $20 million left. It faces donor reluctance to give more in the face of the Iowa defeat and the prospect of a second loss in New Hampshire today. Even worse, the campaign fears defections among those fundraisers who want to be with a winner and who might be easily persuaded to support Barack Obama. […]
While the amount of money Clinton has would seem to be more than enough by past standards, the cost of competing in the February 5 states — including New York, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Arizona – is unprecedented in the history of American primaries. She will face, in turn, an extremely well-funded Obama campaign, whose cash register right now doesn’t stop ringing as donations are coming in over the Internet, by mail and in checks handed over in person.
The decision whether to take on Obama in Nevada and South Carolina will likely be made within the next 12 hours.
From the Clinton campaign’s perspective, giving up on Nevada and South Carolina entirely makes some sense. If Obama wins today in New Hampshire, he’ll likely get yet another boost in South Carolina, which would add to his current lead. In Nevada, Clinton was ahead in the polls, but Obama is now expected to pick up the support of the Culinary Workers Union, the state’s largest and most powerful union, which suggests he’ll be four-for-four by the end of the month.
But Clinton, if she decides to pursue this strategy, may soon find herself in the same position Giuliani is in.
Once the one-time frontrunner goes zero-for-four, it gets harder to raise money, and harder to convince voters in Feb. 5 states that they should take a chance on her. Defeats beget defeats.
Clinton allies, meanwhile, are considering a very aggressive intervention on her behalf.
[S]ome top independent expenditure groups supporting Clinton have been exploring the creation of an anti-Obama “527 committee” that would take unlimited contributions from a few of Clinton’s super-rich backers and from a handful of unions to finance television ads and direct mail designed to tarnish the Illinois Senator’s image. […]
Three groups conducting independent expenditure campaigns in behalf of Clinton – Emily’s List, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) – have explored the possibility of trying to put together a multi-million dollar effort privately dubbed the Anybody-But-Obama 527 Committee, but they have run into problems finding any Democratic operative willing to become the director of a campaign against the man who now is the odds-on favorite to become the party’s nominee.
This strikes me as a horrendous idea. For one thing, Dems and Dem donors aren’t going to want to line up behind an independent effort to smear the Democratic frontrunner.
Second, there has to come a point at which this starts to look futile. Imagine, for example, if, in 2004, after Howard Dean had blown his leads in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, a group of Dean backers put together a multi-million dollar effort privately dubbed the Anybody-But-Kerry 527 Committee, intended to tarnish the Massachusetts senator’s image. It would have looked awful for Dean and his allies, and undermined their standing in the party for years to come. Is this really where Clinton allies want to go?
Stay tuned.