A novel approach to the expectations game

February 29, 2008

Way back on Feb. 12, the day Barack Obama cruised to easy victories in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was already busy building up firewalls. Indeed, that afternoon, Clinton’s travel schedule didn’t include stops in any of the states voting that day, or in any state voting in February, but rather, saw three stops in Texas.

Clinton campaign advisors privately conceded that big wins in Ohio and Texas were absolutely necessary to keep the campaign going. Alan Patricof, one of Clinton’s national finance chairmen, added, “[W]e can’t wait to get to March 4.” More recently, Bill Clinton was surprisingly candid, conceding that his wife needed to win both Texas and Ohio to have a shot.

Apparently, however, that’s the old Clinton spin. The new Clinton spin is that all four of the March 4 contests — Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island — are must-wins for Obama. Here’s the latest memo from Clinton HQ:

With an eleven state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. […]

Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states. He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and — of course — making speeches. If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem.

Should Senator Obama fail to score decisive victories with all of the resources and effort he is bringing to bear, the message will be clear:

Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date, have their doubts about Senator Obama and are having second thoughts about him as a prospective standard-bearer.

So, if Obama doesn’t win Clinton’s firewall states, it means he’s in big trouble? Really?

Indeed, Mark Penn went on to insist that Obama had to win Clinton’s firewall states “decisively.”

Yglesias responded:

So if the candidate who’s leading in delegates, national polls, fundraising, and states won can’t sweep the March 4 primaries, then Clinton is the real winner? Maybe they should just go back to arguing that Texas doesn’t count.

It is a rather odd spin. Clinton picked Ohio and Texas as firewall states, she began campaigning there while Obama concentrated on February contests, and she started with double-digit poll leads in both states less than two weeks ago. This, after Obama won 11 consecutive contests, seized a large lead among delegates, and the Clinton campaign started looking for some way to slow down the avalanche.

Turning this dynamic around, and suggesting that Clinton no longer has to view March 4 contests as must-win states, is awfully tricky, and frankly, not especially persuasive.

I’m afraid expectations are already set. If Clinton comes up short on Tuesday, the campaign will probably be out of spin.

Shorter memo: “Me fail campaigning? Unpossible!”

  • I used to think that Clinton’s team would be better at taking on the Repug slime machine, than Obama’s team would, if she got the nomination. But the way the Clinton team is flailing around against Obama, it makes me wonder if her crew would have a whisp of a chance going up a really really nasty opponent.

  • Only so many firewalls, Hils. She’s going to end up like Wil E. Coyote after he runs off the cliff if she keeps putting out crap like this.

  • I’m sorry, and I know that the campaign may very well not be over after Tuesday, but I don’t think I can take the Clinton campaign’s absurdity any longer…

  • Mark Penn is really turning into a bad parody of Karl Rove at this point, and that’s really saying something. It’s like he only managed to steal the “Attack your opponent’s strengths” chapter out of Rove playbook, so that’s all he ever uses.

    Trying to argue that your candidate wins if your opponent fails to sweep you fifteen times straight instead of only 13 or 14 times straight is some of the most ridiculously inane spin I’ve ever read. “Obama doesn’t just have to beat us, he has to utterly humiliate us, and if he doesn’ humiliate us, we win.”

    Does this mean that iif the Red Sox get to the World Series next year, the other team gets to declare victory if the Sox win less than six games out seven?

  • ‘Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date’

    Huh? Do they mean that the people favored Hillary but then voted for Obama anyway?

  • the campaign will probably be out of spin.

    Nah. They’ll still be spinning, but no one will be listening.

  • beowulf888 said:
    I used to think that Clinton’s team would be better at taking on the Repug slime machine, than Obama’s team would, if she got the nomination. But the way the Clinton team is flailing around against Obama, it makes me wonder if her crew would have a whisp of a chance going up a really really nasty opponent.

    Agree. I don’t think that idea has much credibility any more. And, as weak, as McCain is campaigning right now, he’s not going to be that formidable anyway.

    I like listening to Obama, but even more I enjoy reading about his success in organizing in this campaign.

  • three states in Texas

    I think CB meant Hillary’s three states (arrogance, conciliation and confusion).

  • mnamna said:

    ‘Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date’

    Huh? Do they mean that the people favored Hillary but then voted for Obama anyway?

    I think he’s talking registered Democrats versus independents and cross-over Republicans.

  • mnamna (9) : Do they mean that the people favored Hillary but then voted for Obama anyway?

    I think this is Penn with his “caucuses don’t count” logic.

  • The Clinton campaign has disintegrated into high school tactics. It’s really very sad to watch her desperation and you can just about see fingernails clawing through the dirt and grass as she grasps for a last footing at the end. I can’t wait for March 4th either and be done with her. Time to say bye bye, Mrs. C. A new generation of leaders awaits us and boy I’m glad.

  • Clinton’s campaign tactics sound more like a ” page from the Karl Rove strategy ” every day.. How come the Clinton’s can’t come up with something original?

  • You know a campaign is hitting rock bottom when they start channeling George Orwell. Good is bad, winning is losing, success is failure…. Does Mark Penn even know what planet he’s on anymore? I’ve had my doubts for some time but this is beyond embarrassing even for him.

  • “holding rallies, and — of course — making speeches”

    I know…! What’s up with Obama and all those holding rallies and making speeches? Get real, people who live in states that are significant as of this week!

  • At this point, it appears that Clinton is winning in Rhode Island.

    If she does win there then she will have one EVERY SINGLE CONTEST

    of states containing more than one word in New England.

    I think that should pretty much seal up the nomination.

  • This is getting sad. Not funny-sad, depressing-sad. I used to have great respect for her. I still want to.

  • Hillary was counting on the Ohio / Texas “Maginot Line,” but the Obama blitzkrieg is exposing that she is fighting the “last” war and being completely overwhelmed by tactics, momentum, and a reality for which she was wholly unprepared. The American public are flirting with becoming American citizens and deciding against a Clinton restoration (on the heels of a disasterous Bush restoration).

    That said, what else can Hillary do right now? She has to posture as though a breach in the Maginot Line does not necessarily mean that Paris is going to fall. To do otherwise will drain enthusiasm from the “troops” who are trying to maintain her “Maginot Line.” She has to plant a seed of “conventional wisdom” that will allow the best possible interpretation by the chattering classes – come what may on Tuesday. If she doesn’t do this, why not throw in the towel now? I actually think this spin is as good as any she might come up with at this point. Once actual Tuesday results are in, we’ll see if she if she stops spinning.

  • Holy Shit…Hillary Clinton is planning on staying in the race, even if she loses Texas or Ohio. If that’s true, then she’s left the real world and stepped into some kind of Bush-like fantasy land.

  • beowulf888-

    I agree emphatically. After 2000 and 2004, the very thought of these incompetents taking Democratic hopes in November is chilling. I don’t know if it will continue but so far Obama’s strategy, staff, adaptability and resposiveness has run rings around the Clinton campaign. They look and perform like winners.

    For once, I’d really like to wake up after Election night not emotionally shattered and wondering “How did we blow that to these idiots?”

  • More drama from the Clinton’s. How boring. How childish. How totally inappropriate for anyone seeking the highest office in the land. That anyone could actually want 4 or more additional years of this crap is unfathomable.

  • “It is not truth that matters, but victory.”
    A(rrogant) H(illary)

    What’s even more comical is that after complaining to Tim Russert about “hypothetical situations” during the CSU debate, she’s actually running “hypothetical-situation” ads in Texas and Ohio.

    Oh—I forgot—IOKIYAC….

  • Just like in boxing matches when the overmatched boxer starts wildly throwing haymakers in the vain hope of connecting a knock-out blow, the Clinton campaign is reduced to throwing garbage at Obama. The Clinton team went textbook Rove on this campaign. Now they are in a textbook meltdown. Sad.

  • I have a golden ring, on a branch at the top of a tree with swarming with fire ants who will bite your hands as you try to climb the tree.

    Before getting to the tree, you have to swim past a moat filled with ravenous crocodiles, fight a bear with your bare hands & sing all the stanzas to the Star Spangled Banner while a troll twists your nipples with C-clamps.

    OK…now HERE’S the rules. Even if you get past all the obstacles, even if you get the ring, you CAN’T get bitten by any ants. If one ant bites you, I win.

    OK…GO!

    Oh, and you have to be blindfolded, and keep a pickle in your bum.

    Oh, and I reserve the right to change the rules as we go along.

    And if you question my decisions, you love terrorists.

    Contest are SO much easier when you make up the rules as you go along? Why, it almost guarantees you’ll never lose! Them’s the sorts of games me likey!

    Queen Hillary hath spoken

  • I like beer . I’m voting for beer -John Barleycorn

    You’re only saying that because you’d like to have a beer with beer.

    Ah, who am I kiddin’? If beer picks hot wings as its running mate, I’m right there with you.

  • I like beer

    I loves me some barley pop, too. It’s even better than Jesus.

    Top 10 Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Jesus
    ————————————————————————
    10. No one will kill you for not drinking beer.
    9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex.
    8. Beer has never caused a major war.
    7. They don’t force beer on minors who can’t think for themselves.
    6. When you have a beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.
    5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured over his brand of beer.
    4. You don’t have to wait 2000+ years for a second beer.
    3. There are laws saying beer labels can’t lie to you.
    2. You can prove you have a beer.

    and the number one reason beer is better than Jesus:

    1. If you’ve devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you stop.

  • Screamin’ Demon,

    10. No one will kill you for not drinking beer.

    But they will make you drive them home after they’ve been drinking, which I imagine is pretty much what death is like.

    9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex.

    Are you sure? Maybe you just aren’t drinking enough.

    8. Beer has never caused a major war.

    You’re not Irish are you?

    7. They don’t force beer on minors who can’t think for themselves.

    You’ve also never been in a fraternity, have you?

    6. When you have a beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.

    But you are willing to ‘water their flowers.’

    5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured over his brand of beer.

    Still haven’t tried that fraternity thing out, eh?

    4. You don’t have to wait 2000+ years for a second beer.

    I’ve been in some bars where it felt like it.

    3. There are laws saying beer labels can’t lie to you.

    Ha, you should hear some of the whoppers that St. Pauli Girl has told me. (She’s no saint, if you get my drift.)

    2. You can prove you have a beer.

    Oh, please, beer is just a theory.

    1. If you’ve devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you stop.

    Party poopers.

    Haha, seriously, this is great, we should have a thread about beer every Friday.

  • Well, Curmudgeon, in Steve’s column about his fifth anniversary as a blogger, earlier this week, I did suggest in my reply that Steve do a Cat Post every week, but I didn’t know he said he would. I sure would love it.

    You might want to try http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/. Kevin does a Friday Cat Blog, though the three beauties pictured today are not his.

    Hope the link works.

  • Alan Patricof, one of Clinton’s national finance chairmen, added, “[W]e can’t wait to get to March 4.”

    And never were truer words spoken; they *couldn’t* wait. If March 4th happened a week after the Chesapeake primaries, Hillary might have won all 4 states handily since, at that point, she still had hefty leads everywhere. But, given 3 weeks to concentrate on those states, even with the side trip to Wisconsin, Obama nibbled away at her leads…

  • I like doubtful’s idea of a regular Friday afternoon thread about beer.

    And it’s a lot better than the thought of having a beer with George W. Bush!

  • Hillary and Mark Penn’s im-pyrrhic-al spin
    .
    Translated, what Mrs. Clinton and her campaign executive staff are now actually trying to (ill) logically conjure into a spin is:
    “Obama’s overall campaign is so superior to ours in terms of attracting adherents, attracting donations, attracting and organizing primary state volunteers and placing advertisements that if he doesn’t beat us handily everywhere we will attain a quasi pyrrhic victory.”
    Or to put it more crudely.
    “Obama’s out in front of us by every measure. If he doesn’t run the board that will show that we are winning.”

    Then there was McCain’s: “We’re winning in Iraq. We’re winning big time in Iraq. But not so much that we’re actually going to defeat the two to three thousand foreign Jihadists and domestic thugs that call themselves Al Quaeda in Iraq and stop America’s bleeding

    We win,
    troops stay,
    spend big money,
    our kids’ll pay.

  • Well, in the fall the Democrat is likely to win 2 of those states in either case. Will very likely lose one and that leaves Ohio, I think leaning Dem either way. What it means to the election as a whole? Not much. What it means for individual candidates? I don’t see the math working in Clintons favor unless she wins big.

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