What does Clinton do to become the ‘comeback kid’?

January 4, 2008

This morning, Bill Clinton told ABC News that New Hampshire can make Hillary Clinton the “comeback kid,” just as it did for him 16 years ago. He sounded an optimistic note: “She’s got a better profile here. They know more about her now than they did about me then. And I think she’ll be fine. We just get out and go.”

That, of course, isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Obviously, despite yesterday’s setback, Clinton is far too strong a candidate to write off at this point. All of her strengths — fundraising, operation, name recognition — are exactly as they were 24 hours ago. Primaries in New York, New Jersey, and California are coming up, and Clinton is still poised to do quite well in each.

But the question is nevertheless glaring: what does Hillary Clinton do now?

“Electability” seems to be out; people aren’t really buying it. “Inevitability” is definitely out; coming in third in Iowa pretty much took care of that one. Does she change her message? Go (very) negative? Stay the course?

TNR’s Michael Crowley heard campaign aides furiously pitch reporters on route to New Hampshire last night and got a sense of the road ahead.

Soon after, Mark Penn appeared in the aisle. Penn doesn’t care much for reporters and he suffered the scrum around him with a mild grimace. Penn invoked the other key refrain of the night: “experience,” and Hillary’s preparedness for the White House. Some campaigns respond to defeat by retooling — think of George W. Bush re-casting himself a “Reformer With Results” after losing to John McCain in New Hampshire eight years ago. But Penn’s talking points suggested that there will be no Hillary relaunch. She will evidently plow ahead with the same experience message Iowans rejected last night.

Penn, the number-cruncher, also emphasized the terrain on which he feels most comfortable: polls. As of Thursday morning, he told the hacks straining to catch his deadpanned observations, Hillary was a clear leader in the national polls.

“National polls”? Really? Isn’t it pretty clear by now that they don’t mean anything in a state-by-state race, and that national polls can shift on a dime? If anyone doubts this, ask Rudy Giuliani about his love of national polls.

Crowley added:

For all the spinning, what no one could convincingly explain was what shape that fight will take and how it can succeed. The New Hampshire primary is in five days. Today, Friday, will be defined by coverage of Obama’s Iowa triumph. By primary day it will be too late for Hillary to change the storyline that she is a broken idol. That leaves her all of three days to do her work or risk a catastrophic second loss here.

She has few options. What card to the Clintons have left to play? Hillary has already worked to seem warmer and more likeable, with limited results. Going harshly negative against Obama is one option, but given his heroic glow would likely only make Hillary look bitter and nasty — and merely reinforce Obama’s case against “politics as usual.”

It is, to be sure, an awkward challenge.

Last night’s speech in Iowa probably wasn’t a step in the right direction. On the one hand, Clinton continued to position herself as an agent of effective change for the future. On the other hand, she spoke with Bill Clinton on one side and Madeline Albright on the other. (Some joked that it looked like Hillary was building a bridge to the 20th century.)

Stay tuned.

29% in a three way division of the spoils and we’re supposed to count Senator Clinton out.

Again, I’d say we’re buying into the Iowan attempt to get us to swallow the idiocy of their “first in the nation” district delegate selection to their April state convention to select their delegates to the national convention.

The count, for those who have not paid attention, of National Convention Delegates is:

Obama: 0
Edwards: 0
Clinton: 0
Richardson: 0
Kucinich: 0
Gravel: 0

Seems pretty close to me.

And please, let the woman have to work for it. No coronation, no Inevitability. Get out there a win it if you want it.

  • She seems to be arguing that she’s got more experience than Obama, and I can buy that somewhat, but if experience was the ultimate arbiter then several also-rans would have been a lot more popular. I think her electability has always been overrated, and was only above 50% because the Republicans have been so weak.

    And now, she has to go negative somehow against a guy who everyone wants to succeed? No way she can come back and overcome the Obamentum. The people want real change, not a repeat of the 90’s.

    She’s done.

  • As long as she lost it doesn’t matter, she can’t win the general. She’s the only one who can rally the repubs.

  • 1) There is nothing she can change message-wise in time for New Hampshire. Her 2-minute closing TV spot in Iowa was very nice – she should run it again, maybe more than once per channel; she must have a strong debate this weekend; the rest of her NH money should be spent on turnout.

    2) As a Clinton supporter, my first bit of advice if asked how to change the campaign is a simple one: fire Mark Penn.

    3) She needs to trade in her traveling companions. I think the world of Bill, but she lost precious news cycles late in Iowa when he would go off message and the spotlight would turn to him. He can’t help himself. He and Albright have got to go. Chelsea is fine – she has turned out so well that she is a living rebuttal to any “family values” arguments against the Clintons collectively. She has to push experience, because she is so heavily invested in it – but she needs to tie it to something concrete that people care about – among her new traveling companions should be Gen. Wes Clark.

    4) She needs to lay out a more detailed plan on Iraq than her competitors. (This goes with the Gen. Clark bit above). If it is a good plan, it will also help blunt the concerns about her AUMF vote “way back when.”

    5) Other than firing Penn, she should not do anything rash until after South Carolina. That will be the least-left state among the early states – see how Obama and Edwards play there before major recalibration.

    6) She needs to work on “the vision thing” — exactly what allowed her husband to beat GHW Bush. Her experience angle combined with the Clinton family small-policy wonkiness allows Obama to talk in soaring rhetoric for which she has no answer. Yeah, the empty cheerleaing of it annoys some (my wife cringed at the “lets go change the world!” commercial), but what it goes to is a larger vision into which the policies fit. Clinton needs to be able to paint that bigger picture, even if she cant do it with Obama’s panache.

  • RacerX said: “I should have said unless Obama shoots himself in the foot somehow, she’s done.”

    Simply Amazing

  • Z, while I agree that Penn hasn’t served her well, I’m not sure she could can him any more than she could cut off her own arm. Penn isn’t just an adviser to the Clintons; he’s the intellectual embodiment of what “Clintonism” has come to mean over the last 13 years or so. Penn’s instinct for the middle, for the safe, for the tactical as opposed to the visionary, is their instinct too.

    Not to mention that the media, which has turned on Clinton like a pack of rabid wolves, would endlessly present any “campaign shakeup” as a sign of panic from a campaign circling the drain.

  • dajafi, i almost addressed in my first post the “if not Penn, who?” angle. obviously she is going to have someone establishment – she’s a former First Lady, she really can’t be an “outsider.” so who is as prominent as Penn, has major experience, is an insider, yet isn’t as problematic as Penn? Celinda Lake (added bonus since Clinton is trying to appeal to women). She had been on Biden’s team, but since he just dropped, Clinton could scoop her up right away – which also may endear Clinton to some Biden staff, and diminishes the appearance of panic: spin it as Celinda is a longtime friend and one of the best in the business – who just became available.

  • 6) She needs to work on “the vision thing” — exactly what allowed her husband to beat GHW Bush.

    Ross Perot?

    What is he up to these days anyway?

  • Z, there’s also the perception–probably at least somewhat grounded in reality–that Bill himself is really running the campaign. And again, why wouldn’t anyone want him in that role? At the same time, I’m not sure if a known name like Lake would find attractive the prospect of taking a position where someone else (Bill) would be calling the shots.

    That said, Lake *is* quality, and she’s not as obviously tied to the past as, say, Carville would be.

  • Can the Obama champions please explain what “CHANGE” Obama is going to be? Lofty rhetoric about a need to “change” Washington politics doesn’t mean much without the details. Bush was going to change the way Washington worked. And he did. What a sorry mess he has made doing it though. Are we to assume that a newcommer to the National political scene has the answer to the national problems. His senatorial record doesn’t seem to indicate any “visonary skill.

  • I’m looking forward to seeing the next “national polls,” to see how Iowa may have shaken up the horserace. I’m guessing a big bump up for Obama, and a drop for Hillary. Edwards has been my candidate, but I’m expecting him to fade after a somewhat disappointing showing in Iowa.

    Hillary is selling experience. Obama is selling leadership. Look where experience has gotten us. Obama has the better product.

    If Hillary goes negative on Obama between now and Tuesday, it will backfire and you might as well stick a fork in her – she’s done.

  • OFM, I completely agree with your last line. She can’t really go negative. She can go after policies, she can call for specifics, she can question whether he can deliver on the alleged promise but she cannot go traditionally negative. First – and this is equally a problem for Edwards – Obama is in that rarefied air where (until the media goes after him) he is untouchable. People will offended by negative attacks. Second, HRC already has the traditional female candidate dilemma that they get labeled “bitchy” really easily for doing the same things male candidates do all the time, and she can’t afford that.

    She has to hope for one or two things: (1) Edwards is in an even worse spot than she is and he has to take the risk of going after Obama now or in South Carolina or he doesn’t have another chance – he cant hang on to Feb 5 as well as HRC; or (2) that the media turns on its creation like they did with Dean and they now gleefully tear down what they helped build up.

  • She could emphasize the meme that “Iowa is unique and not a true measure of the whole country” and just keep going as she has until after New Hampshire. If she tanks there, too, then she may be in some truly deep doo-doo but it’s still too early to panic just yet.

    At all costs she has to resist the urge to go negative. To do that now would be the kiss of death because of the reek of desperation it would bring with it.

    But what the heck. When it comes down to it I’d be just as pleased to vote for Obama as for Hillary, so I’m cool either way. 🙂

  • RE: the “comeback kid” line …

    1992: Bill Clinton came in SECOND and proclaimed himself the comeback kid.

    2008: If Hillary Clinton comes in second she’s toast.

  • TPM did a good imitation of the MSM today with its headline:
    Hillary Gets Mean, Promises More “Contrast” With Obama

    In it Greg Sargeant wrote: In another effort to signal that Camp Hillary would be playing rougher in the days ahead, Hillary also said this today:

    “Of all the people running for president, I’ve been the most vetted, the most investigated, and my goodness, the most innocent it turns out.”

    The whole article is kinda Drudgish

  • The “innocent” thing has a distinctly nasty tone. I can see how they’ll spin it when pressed–“all we meant was that none of the attacks on Sen. Clinton’s honesty have ever been proven”–but it still sounds like she’s insinuating something ugly. Maybe because she is.

  • I agree about the staging. I really like Bill and Madeline Albright, but seeing them there, I was struck by the feeling that I really don’t want them back in the White House.

  • Callimaco — the difference is that in ’92, Bill hadn’t gone through months of being the frontrunner with a record-breaking warchest. (I agree that the media’s attitude is unfair, but it’s not completely unfounded.)

  • hillary’s got to keep keepin’ on, but she’s come out a bit punch-drunk today. a touch of repose would be in order, but i’m not sure that’s in her repertoire.

    and speaking of punch-drunk — romney claims iowa was a victory for him since he came in ahead of mccain, thompson and guiliani. i caught him saying it on MSNBC, and his delivery was so insincere i laughed out loud.

  • Redshift: I really like Bill and Madeline Albright, but seeing them there, I was struck by the feeling that I really don’t want them back in the White House.

    Me neither. And if progressives like me and you don’t want to see them back, doing the shit they did before*, just think how much the independents and conservatives want them back.

    * When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked in 1996 whether the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children was an acceptable price for maintaining sanctions on Iraq, Albright’s response was “we think the price is worth it.”

  • Because I think the race is still open to changes in position, and because I know that I will be supporting and voting for whichever candidate gets the Democratic nomination, I’ve been trying to start focusing on them from a perspective other than that two of them – Obama and Clinton – are not candidates I am currently all that taken with.

    If you go back through Hillary’s body of work since she was in law school, you can see that this is someone who has worked very hard on issues that affect children and families, and that she is a rock-solid supporter of reproductive rights. In this respect, Obama is not all that different, other than that he has a lot less experience – but his record is also one that supports these causes.

    Taken as a group, Obama, Edwards and Clinton can be depended on, I believe, to continue to advocate for policies and legislation that will continue a pro-family agenda, but I do see Obama as perhaps more willing to give away bits and pieces of it than I do Edwards or Clinton, so that is a concern that I have about Obama. All three could be counted on to replace liberal Supreme Court justices with equally liberal – and much younger – jurists. They also can be relied upon to fill vacancies in the federal judiciary with acceptable members of the bar.

    I think Hillary suffers somewhat because of her gender – the traits that we associate as being more feminine are also those that seem to say “weak,” so they have to be stowed away in order for people to take her seriously in a field of men. She then is accused of being too bitchy, too strident, and not womanly enough. Some of it she just can’t help – the female voice, when raised in strength and purpose, just grates more than a man’s.

    On matters of national security and foreign policy, I think a great deal will depend on who is filling all the important spots and what kind of a Congress we end up with. I can see a strong Democratic Congress, especially with someone like Dodd as Senate Majority Leader, as being able to work in a very symbiotic and powerful and positive way in setting us on a better course and drawing a line on issues like torture and habeas and privacy rights.

    I still think that if you take Obama and Edwards as a ticket – one I would prefer to see with Edwards at the top (although that is unlikely after Iowa, and I wonder if Edwards would accept the #2 spot now for the chance to be the presumptive nominee in 2016) – it would blow the doors off the election and the down-ticket effect would be mind-boggling.

  • Senator Clinton is warning of placing false hopes in a 46-year old, inexperienced candidate. Would somebody please remind her that a 46-year old Bill Clinton, with no federal experience, walked into the White House on Jan 20, 1993?

  • The media is again taking over the story. Her challenge is to change the narrative? Why should there be a narrative in the first place? Why don’t the media just report the freaking results and not try to set up each contest as make or break? Why would a second loss be “catastrophic”? Because the media says is will be, even though only 2 small states will have voted. Stop playing kingmaker and just do your job, for goodness sakes.

    As for the national polls–well, once Iowa and NH polls started to change on the GOP side, their national numbers changed too. Once this happened on the Dem side, our national numbers didn’t move at all. So while I expect there to be movement in the national polls, I doubt they’ll change on a dime.

  • Penn invoked the other key refrain of the night: “experience,” and Hillary’s preparedness for the White House. — TNR’s Michael Crowley

    Regarding that “preparedness”… During her last night’s thank-you speech, I was beginning to feel a bit tired of her repeated “I’m ready, I’m ready” (take me, take me, my darling), when I looked behind her and there was Bill, with a glistening semi-leer, which seemed to say “ready or not, here I come”. And I’m sorry to say, but nothing she said afterwards resonated; the bedroom scene was all I could see in my mind’s eye. And yet, she started so well (better than Edwards, IMO, for all Edwards is my pick).

    Zeitgeist is spot-on; she should not parade Bill too much. And she should ditch that Penn guy — I’ve never seen anyone more revolting, at least not on our side.

  • Hillary and the irrelevant Beltway Booboisie like Penn are like the guy who just had his troat cut by a knife so sharp he thinks all is well – untill he tries to turn his head, at which point it falls off.

    Just watching all these scum – the kind of Democrats I have been at war with since Joe Alioto and Hubert the Hump 40 years ago – as they unknowingly circle the bowl, just fills my heart with warmth and good feelings.

    They are soooooooo Yesterday.

  • Hopefully, next Tuesday Dorothy throws a bucket of thawed ice water in Hillary’s face and she goes to the same place the Witch went to (“I’m melting! I’m melting! Oh, how could you do this to me?!”). And hopefully she takes that southern-fired snake oil salesman she’s married to with her.

  • Hey, I share Obama’s dream too. I want a change in Washington and believe in a united, United States. I also am a great public speaker and am a nice, friendly person. I have about as much executive experience as Obama (International business for ten years). Why don’t you people elect me as the democratic candidate? Seriously, why does Obama get a pass on credentials? Would you want an inexperienced co-pilot to fly your plane with you on it in a storm? Would you let a junior resident doctor operate on your child, even if he was nice, charismatic and you trusted he wanted to do a good job? I wouldn’t.

  • CLINTONS ARE LOSERS!! CLINTONS ARE LOSERS!! CLINTONS ARE LOSERS!!

    Get the message? Stick a fork in her…..she’s DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • News Flash!!!!…….HillBilly was just seen taking a jet plane ride to the Bahamas with 3 Playboy bunnies in tow! Shrillary was recorded as saying, ‘Good riddance to that pervert!’ HillBilly’s reply was: ‘Why don’t you take your broom for a ride off a deep cliff!’

  • Why do people love to hate Senator Clinton?
    Her voice is a bit abrasive, but she’s smart and a really hard worker.
    I read all kinds of criticisms about her positions on stuff, but with no documentation. If you go out and find them, you’ll see her positions on the issues is very reasoned. Maybe that’s the problem… she isn’t doing a Bush impression of aw shucks.

    I agree with Anne (#25)

  • Can someone tell me exactly what Hillary has accomplished politically that makes her experience seem so compelling? I remember a spectacular failure with health care. Unable to build a coalition. Isn’t her biggest success a book? Where are her policy successes?

    I can’t think of anything that she’s stood up and fought for in the Senate. Not one tough battle she’s comes to mind, win or lose.

    Her poor judgment on the war authorization, isn’t just a “thing of the past”. Especially if she’s arguing that we should elect her based on her experience. She claims that the intelligence at the time supported signing the authorization. Yet, there were plenty out there who knew that it didn’t. So, how come she didn’t? Is she just incompetent? Or did she have other motivations? Either way, I don’t want her heading up our foreign policy.

    Also, the Rebpublicans are masters at tearing down the Clintons, now. So, what makes her more electable?

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