Don’t call it a comeback? A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds Clinton and Obama virtually tied in a national poll, 37%-36%. “Mark Penn, Clinton’s chief strategist, calls the USA TODAY poll ‘an outlier’ that is ‘completely out of sync’ with other surveys. He says it is ‘seriously flawed’ for including so many independents unlikely to vote in Democratic primaries…Among Democrats alone, Clinton leads Obama by 5 points, 34%-29%…Among independents, Obama leads by 9 points, 31%-22%.” Good to hear, but admittedly this poll doesn’t sound quite right: “An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken last Tuesday through Friday gave Clinton a 12-point lead.” Update: Iowa’s all tied up too: Clinton 25%, Edwards 23%, Obama 22%. “Women have a strong preference for Clinton, while those under the age of 45 give Obama a double-digit lead. Obama and Clinton are nearly tied for support among first-time caucus-goers, but previous attendees give Edwards a narrow edge over Clinton.”
Category: Hillary Clinton
Leafy at Grinnell.
“‘As a young person,’ said the well-spoken Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, ‘I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change? ‘Well, you should be worried,’ Clinton replied. ‘You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it’s usually young people that ask me about global warming.’ There’s a good reason for that, too. The question was a plant, totally rigged in advance, like a late-night infomercial.” And you thought Planty McPlants only posted over at AICN…Compounding their bad run of late, the Clinton campaign gets caught planting questions in an Iowa audience. Well, in her defense, this is considered presidential behavior these days. (2nd link via Supercres.) Update: CNN interviews the student in question: “‘The top one was planned specifically for a college student,’ she added. ‘It said “college student” in brackets and then the question.’…’I don’t know whether Hillary knew what my question was going to be, but it seemed like she knew to call on me because…I was the only college student in that area.’”
The Dem Race Tightens.
As Hillary Clinton — still — spins away her debate performance of last week (You’d think she’d just let the story die of its own accord by this point — this doesn’t speak well for her campaign’s potential handling of GOP criticism in a general election, and they’re definitely watching carefully over there), the Democratic races in Iowa and New Hampshire start to tighten, with Clinton up three and ten on Obama in IA and NH respectively. (Edwards comes in third in both states at the moment.) And, in related news, a new USA Today poll further calls into question Clinton’s crossover appeal: “In a general election, the poll suggests that Clinton has the least potential for winning votes from Republicans — 84% say they definitely would not vote for her, compared with six in 10 for either Obama or Edwards. Independents show the least resistance to Obama and the most to Edwards.” (That being said, some tightening in the polls was inevitable as the finish line nears, and that same USA Today poll still has Hillary beating Rudy in a national contest, so there is a silver lining here for the Clinton camp.) Update: Slate‘s John Dickerson reports in from Iowa on the Clinton-Obama race: “‘Why isn’t he killing her?’ asked a colleague after Obama’s hour-long visit. It’s the persistent question for his campaign. He wows the crowds but lags in the polls everywhere but Iowa.“
Obama: The Choice of a New Generation?
“We may in fact have finally found that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton told us about. Its name is Obama.” In the pages of The Atlantic Monthly, conservative Andrew Sullivan makes his case for Barack Obama: “Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America — finally — past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us…If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today’s actual problems, Obama may be your man.” Of Clinton, Sullivan writes, “[s]he has internalized what most Democrats of her generation have internalized: They suspect that the majority is not with them, and so some quotient of discretion, fear, or plain deception is required if they are to advance their objectives. And so the less-adept ones seem deceptive, and the more-practiced ones, like Clinton, exhibit the plastic-ness and inauthenticity that still plague her candidacy. She’s hiding her true feelings. We know it, she knows we know it, and there is no way out of it.” Update: Apparently, Obama reads The Atlantic.
Clinton vs. the Mad Men.
“[I]n spinning away her unsteady performance at Tuesday night’s debate, a Clinton advisor tells the Washington Post: ‘Ultimately, it was six guys against her, and she came off as one strong woman.’” I’m just a girl? In a not-very-subtle appeal to her strong female base, the Clinton camp makes an unsightly resort to gender politics to explain away her opponents’ criticisms in Tuesday’s debate. “[I]magine for a moment that it was Barack Obama who stumbled in the face of criticism and pointed questions Tuesday night. Would his campaign dare to declare that it was ‘ultimately five whites and a Hispanic against him, and he came off as one strong black man’? And how would America be feeling about him today if it did?
Honestly, this makes me ill. Suggesting all political opposition to Clinton is a “pile-on” grounded in male hostility is as unsavory and disingenuous a tactic as the earlier claim that Obama and Edwards had abandoned “the politics of hope” for even daring to disagree with her in the first place. And neither strategy makes me very enthused about pulling the lever for Clinton, should she become the nominee. Surely, given her gimongous lead in the polls, Clinton can find more honest and substantive ways to address the ripostes of her Democratic opponents. If you’re the frontrunner, you’ll be attacked — that’s how it works, regardless of sex. Update: Obama calls out Clinton’s use of the gender card. Update 2: As does NARAL’s Kate Michelman.
Hardball | Hardwood.
“‘Whether it’s fair or not fair, the fact of the matter is that my colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, there are 50 percent of the American public that say they’re not going to vote for her. I’m not saying anything that people don’t know already. I don’t necessarily like it, but those are the facts,’ Dodd said.” Edwards, Obama, and Dodd (finally) release the hounds at last night’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Said Edwards: “I mean, another perspective on why the Republicans keep talking about Senator Clinton is, Senator, they may actually want to run against you, and that’s the reason they keep bringing you up.” (Update: Edwards’ Youtube team pounces on the politics of parsing.)To be honest, I DVR’ed the debate and haven’t watched it yet, partly because I’m rather dispirited about the whole process (among other things) these days, and partly because the NBA’s opening-night double-header was on TNT…which means, if nothing else, there should be something on TV most nights from now until June. (The Knicks start Friday.)
Discarded Socks.
“‘In the annals of human evil, off-loading a pet is nowhere near the top of the list,’ writes Caitlin Flanagan in the current issue of The Atlantic magazine. ‘But neither is it dead last, and it is especially galling when said pet has been deployed for years as an all-purpose character reference.‘” So it seems Hillary Clinton, the erstwhile author of Dear Socks, Dear Buddy, apparently kicked Socks to the curb once the White House days were over. “Hillary’s insistence that we follow her example in pet ownership, when she really should be on Cat Fancy’s Most Wanted List, makes her a tiresome bore.” Well, it’s not exactly the silver bullet rival campaigns are looking for (I mean, the Clintons may abandon their pets, but Republicans seem to torture and/or eviscerate them), but it is rather sad.
All over but the shouting?
In a new ABC/Washington Post poll, Hillary Clinton moves to a whopping 33-point lead over Barack Obama (and an 8-point lead over Rudy Giuliani.) “She leads Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination by 22 percentage points among men, and by 42 points among women. Fully 57 percent of women said they would support Clinton in a primary, compared with 15 percent for Obama and 13 percent for Edwards.“
The Family Business.
“Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn’t a Bush or a Clinton in the White House…Does a nation of 303 million people really have only two families qualified to run the show?” The AP’s Nancy Benac reflects on the Bush-Clinton problem with our politics. “‘I think we would be fundamentally healthier if we broadened the zone of candidates who could make it to the top,’ [presidential advisor David Gergen] said. Historically, politics has been open to newcomers who rise up to reflect the grass-roots sentiment of the country, Gergen said. That’s still possible, he said, ‘but it’s harder than it used to be, especially because it’s so hard to raise money’ for expensive national campaigns. The Clintons and Bushes, he said, have built up strong ‘brand’ recognition for their names.“
Dolla Dolla Hil, Y’all.
Well, if the family business issue is bothering primary voters, it’s not being reflected in the funding tallies. In the third leg of the all-important money primary, Hillary Clinton comes out tops in 3rd quarter fundraising with $27 million raised, with Obama clocking in at $20 million and Edwards — who’s announced he’ll accept public financing — coming in third at $7 million. “Overall, Sen. Barack Obama has raised slightly more than Clinton for the primary, and the two look to be fairly evenly matched financially as they head into the final stretch before the first electoral contests in January.” And, whoever your primary candidate is, the real silver lining here is that Dems overall have raised twice as much as the GOP. “‘This just shows the difficult political climate that Republicans are facing,’ said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. ‘The bright side is that next spring, the Republicans will have plenty of money to give the candidate who goes up against Hillary Clinton.’” We’ll see.