Some Context
I've been impressed throughout the primary race by the ability of the Clinton campaign to get members of the media to internalize their spin. Today, for instance, I saw very little attempt by anyone in the media to push back against the Clinton campaign's "tide is turning" narrative. So allow me to add some much needed context.
March 4 was supposed to mark Clinton's "comeback" in this race. On that date, Clinton won primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas (though she lost the Texas caucuses). That snapped what had been a long series of lop-sided wins for Obama following Super Tuesday. In the aftermath of those contests, polls indicated that Clinton had a massive lead in Pennsylvania (this PPP poll had the lead at 26 points on March 17).
Despite her victories, however, Clinton hardly made a dent in Obama's delegate lead and people began to realize just how difficult the math was for her. Obama's lead looked increasingly insurmountable, and as a result, the McCain campaign, the RNC, and most conservative activists and pundits began to focus their attention on Obama, whom they saw as the presumptive Democratic nominee. At the same time, the Clinton campaign realized that their only plausible path to victory was to throw the kitchen sink at Obama in the hopes of tarnishing his electability to the point where frightened superdelegates would come crawling back to Clinton.
So since late March (when Clinton was leading in Pennsylvania by over 20 points) Obama has had to endure a two-fronted assault with the Clinton campaign on one side and the Republicans on the other. He's had to deal with the two biggest controversies of his campaign: the Reverend Wright episode and the fallout from his "bitter" comments. And he's had to do all that while trying to stifle the momentum Clinton generated from her March 4 wins.
And after all that, when the results finally came in Pennsylvania, Obama lost by less than 10 points. Though I'm sure that the Obama camp was hoping for a better result, the bottom line is that Obama made up significant ground in Pennsylvania, and he did it during--by far--the most difficult stretch of his campaign to date. That has to be deeply discouraging to the Clinton campaign, no matter what they say outwardly.
March 4 was supposed to mark Clinton's "comeback" in this race. On that date, Clinton won primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas (though she lost the Texas caucuses). That snapped what had been a long series of lop-sided wins for Obama following Super Tuesday. In the aftermath of those contests, polls indicated that Clinton had a massive lead in Pennsylvania (this PPP poll had the lead at 26 points on March 17).
Despite her victories, however, Clinton hardly made a dent in Obama's delegate lead and people began to realize just how difficult the math was for her. Obama's lead looked increasingly insurmountable, and as a result, the McCain campaign, the RNC, and most conservative activists and pundits began to focus their attention on Obama, whom they saw as the presumptive Democratic nominee. At the same time, the Clinton campaign realized that their only plausible path to victory was to throw the kitchen sink at Obama in the hopes of tarnishing his electability to the point where frightened superdelegates would come crawling back to Clinton.
So since late March (when Clinton was leading in Pennsylvania by over 20 points) Obama has had to endure a two-fronted assault with the Clinton campaign on one side and the Republicans on the other. He's had to deal with the two biggest controversies of his campaign: the Reverend Wright episode and the fallout from his "bitter" comments. And he's had to do all that while trying to stifle the momentum Clinton generated from her March 4 wins.
And after all that, when the results finally came in Pennsylvania, Obama lost by less than 10 points. Though I'm sure that the Obama camp was hoping for a better result, the bottom line is that Obama made up significant ground in Pennsylvania, and he did it during--by far--the most difficult stretch of his campaign to date. That has to be deeply discouraging to the Clinton campaign, no matter what they say outwardly.
posted by A.L. at 10:50 PM
11 Comments:
I can channel the Hillary message to the superdelegates for you - if we had learned about Jeremiah Wright in December instead of March, the question today would be how much longer can Hillary and Edwards keep going.
If Wright/Ayers/clinging bitterly had broken in December and Barack had miraculously survived, would he have five percent fewer delegates? Would Hillary have five percent more? If you think the answer is yes, then today's race would be essentially tied.
I don't know if superdelegates buy it, but that is the message.
Tom Maguire
I have to think that the Penn. results are somewhat discouraging to both Obama and Clinton. A couple of points I differ with you on--first, the math for Hillary is not difficult, but impossible. There is simply no way she can win, short of Obama withdrawing, or being abducted by space aliens. Second, by all accounts Obama won Texas. He has to date come out of the bizarre Texas process with more pledged delegates.
And after all that, when the results finally came in Pennsylvania,
The hard core in the comments at Baloon Juice are talking about "Hillary's winning streak".
One in a row, baby!
(Mississippi went to Obama.)
Davis X. Machina
Very astute comments and thansk for the perspective because I needed that, the PA primary confused things more for me...
Obama has won something like 12 of last 15 contests. Why is he having so much difficult winning???? Stupid frakking media.
Ron,
Since Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, Sen. Obama has been on a roll. He won Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine, the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland, Hawaii, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont, Mississippi, and Wyoming.
Sen. Clinton has only won Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. It's like twelve states and D.C. to four states.
What's Clinton going to say now? Probably some mumbo jumbo like her four states have a population of 48 million people and Obama's 12 states and the District have a population of 41 million people. Man that's lame.
I don't think the Clinton campaign deserves as much credit as you give her. Back when she was the presumptive nominee, it was very difficult for her to get any sort of favorable media coverage.
The Clinton campaign spin is useful to the media as a means of attacking Obama, who will in all likelihood be the Democratic nominee. The point is simply to attack/define whoever is likely to be the Democratic candidate. When that person was Hillary, Obama's campaign had every bit as much success in getting the media "take its side" against Clinton.
Superdelegates' votes are still technically in play. Clinton thinks she can win based on superdelegates. Fine. That's the way our nomination process works. This in no way proves that Clinton thinks the only way to victory is "to throw the kitchen sink at Obama in the hopes of tarnishing his electability." If Clinton were to take off in the national polls for ANY reason, she could make an argument to the superdelegates to vote for her.
I think this is a very dangerous game Democrats have gotten into by throwing accusations like this around. How do we know that Clinton's "only hope" is attempting to render Obama unelectable? Because the media told us? What specifically has Hillary done to bear this theory out?
The real target here is not Hillary, but McCain and the GOP-enabling media. They are the ones who have been trying to sow the seeds of dischord among Democrats by piling on whoever the frontrunner has been in any particular month.
There is no value to Democrats in getting caught up in this in-group/out-group thinking between Obama and Hillary that the media is foisting on us.
I will ditto that last statement. However, I have to wonder why Obama went on Fox News.
Is he what he really what he claims to be?!
The Federal Income Tax Lien for $48,000.00 filed against Rev. Wright
www.webofdeception.com
This campaign is like those marathons you watch on television where two runners have left everyone behind, with the first one some distance ahead.
The apparent distance between them depends on the camera angles ... some shots make them look close, some make them look far apart.
The question is: will No 2 chase down and pass No 1 before the finish line looms up? It depends on the distance between the runners, their respective paces and the distance to the finish line.
In the last Olypmic marathon, a mentally unbalanced Irish priest (looks bad for Obama!) emerged from the onlookers to attack the front runner who (eventually) came fourth. The balance of opinion was that he would have been caught anyway, but who knows?
Given that Obama has survived his priest moment (it appears), he is still on course for a win based on the other factors. But are there other priests out there?
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