Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Is Hillary's Campaign In Trouble?

"For a candidate who 50% of the country says they won't consider voting for, raising questions about electability is a curious strategy," - Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman.


Bill Clinton to aid Hillary's campaign

BY KENNETH R. BAZINET and THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Bubba to the rescue!

Alarmed by his wife's slide in the polls and disarray within her backbiting campaign, a beside-himself Bill Clinton has leaped atop the barricades and is furiously plotting a cure - or coup.

"She's in big trouble and he knows it," a top Democratic operative and Hillary Clinton booster told the Daily News.

Sources familiar with the ex-President's thinking say he doesn't believe his wife's situation is desperate. But he's unhappy with her operation - once hailed as a juggernaut - and concerned she could lose the Democratic nomination without major alterations in strategy and staffing.

Bill Clinton is mulling "a lot of different ideas and a lot of different scenarios to fix this," an official who regularly speaks with him said. "He will come up with literally dozens of ideas. The trick will be to figure out the most important one or two to get her out of this downtrend."

Another Democrat with close connections to the Clinton campaign describes Bill Clinton as "very engaged and very agitated. He's yelling at [chief strategist] Mark Penn a lot."

Penn laughed off the idea that he's on the hot seat. "That's funny," he said. "I've been working with Bill Clinton through thick and thin for 10 years, exchanging views."

A source close to the former First Couple criticized recent campaign ads as lacking focus, faulting Penn the most for failing to fine-tune the message: "The key problem is not the spots, but what they're saying."

Sources close to the former President say he and the candidate are talking constantly but sharing very little of what they're discussing with subordinates.

Several other Hillary Clinton partisans, however, aren't so shy about critiquing the performance of her campaign - and predict a major staff purge is inevitable.

Continue Reading


Feeling Heat, Clinton Tries Iowa Up Close

NYT article about Hillary's struggles in Iowa

“I always thought that Iowa would be a challenge,” she said, “and I’m personally really pleased with how far I’ve come, never having done this with Bill. I’ve really been working to understand what was necessary to run a competitive campaign.”.....

........On her first trip here last January, one adviser said, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly expressed frustration, confiding to one associate that she “had no feel for the place.” She responded with bewilderment when informed that she should not assume that she now had the support of an Iowa Democratic leader even after spending 40 minutes over coffee with him......

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