Tag: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton’s non-challengers

Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn is quoted in the New York Times as saying:

She has consistently shown an electoral resiliency in difficult situations that have made her a winner. Senator Obama has in fact never had a serious Republican challenger.

Now, why would Times reporter Patrick Healy take dictation from Penn without observing that his statement is pure spin? This is Clinton’s third run for office. She did not face a serious Republican (or Democratic) challenger in her 2000 Senate run, as Rudy Giuliani dropped out. (If Rick Lazio counts, so does Alan Keyes.) Her 2006 re-election was essentially a coronation.

It looks to me as though Penn is conflating Bill Clinton’s campaigns with his client’s. And that Healy neglected to pause and say, “Wait a minute.”

As goes Maine …

Despite the current conventional wisdom that the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton race will go all the way to the end of the primaries, I keep thinking that, at some point, the familiar dynamic will kick in. That is, one of them will be perceived to have gained an edge, and will start to roll.

Could the Maine caucuses have been a harbinger of that moment? Isn’t this the first time since Iowa that Obama has won a state he wasn’t supposed to win?

RealClearPolitics now has Obama ahead in delegates. He’s beating Clinton in the popular vote by a margin of 8.2 million to 8 million. He’s primed to win Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Clinton’s campaign is hurting for money and in disarray at the top. And — let’s be honest — the national press is openly rooting for Obama, with David Shuster’s sleazy comment about Chelsea Clinton only the most recent manifestation. (Although that could spark a protest vote in Clinton’s favor, as it may have in New Hampshire.)

No predictions — there are many scenarios. But one of the more plausible of those scenarios is that Clinton’s wobbly campaign will topple over sometime after Tuesday. Even though the March schedule supposedly favors her, it’s not going to matter if there’s a stampede in Obama’s direction as he keeps winning state after state.

It depends on the poll

Democratic political consultant Dan Payne, writing in today’s Globe about Hillary Clinton’s victory in Massachusetts, says, “Once again, pollsters failed to render an accurate snapshot of the race, missing a 56-to-41-percent landslide, making prognosticators like me look bad. This has got to stop or there will be blood.”

Really? The final WBZ-TV/SurveyUSA poll of registered voters, taken on Saturday and Sunday, had Clinton over Barack Obama by a margin of 56 percent to 39 percent. Yes, the WHDH-TV/Suffolk University poll had Obama ahead by two. But SurveyUSA called it almost perfectly.

Chris Matthews chills out

In my latest for the Guardian, I describe my evening with in front of the TV set with Chris Matthews, the MSNBC blowhard who jumped the shark with his over-the-top anti-Hillary Clinton tirades following Iowa and New Hampshire. The new Matthews seems slightly diminished, but his political knowledge and enthusiasm are unflagging.

No surprises in Mass.

No live blogging tonight, except to observe that rumors of Hillary Clinton’s and Mitt Romney’s demise in Massachusetts were greatly exaggerated. My record of making predictions is pretty grim, but I’ll give myself a mild pat on the back for this. I’ll have further thoughts on the media and Super Tuesday in the Guardian tomorrow afternoon.

Grown-ups on the stage

Tonight’s debate is remarkably civil and substantive. CNN’s Bill Schneider, who’s live-blogging it, calls it a “grown-up debate,” especially compared to the Republicans last night. He’s right. But doesn’t Obama, who’s behind in the polls in many states, need to throw a haymaker?

My guess is that Obama, not having any particularly good choices (check out these poll numbers), has decided that he has to hope voters are looking for a reason to vote against Clinton — and that, by coming off as presidential, he’ll give it to them.

The one-on-one format gives this an entirely different feel — it’s actually approaching a conversation about policy rather than a mindless recitation of soundbites. So far, no sign of Borat.

It looks like they’re going to close with Iraq. Obama just criticized “the mindset that got us into Iraq in the first place,” so we could get some heat.

The Clintons’ Kazakhstan problem

The New York Times fronts an absolutely brutal story today about Bill Clinton’s dubious dealings on behalf of a Canadian mining mogul.

According to the article, by Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr., the mogul, Frank Giustra, unexpectedly won a lucrative uranium-mining deal in Kazakhstan after Clinton flew to that country with him in 2005 and schmoozed the human-rights-abusing dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Giustra then turned around and donated $31 million to Clinton’s charitable foundation, with a pledge to give $100 million more.

There’s also an account of Bill Clinton’s and Giustra’s somehow not able to remember meeting with the head of Kazakhstan’s state-controlled uranium agency, Kazatomprom, at the Clintons’ home, in Chappaqua, N.Y., until confronted with evidence. Here’s a lowlight:

“You are correct that I asked the president to meet with the head of Kazatomprom,” Mr. Giustra said. “Mr. Dzhakishev [the head of the uranium agency] asked me in February 2007 to set up a meeting with former President Clinton to discuss the future of the nuclear energy industry.” Mr. Giustra said the meeting “escaped my memory until you raised it.”

That’s perfectly understandable, of course. I mean, any of us could forget about meeting with a former U.S. president and the guy who was about to make us many millions of dollars richer, right? Admit it: You probably can’t remember what you had for breakfast this morning.

The story raises the question of how happy Hillary Clinton is with this, as she has been an outspoken critic of Nazarbayev. But she certainly can’t distance herself from her husband’s shenanigans given that she’s ultimately responsible for unleashing him to attack Barack Obama during the past few weeks. It is the Clintons who’ve created the impression that they’re running for co-president, so his baggage is now hers as well. (Not that it ever wasn’t.)

But there’s an additional point of interest here, and that involves timing. This is, of course, a perfectly legitimate story, and the Times deserves a lot of credit for ferreting it out. Tonight we’ll see the most crucial debate of the campaign, as Clinton and Obama go at it one-on-one on CNN at 8 p.m. I suspect that this story will be a big part of the debate. And from there, it could dominate coverage right through Super Tuesday.

As we know, the Times has already endorsed Hillary Clinton. Today’s story may have far more of an effect on the outcome. Whether by accident or design, the news side has sent a clear message that it’s more relevant and more important than the paper’s opinionmongers.

The Kennedys and the Clintons

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would base his or her vote on what a Kennedy says. (Especially this one!) Still, it’s pretty interesting that both Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy would endorse Barack Obama on the same weekend.

Caroline Kennedy’s choice, which she reveals in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, is all the more impressive because she submitted it before last night’s South Carolina blowout. For all she knew, her op-ed was going to appear on a very good day for Hillary Clinton — that is, the day after a narrow loss in South Carolina and bulging leads in most other states. Whatever the opposite is of inevitable, that’s how Obama was starting to look, and Kennedy endorsed him anyway. As it turns out, she looks prescient.

As for Ted Kennedy, I have to assume his endorsement has been in the works for some time, and that he’s been waiting for the moment when it would have maximum effect. With Super Tuesday coming up on Feb. 5, and with Massachusetts being a part of it, now’s the time. I’m surprised by Kennedy’s choice. The Clintons have always been wildly popular here, and Kennedy seemed to have enjoyed a good relationship with them. Did something happen? Or does he simply find Obama too impressive not to support?

With Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick also supporting Obama, that’s the trifecta for the state’s top three elected officials. House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s endorsement of Clinton isn’t looking all that significant right now.

Predictions, always futile, have been especially so this year. But I can confidently predict this: The next few days are going to be the roughest of Clinton’s campaign, regardless of whether she has a happy Super Tuesday or not.

Photo (cc) by toastiest. Some rights reserved.

More Clinton-bashing on MSNBC

As Hillary Clinton was about to begin her speech, Joe Scarborough and Margaret Carlson started tut-tutting that Clinton would not congratulate Barack Obama for his victory, that the Clintons somehow don’t play by the same rules as everyone else. I mean, they were really getting into it, all venomous smiles.

Naturally, one of the first things Clinton did was congratulate Obama.