Clinton plays election roulette
By: Jeanne Cummings
Feb 13, 2008 06:31 AM EST
Hillary Clinton must downplay the significance of a string of losses while underscoring the importance of the more populous big states to come.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is now on a path to the Democratic nomination that is remarkably similar to the one that failed for Republican Rudy Giuliani.
Just as the former New York mayor pinned his hopes on a late Florida victory to sling-shot him into front-runner status among Republican candidates, the New York senator is banking on wins in Ohio and Texas next month to revive her campaign after a February string of back-to-back-to-back losses.
Its a high-risk play for the once undisputed Democratic front-runner. It also may be the only maneuver she has left after rival Barack Obama managed to effectively counter her planned Super Tuesday knock-out punch.
Since then, hes seized momentum by racking up eight wins on friendly turf, including three more Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
How do you survive all of the Obama money, momentum and media between now and March 4 when it looks like you are going to lose everything in between, including the Democrats Abroad vote? asked unaligned Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh.
The answer, according to Marsh and strategists in both parties, isnt a pretty one but it does exist.
Like Giuliani, Clinton must downplay the significance of a string of losses while underscoring the importance of the more populous big states to come.
But her strategy is fraught with risks, not the least of which is dismissing the relevance of thousands of pro-Obama Democratic voters in small caucus states and in the seemingly hostile terrain of traditional Republican strongholds.
Its not a factor, was how Clinton dismissed Obama victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana, Virgin Islands and Washington state in an interview with WJLA and Politico on Monday.
We had a great night on Super Tuesday. Were winning the states that we have to win. The big states that are really going to determine whether the Democrats win, she said during the televised discussion.
Clinton has laughed out loud when asked about her losses in red state bastions such as Kansas and other caucus states, backhanding them as products of her own party activists and not real voters.
Clintons position isnt a perfect parallel to Giulianis.
Unlike the Republican mayor, Clinton has pocketed major victories already. She won the Democratic primaries in New Hampshire, California, New Jersey and New York, all states that make her a credible candidate going forward.
Giuliani hadnt won a single state before his candidacy-ending loss in Floridas Republican primary.
He never really established himself on the stage of presidential primary voting. She clearly has, says Tad Devine, a strategist to 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Hillarys part of the action now. Its a two-person race.
Thats good news, of course, for Clinton but its also the reason her campaign now finds itself in limbo, forced to make a more complex appeal to voters.
Clinton argues that she is the stronger candidate because she can win big-state primaries such as in California or New York, states that are critical to the party in November.
By insinuation she seems to suggest Obama might lose those heavily Democratic states in a general election, a point her own party leaders and strategists would likely dispute.
She is encouraging voters in Texas and Ohio to dismiss Obamas victories as irrelevant.
But those wins actually could add substance to his claim that he has the best chance to expand the electoral map and break out of the red-state, blue-state formula that has bedeviled his party for two presidential cycles.
The goal of Clintons new rhetorical assault is to freeze Obamas momentum before March 4. Its an especially difficult maneuverand one that Giuliani couldnt pull off.
He had a double-digit lead in Florida until Arizona Sen. John McCain won the Republican primary in New Hampshire.
After that, his polling numbers went into a steady slide as McCain began to surge and Giuliani continued to lose badly in all the early states. His collapse ended with a dismal third-place finish in Florida.
Today, Clinton also leads by double-digits in Ohio and Texas. Her challenge is to keep those voters focused on their March primaries and unfazed by what happens in between, the very feat that escaped Giuliani.
Plenty of experts doubt she will be able to keep Buckeye and Lone Star primary voters in such a state of suspended animation.
Its not a static process, says Devine. Its a dynamic process. If one candidate can knock down state after state, that will affect what voters do in subsequent states.
Clinton does have one more hand to play than Giuliani: superdelegates, elected officials and party bigwigs not bound by the primary voters choices.
The Clinton campaign, led by former President Bill Clinton, already is aggressively courting those delegates to keep Obamas expected February wins from giving him a sizable lead in the delegate count contest.
A candidate needs 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.
Obamas recent victories, not including Tuesdays wins, have given him an edge in pledged delegates, those assigned based on primary voting results. In that category, he has 1,004 to Clintons 925.
Of the 796 super delegates, Clinton leads with 213 compared to Obamas 140.
That advantage has helped Clinton keep the race close: 1,144 total delegates for Obama compared with 1,138 for Clinton, according to a tally on RealClearPolitics.
The tight delegate fight helps explain the overheated courtship of former Democratic candidate John Edwards.
The small number of delegates he won during his abbreviated campaign is now his currency as he tries to gain pledges from the candidates for action on his favored cause of poverty.
Clinton made an unannounced pilgrimage to North Carolina in an attempt to win Edwards endorsement and, hopefully, move those delegates into her column.
Obama intends to make the same trek to the Tar Heel State.
Clinton also is pushing party leaders to allow her to count delegates from Michigan and Florida, both of which saw their results disqualified after moving up their primary dates against the party hierarchys wishes.
Obama is strongly opposing their inclusion since he did not actively campaign in either state; his name was not even on the Michigan ballot.
Clintons reliance on obscure rules and party elites to stay in the nomination hunt ultimately could backfire, particularly if she falters on March 4 and presses on to Pennsylvania.
Whatever happened to the party of Make every vote count, and Lets count all the ballots? asks strategist Matthew Dowd, a former adviser to President Bush.
If she wins the nomination in a way that activists perceive as cheating, its almost akin to a murder-suicide. She takes out Barack Obama and sets herself up for huge problems in the fall, said Dowd.
Democratic strategist Marsh agrees Clintons course carries great risks. But she says Clinton has no better options until the primary calendar tilts back her way next month.
You cant care. You have to fight back. Those are the rules, she said. A delegate is a delegate is a delegate. On the floor, they all only get one vote.
Unfortunately, he plays for the wrong side....ummmm, politically speaking
