| (For a comprehensive look at the candidates and LGBT issues in 2008, read Kerry Eleveld's piece in The Advocate today, "Taking Stock of This Gay Election: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama all reached out to the community in different ways, leaving gay activists to choose which candidate's approach will produce results for LGBT equality." I was interviewed for the article.) Here we go...expect it to really get ugly now. Political editor of the Huffington Post, Thomas B. Edsall, discusses "Clinton Allies May Dump Millions Into Anti-Obama Group" in his column today. A panicked and cash-short Clinton campaign is seriously considering giving up on the Nevada caucuses and on the South Carolina primary in order to regroup and to save resources for the massive 19-state mega-primary on February 5. At the same time, some top independent expenditure groups supporting Clinton have been exploring the creation of an anti-Obama "527 committee" that would take unlimited contributions from a few of Clinton's super-rich backers and from a handful of unions to finance television ads and direct mail designed to tarnish the Illinois Senator's image. The Clinton campaign has raised over $100 million, but has "only" $15 to $20 million left. It faces donor reluctance to give more in the face of the Iowa defeat and the prospect of a second loss in New Hampshire today. Even worse, the campaign fears defections among those fundraisers who want to be with a winner and who might be easily persuaded to support Barack Obama. Why count on the GOP to torch Obama when Hillary's crew, suffering mightily from the mistake of overconfidence and overspending, plans to "go there" as I discussed in my earlier post.Melanie Levesque, a state representative in Brookline, New Hampshire and a member of African-Americans for Hillary, said Obama lacked the experience to win the presidential election, echoing the official Clinton spin. However, she went on to add a few thoughts of her own, which are not far from the surface of the Clinton campaign."I'm very concerned that you can't state [Barack Obama's] middle name, you can't state his record and you can't state his past life," she said. Asked if she was referring to Hussein, his Muslim middle name, and his admitted use of drugs, including cocaine, in his youth, she said, "Yes." This is the height of desperation. All I can say if there's going to be gay money used in any proposed Anybody-But-Obama 527 Committee to trash Obama (Hillary has long list of LGBT backers with deep pockets), it will be remembered, since federal law requires folks to disclose the identities of the donors. Also, since DC is company town, with politics as its "product", operatives may also find it hard to land anyone to front the 527 if they ever want to work in the town in an Obama administration. You might make some good money in the short term, but your chances of getting any Democratic contracts in the future, especially if Obama wins, would be zilch," said one operative. "I wouldn't go there." If you recall, of the top tier Dems, only Obama and Edwards support full repeal of the federal DOMA, not Hillary Clinton, so if gay folks with dough want to funnel cash into this 527, it will be interesting to see the rationalizations for going there. *** I was catching a nap and woke up to Terry McAuliffe of the Clinton campaign being interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. She ate him for lunch, asking him how strategist Mark Penn must have egg on his face for sending out a press release saying Obama wouldn't get a bounce out of Iowa. He didn't answer the question. From the WSJ on Penn: He also has long been a target of Democrats who complain of arrogance within the Clinton camp. His detractors seized on his authorship of a campaign memo -- though other campaign officials agreed to it -- that went out to the media Saturday, as reporters, candidates and their contingents had de-camped after Iowa's caucuses to New Hampshire. "Where's the Bounce?" it asked in a headline, over news of a poll that suggested Sen. Obama had gotten little lift from his Hawkeye State victory. But the next day, a succession of new polls documented that he had bounced way over Sen. Clinton -- spawning guffaws among those recalling the previous day's memo. After reeling from that query, she asked him bluntly about the torrents of emails going out to anyone the Clinton campaign has ever pulled an email addy from for a desperate fundraising request. Mitchell, who says has never contributed to a presidential campaign, asked McAuliffe about the burn rate -- where was all the money ($100 million) going? And if, as he said, there was plenty of cash on hand, what's with the desperate fundraising emails? Most of her donors have topped off at the $2300 contribution limit, so they cannot be tapped again - she has to find new blood. All he could do was say she needs the money for Super Tuesday, and that everybody does it because of the large media markets. He looked like he was sweating bullets; Mitchell was relentless. Oh, btw, word on the street is that old Bill Clinton hands and talking heads James Carville and Paul Begala are being brought on board to stop the bleeding. As expected, no one is being dumped because of Clinton's poor performance lest it give the impression the campaign is in trouble. Too late. McAuliffe intimated this during the Mitchell interview, but didn't confirm Carville and Begala by name. UPDATE: TorrentPrime reports that TPM says Carville is denying that he's joined Camp Hillary. And look at this, an exit strategy is already being planned, because if she loses big in NH (and they are running low on Dem ballots as we speak because the turnout is h-u-g-e, and everyone knows it's not for votes going Clinton's way), some of her Senate colleagues are going to abandon ship. (WSJ): Already some Clinton associates have begun lobbying for her early exit if she loses the primary by a big margin, as polls suggest she could. Several Senate colleagues who have sat on the fence are now in talks with Obama advisers about endorsing the freshman Illinois senator over his more experienced colleague. *** [Again, it seems like I'll have to repeat this over and over in these posts particularly for newbies to the blog, but I have not endorsed any candidate for president, and don't plan to. If anything, I have only informally declared an anti-endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and even then, she would still be a more palatable choice for president than any of the clowns in the GOP car.] UPDATE 2: Andrea Mitchell grilled Clinton co-chair Terry McAuliffe about possible shakeups in the campaign: Several sources indicate that people will come in and layer several of the prominent staffers responsible for the Iowa and New Hampshire strategy. Those likely to be layered include Mark Penn, Mandy Grunwald, Patti Solis Doyle -- and possibly Howard Wolfson.
...Q: I'm smelling a shakeup in the Clinton campaign. McAuliffe: We'll bring in more people to help us. We're about to head into Feb 5th, 23 states.
From day one, this campaign, and Hillary, has given strict instructions: Anyone who wants to come in can help us. I think a lot of people now, seeing the situation we're in, love Hillary, adore Hllary, want her to be president, are going to come in and say, I'm going to come in and help Hillary. That's natural in a campaign. Uh oh -- no one seems enthusiastic about coming on board to try to keep the ship afloat. Mitchell:Terry McAuliffe has reached out to several former Clinton aides...partly to reassure worried donors. So far, we know that neither Carville nor Begala (to whom McAuliffe spoke) will come in. He has NOT called former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.
And...contrary to reports in the New York Times and elsewhere, a source close to Podesta says, "He is not going to Hillary Clinton's campaign. No one has talked to him from the campaign; if someone is joining the campaign tomorrow, it is not him. " |
