The Hillary campaign mess and Obama's hidden wins

Most of us are a little tired of the Obama-Hillary contest, aren't we?  But it's not ending any time soon.  Like, get over it.  And enjoy the fact that John McCain is going to be begging for attention by September unless there's a radical change in the more interesting Democratic run for the White House.

One of the appeals of Barack Obama has been his ability to run a campaign on genuine enthusiasm, great competence, and an upbeat attitude.  One of Hillary Clinton's problems is a messy, internally-divided campaign staff, some of whom don't much like their leader.

With a flurry of phone calls and e-mail messages that began before polls closed, campaign officials made clear to friends, colleagues and reporters that they did not view the wins as validation for the candidate's chief strategist. "A lot of people would still like to see him go," a senior adviser said.

The depth of hostility toward Penn even in a time of triumph illustrates the combustible environment within the Clinton campaign, an operation where internal strife and warring camps have undercut a candidate once seemingly destined for the Democratic nomination. ...

... Many of her advisers are waging a two-front war, one against Sen. Barack Obama and the second against one another, but their most pressing challenge is figuring out why Clinton won in Ohio and Texas and trying to duplicate it. While Penn sees his strategy as a reason for the victories that have kept her candidacy alive, other advisers attribute the wins to her perseverance, favorable demographics and a new campaign manager. Clinton won "despite us, not because of us," one said.

Obama's rapid rise in the polls has been so smooth that many have forgotten how far he's come in a few weeks.  Instead the attention has been focused on Clinton's losses and need for a comeback.   Meanwhile, Obama moved from very low expectations for any kind of showing in Texas and Ohio to the expectations that he might win.  Obama's numbers in both states were as low as 30% in January whereas Clinton won in spite of a down-trend.  Disappointment in Obama's loss of those two states (at least in the popular vote) tends to mask the hidden wins, the causes for justifiable optimism.

Ann Kornblut, who's been chronicling the Clinton campaign for the Washington Post, reports today on the rifts within the campaign staff and the efforts at renewal even as they try to analyze (and agree about) how they finally managed to pull it out in Ohio and Texas.

Yet renewal has come so late that advisers worry it may be too difficult to overtake Obama. "There was an arrogant attitude on the part of the campaign for many months," one lamented. "And now we're in a fight for our lives."

Comments

[Jim W]

Obama has stuck to the high road, which is always a mistake in presidential politics when under assault by a low roader. Even now, he doesn't have to throw mud. He need only take the middle path- truth telling with a caustic edge- to hammer at her vulnerabilities. God knows Clinton is wide open to substantive criticism.

[Ann]

Please get back to the issues---price of gas, schools in need of much improvement, health care for all the war----! I'm sick of the sound bits.