The Hillary Comeback
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 7th, 2008 10:13 pmI’m not saying I buy this entirely, but let me play Devil’s advocate. Even if he wins New Hampshire as he seems certain to, I’m not sure that Obama has much better than even odds for the nomination.
The key to this analysis lies in the Democratic calendar. From Wednesday morning until February 5th, the Democrats have only two delegate-awarding events: Nevada on January 19th and South Carolina on January 26th. Assume that Obama’s momentum hits its high water mark on Wednesday. He has to keep it up for 27 days under withering assault from the most ruthless political machine in Democratic history. And with an expected win in S.C., Obama can’t squeeze much more juice from the orange for the next four weeks.
Unlike New Hampshire, Obama simply can’t ride momentum from state-to-state-to-state for the next month. There are 11 days from the New Hampshire primary until the Nevada caucus. Of all the early states, Nevada has been the most Clinton-friendly (though there hasn’t been any polling since early December). Four days before, a full week of settling out from New Hampshire, will be the Las Vegas debate, which will be covered as yet another make-or-break moment. It will happen during a lull in their calendar, so it will leave a bigger mark than New Hampshire’s drive-by debates. And let’s remember that the debates (with one glaring exception) have been Clinton’s strong suit.
Nevada is also our first opportunity to see what a non-retail state looks like. It’s off the beaten path out West, so it hasn’t gotten as many visits as South Carolina. The population is highly transient, the core of the Democratic electorate is Vegas hotel workers, they haven’t had an early caucus/primary before, so the citizenry isn’t as inured in 24/7 presidential watching as IA/NH or even SC. Obama won’t be able to just turn on the charm here. Obama is at his height with highbrow voters and African Americans; Nevada has relatively few of each. Without any polling to go on, my instinct says these should be Clinton voters.
Now, there is a chance Obama could tap into Hispanics, but he’d have to jump over Bill Richardson, who can be expected to run interference for Hillary.
Why is Nevada important? Because I expect Hillary to make here stand there and practically skip South Carolina. She will have some time to right the ship during the longest pause in the calendar to date, the same way Bush had 18 days to avert disaster in South Carolina. These are naturally her voters. If she loses, we can start to talk about it being over. But not till then.
Here’s how it could unfold. Hillary loses tomorrow night. Obama jumps out to a respectable 10 point national lead. The Clinton camp announces a big shakeup on Thursday, with an party old poo-bah brought in as “National Chairman” with day-to-day responsibilities. This is coupled with a new aggressiveness, with slashing negative ads that can work in drive-by states but couldn’t work in the living-room type atmosphere in New Hampshire. Hillary commits to a do-or-die strategy in Nevada, with the goal of racking up on one “W” before 2/5. She has a strong debate performance on the 15th. It’s a dead heat going in. Then Clinton narrowly prevails. The press starts writing the “Clinton comeback” and “Obama slips” stories. Obama wins South Carolina by single digits, but Clinton surprises and wins Florida’s beauty contest. Momentum is now back to an even keel and the national numbers are a dead heat. Obama remains strong in the red states and is guaranteed Illinois — but his states will be underrepresented in delegates. Clinton wins New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut — and it all comes down to California. Hillary narrowly wins there. With superdelegates, Clinton now has a not insignificant lead in the delegate count post February 5th.
If the Democratic calendar were as compressed as the Republican one, or structured like the 2004 calendar with delegate events every week and Kerry emerging to make six Groundhog Day-like victory speeches in a row, Obama could bandwagon. But with the scarcity of events, and a potentially major stumbling block on the 19th, I’m still a little skeptical.
I will leave with one final thought. It is rare in recent history that primaries are as linear as 2004 or how we expect 2008 to go. Momentum usually shifts (even Kerry had a little hiccup in Wisconsin). Early state shockers that seemed all-important at the time wear out as time goes on. And in Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama faces an opponent with an unusually deep reservoir of political skill and grassroots goodwill. His performances has been soaring at times, but it is also much more uneven. Historically, steady-as-she-goes is what wins primaries, not unevenness. He has had some cringe-inducing moments that displayed his unpreparedness (his terrorism answer in the first debate; his Bhutto reaction). One more and he could instantly validate the central Clinton critique of his candidacy. It seems doubtful that he will not be tested before February 5th, and he has very little margin for error.
The above is a somewhat old school view of the primary process. It assumes 2008 unfolds somewhat the same as past primaries. But rules work, until all of a sudden they don’t. This could be a precedent-breaking year, like 1964 for the GOP and 1968 for the RFK Democrats. We could see something utterly remarkable happen: the hostile takeover of both parties by rejectionist forces from within, McCain-Huckabee on the Republican side, and Obama’s anti-Clintonism for the Democrats. If it did happen, it would signal that something dramatic has changed.
But the cynic in me still says we have moments like this just about every four years. Until I’m proven otherwise, I’m not ready to write an obituary for “politics-as-usual” just yet. Hillary is down but not out.
Tagged: barack obama 
hillary clinton strategy
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I agree that Hillary is down but not out. But I pretty much disagree with the rest of the analysis. I don’t think there’s much point in even trying to speculate on the remaining primaries. It does seem clear that Iowa will have a greater impact on New Hampshire than it has in the past because of the closeness of the two events, however, it’s a little to early to speculate even on that.
But I don’t think this election season can reasonably be compared with the Goldwater takeover in 1964, and I think the really significant takeover on the Dem side was with McGovern in 1972 not Kennedy in ‘68.
A Huckabee victory would demonstrate the continuing strength of the evangelicals in the GOP, but that’s not a new development. A McCain victory would signify the break-up of the old establishment coalition which, ironically would manage to cling to power by nominating their traditional nemesis. Either way, it’s the old order hanging on. The real struggle would have to wait until 2012 , assuming a Dem victory this year. I don’t think either Huckabee or McCain can win even against Obama.
If you think Senator Clinton can make a come back,you need to put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard. Look at how networks like CNN have turned against Senator Clinton.
A month of bad press will kill Senator Clinton along with the calls for her to step down instead of dragging out the primary seasons.
Wednesday Morning is the effective end of the Democratic Primary. The real question should be whether she will stick around in the Senate for four more years as a lame duck Senator who is the carpetbagger representative of a state that she is not from.
In a world without Edwards, which is what Ruffini seems to postulate here, this scenario might have some plausibility.
But Edwards is the most pro-union guy, he’s the guy who’s walked a picket line lately, he’s the guy with the best shot at connecting with those Las Vegas hotel workers if Obama doesn’t.
This scenario is totally plausible and to a certain extent, expected. As an Obama supporter, i’m confident Hillary will make at least a partial comeback. It will provide great press fodder too - “the comeback kid -she was knocked down in the first round but came back, etc..”. There’s a lot of time between 2/5 and this narrative will be *very* appealing to the media.
Should include the important point that the press will WANT to write stories about a Clinton comeback, because an uncontested march to the convention for Obama would be ever so dull.
[…] The Hillary Comeback - Patrick Ruffini I’m not saying I buy this entirely, but let me play Devil’s advocate. (tags: hillary_clinton 2008) […]
[…] I still have yet to see an ironclad explanation for the shocking discrepancy between the polling in New Hampshire and the actual outcome. Although this theory sounds plausible and at least one blogger hadn’t bought into the Obama hype completely leading up to the primary. I’ve a call planned for this evening to a friend of mine with more direct experience in campaigning so hopefully I’ll be able to report a more accurate assessment of what went wrong later tonight. […]