Clinton campaign flailing

By Libby Spencer

If you're old enough to have lived through the Nixon years, you'll probably also find the HuffPo's description of Hillary's latest messaging as over the top theatrics, a bit overstated. I've seen worse, but there was nothing subtle about that mockery. I leave it to you to judge for yourself whether it was offensive.

For myself, I was put off by it on a couple of levels. I'm really tired of negative campaigning and I found it rude. Plus, she came off like a candidate who is still struggling to find a central message which rather conflicts with the whole ready on day one theme. I don't find that reassuring.

I don't understand the strategy or the timing behind it at all. I imagine it was designed to counter the impression that she was conceding at the debate, but the inconsistency between that event and the last two days is dizzying. She went from nice Hillary, to angry Hillary to mean Hillary in the space of three days. And as skippy points out, it's an odd choice to mock faith on a Sunday.

However, Joe Gandelman asks the money question. Will it change any minds? It may have worked a few months ago, but now? I imagine it will encourage her supporters who will see a fighting spirit in the taunting but I don't see it winning any converts.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

What about on Day Two?

By J. Thomas Duffy

Now that the wheels are coming off, that we're near the end of this seemingly never-ending campaign - and debate marathon - can Hillary Clinton, and her clunkering camp, retire the "Ready on Day One" mantra?

It's hasn't worked.

It's gotten about as much lift-off and mileage as the Spruce Goose.

And it's become just as wooden.














Besides, everyone knows that on Day One of a new job, you're lost, bored and made to feel like an imbecile.

First off, there's the canned, dull, HR Orientation you have to sit through ... Blah, Blah, Blah ... Company policies ... Blah, Blah, Blah ... Refer to your Employee Handbook ... Blah, Blah, Blah ...

Then you get ushered to your office.

First 15-minutes, or so, is adjusting the height of your chair (and you can add 5-minutes for those that like to jack the chair up all the way, then hit the lever, to let it go down all the way, real fast).

Office supplies ... There's another 20-minutes, or so ... Annoying the people around you, who sigh loudly as they point you to the supply room, clearing intending you make you feel like the imbecile previously mentioned, for not knowing where the supply room is ... Duh!

Then, the paperwork ... W-4 forms, the 5-inch thick Healthcare book, with dozens of forms ... You lose a good 15-minutes here, mulling over who to designate as your Emergency Contact person (whose going to home during the day, in case something happens and do you want to bother that person and, since you have their telephone number on speed dial - at home - you chalk up another 10-minutes trying to remember their number)

The rest of the morning is spent on figuring out the telephone system, with about half that time spent waiting for IT to either bring you a telephone, or to unlock the password, left by the previous employee, for whom you are replacing, for the voicemail.

And then it's a good 20-minutes, or more, recording, and rerecording your voicemail message ... Calling up some friends (you don't want to go back to those annoyed co-workers) to call you, to leave you a message, see how the voicemail recording plays.

Then, it's lunch, followed by meetings in the afternoon, designed to get you up-to-speed, all the while you begin clock-watching, dying for this day to end.

So, it goes, being that she's already spent eight-years in the White House, as First Lady, Hillary may very well have a slight advantage of Day One, already knowing the lay-of-the-land there.

If Hillary is inferring something else about "Ready on Day One", then we have to turn to Barry Crimmins, who has articulated the "Day One" mantra like no others;

"Clinton's claim that she will be ready 'Day One' is contradicted by the fact that she's been ready for nothing on the campaign trail. In particular, she hasn't been ready to compete with an extremely well organized and evermore popular opponent. Nowadays, when you look at Hillary the campaigner, you see a candidate whose toughest electoral foe before this race was Rick Lazio. Sorry, but you need to play a tougher non-conference schedule than that.

Obama's campaign has organized in every precinct of the country. This has proven the superior plan to the "where in the world is Hillary Clinton?" approach of an opponent who now looks much more presumptuous than presumptive. Obama's camp has distributed authority to workers on the basis of merit. This has resulted in an enthusiastic and extraordinarily energized base of Obama activists. These people are flattening a Clinton workforce that too often is comprised of drones forced into duty by bosses beholden to the old Clinton machine.

Unfortunately for Senator Clinton, that once well-oiled machine of the 90's isn't nearly as efficient as the wiry and wireless workers of an Obama effort that understands that running for President of the United States requires serious organization in every one of the States."

And that "Lifting whole passages is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox" line ...

Sorry Hillary, it makes you so ink-stained-Mimeograph-machine, to Obama, the most popular downloaded eBook of the new Kindle thingy.


Bonus Debate Links

Trex: Thank You for Playing, Now Please Just Go Away

Michael J.W. Stickings: Texas debate review

Scarecrow: Valedictory Debate?

Marc Ambinder: First Take: The Debate Belongs To Obama, But The Best (And) Last Moment Belongs To Hillary

CNN Transcript: The CNN Democratic presidential debate in Texas


Hillary, Ready on Day One!













(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)