Hillary Clinton built the most formidable campaign team ever assembled — an all-star squad that included many from the group that led Obama to two victories and was considered by most political observers to be the best ever.
They would use the latest data mining technology and voter tracking systems to target voters and GOTV.
Her epic campaign would put paid staffers in all 50 states (at least for a couple of weeks) and build a true 50-state strategy.
Endorsements would be non-stop, with fellow pols and organizations lining up to sing her praises.
Super PACs would be fired up and ready to go, and one, run by David Brock, would even figure out a way to beat the system and coordinate directly with the Clinton campaign.
All the pieces were in place. And facing token opposition in the early states, she could husband her resources for the general election.
That’s how it all was supposed to go.
And now?
“He’s a socialist! Run for your lives!”It’s come down to that for the vaunted Clinton juggernaut.
Democrats backing Hillary Clinton, nervously eyeing Senator Bernie Sanders’s growing strength in the early nominating states, are turning to a new strategy to raise doubts about his candidacy, highlighting his socialist beliefs to warn that he would be an electoral disaster who would frighten swing voters and send Democrats in tight congressional and governor’s races to defeat.
…
“The Republicans won’t touch him because they can’t wait to run an ad with a hammer and sickle,” said Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s.
“Where did this guy come from?”And how do we take him down?
It is a scenario many Democrats long dismissed as even remotely plausible: the 74-year-old Mr. Sanders, a registered independent who self-identifies as a democratic socialist, as their nominee. But the possibility of his defeating Mrs. Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire next month has prompted some of her prominent supporters to discuss how they could attack Mr. Sanders if his candidacy began to look less like a threat and more like a runaway train: calling him unelectable and warning Republicans would have a field day if he were the Democratic nominee.
“WTF?”This was not how it was supposed to go...
Facing a tougher than expected challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is preparing for a primary fight that could stretch into late April or early May and require a sprawling field operation in states and territories from Pennsylvania to Guam.
With the Iowa caucuses in two weeks and Mr. Sanders’s insurgent candidacy chipping away at Mrs. Clinton’s once formidable lead there, Clinton aides are acknowledging that the road to the party’s July convention could be an expensive slog. “Remember, I campaigned all the way into June last time,” Mrs. Clinton told CNN last week.
“We have a national operation. No, really!”Remember when the Clinton campaign was laying out what they claimed to be a real 50-state strategy that was touted all over the press and by many here? Okay, so they fudged a little...
Even though the Clinton team has sought to convey that it has built a national operation, the campaign has invested much of its resources in the Feb. 1 caucuses in Iowa, hoping that a victory there could marginalize Mr. Sanders and set Mrs. Clinton on the path to the nomination. As much as 90 percent of the campaign’s resources are now split between Iowa and the Brooklyn headquarters, according to an estimate provided by a person with direct knowledge of the spending.
…
The campaign boasted last June, when Mrs. Clinton held her kickoff event on Roosevelt Island in New York, that it had at least one paid staff member in all 50 states. But the effort did not last, and the staff members were soon let go or reassigned.
“Bernie who?”Bernie Sanders was an afterthought. No way he’d pose a serious challenge. There is no need to worry about the later states.
For all its institutional advantages, the Clinton campaign lags behind the Sanders operation in deploying paid staff members: For example, Mr. Sanders has campaign workers installed in all 11 of the states that vote on Super Tuesday. Mrs. Clinton does not, and is relying on union volunteers and members of supportive organizations such as Planned Parenthood to help her.
Asked about the discrepancy between the campaigns and whether Mrs. Clinton’s team planned to put staff in all of the Super Tuesday states, Marlon Marshall, her director of state campaigns and political engagement, declined to comment specifically, and instead repeated this line three times: “We’ve had folks in states for a while.”
“Money’s no object! Well, okay...”She would be the most well-funded non-incumbent to ever run for president! (On top of being the bestest, most smartest, most bestest smartest ever!)
Even if Mrs. Clinton wins in Iowa, where she maintains a slight lead in most polls, Mr. Sanders could receive an outpouring of small donations if the outcome is close that would help him compete in subsequent states... Many of his donors have yet to give him the maximum individual contribution of $2,700, meaning they could be tapped repeatedly if the contest remains close.
...
A prolonged primary campaign against an opponent widely popular with the party’s liberal base could exhaust donors who will also be asked to contribute to an expensive campaign to defeat the Republican nominee.
Look, I still think Hillary Clinton has the inside track to the nomination. Her institutional advantages are enormous. But if this campaign so far has proven anything, it is that she is not a particularly good candidate. And what of her “dream team” of former Obama campaign professionals? This race tells you all you need to know about the value of having a strong candidate. The geniuses look a little less “genius-ey” with a weak candidate against an opponent practically no one took seriously.
Sanders’ campaign team has been routinely mocked here as inept, yet the democratic socialist has Clinton and her supporters reacting rather than acting. And judging by their reactions, they were wholly unprepared for what has transpired.
Given the mood of the electorate, anything could still happen in this primary race. No matter who wins, we will have to fight and claw to win the general. After witnessing Clinton’s performance so far, I remain unconvinced that she necessarily gives us a better shot in the general election, despite all of the “electability” protestations raised by her campaign and her supporters.