The Audacity Of Hillary Rodham Clinton
With Spanish music blaring, Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigned across South Texas yesterday with a more populist message, as her new campaign manager sought to reshape a campaign that has lost eight straight primaries in a week to a Black man short on specifics but long on hope and optimism.
Maggie Williams, African-American, female, and notorious "head cracker," is a confidante of Mrs. Clinton from when she was first lady. This sistah is now moving to assert her control following the departure last weekend of Latina campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle. Madge is running a daily conference on what ads to put up and expanding the inner circle with advisers from the old Clinton White House.
But the campaign has something of a shellshocked feel, as staffers privately chew over a blowup last week where internal frictions flared into the open. Clinton campaign operatives say it happened as top Clinton advisers gathered in Arlington, Va., campaign headquarters to preview a TV commercial. "Your ad doesn't work," strategist Mark Penn yelled at ad-maker Mandy Grunwald. "The execution is all wrong," he said, according to the operatives.
Black Congressional Members Now Rethinking Their Hillary Support!
"Oh, it's always the ad, never the message," Ms. Grunwald fired back, say the operatives. The clash got so heated that political director Guy Cecil left the room, saying, "I'm out of here."
Adding to the sense of drama, an aide to Sen. Barack Obama yesterday declared the Clinton campaign all but doomed. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said that Mrs. Clinton can't become the Democratic nominee without winning every remaining contest in "blowout form." In a conference call with reporters, he said that "even the most creative math" won't get her there.
To disprove that, the Clinton team is relying on its new campaign manager, Ms. Williams, and her reshaping of the candidate's message to focus more on solutions for working-class people.
As part of that revamp, Sen. Clinton is getting tougher on Mr. Obama. "There's a big difference between me and my opponent," Mrs. Clinton told a mostly Hispanic crowd here in McAllen: "I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business." Meanwhile, she launched her first negative ad, airing one in Wisconsin that criticized Barack Obama for not agreeing to debate before that state's primary. The story continues...