Eleanor Clift chronicles the sense of impending doom gripping the Clinton for President campaign:
The day of reckoning for Hillary Clinton is almost here. The voters in Ohio will either deal a final blow to her campaign or provide a much needed victory that at best will give her a reprieve in the long march to the nomination. A visitor from another country recently paid a call on the Clinton campaign headquarters in Ballston, Va., a place just over the bridge from Washington but light years away. He imagined he would be present at a moment of great triumph. Instead he found a campaign on the verge of imploding. Phone bank tables were unmanned. Bins full of mail sent over from the Senate sat unattended. A lot of young women, fanatical Hillary fans all, rushed about, seemingly unclear about what they were supposed to be doing. Other aides sat in front of computer screens, gloomily reading coverage of the campaign. Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer, the campaign’s communications team, weren’t speaking with anybody else, just doing their own thing, whatever that might have been. In short, it was not a happy family.
No amount of spin can overcome Hillary’s disappointing performance Tuesday night in Cleveland. MSNBC called it a draw, but hardly anybody else did. Hillary didn’t land a single blow. Her insistence on sticking with health-care reform as an issue for the first 16 minutes of the debate only reminded people how unbending she can be when convinced of the rectitude of her position. The debate was perhaps her last chance to turn the tide after 11 straight losses. As aides sat looking at polls coming in with the gaps widening, a new reality took hold. They’ve given up winning in Texas and they fear they may not win in Ohio.
Clinton once led Obama in all the national polls; now she’s behind him by a growing margin—as much as 13 or 18 percent in some soundings. In Texas, which votes on March 4, Obama is now ahead in most polls. For the first time he has also surged ahead of her in an Ohio poll—one taken before the debate. Hillary leads in three other polls, but by a margin of 4 percent at best. This is a state where she has the backing of the governor and once led by a double-digit margin. Campaign aides are dejected and demoralized, and they’re turning up for work late. It’s as if they’ve given up. Talk of a dream ticket—the idea that a deal would be struck to combine his youth and her experience—was once an exciting prospect. Now the likelihood of that happening seems to fade by the day.
And the situation on the ground doesn’t look any better as we head into what may be the last 48 hours of this campaign.
In Texas, new polls from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Zogby both show that, while the race has tightened, Obama still retains a lead and that, combined with the dual primary-caucus method for choosing delegates, argues strongly in favor of the idea that Obama will win there.
In Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Zogby both show the race virtually tied in a state that Clinton led comfortably only about ten days ago. Clinton may win Ohio, but it will likely be by a very tiny margin and it’s unlikely to give her a big delegate bounce.
With Clinton and Obama looking likely to split Vermont and Rhode Island, the real battle will be in Ohio. If Obama wins there and in Texas, this race is over. If Clinton wins she will have an argument, albeit a very slim one, for staying in the race at which point I would expect to see superdelegates moving toward Obama in an effort to convince Hillary that the jig is up.
Previous Posts
Hillary Clinton Death Watch
Hillary Clinton Death Watch, Afternoon Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Saturday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Sunday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Monday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Tuesday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Wednesday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Thursday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Friday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Friday Afternoon Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Saturday Update
