Thursday, April 03, 2008

HILLARY CLINTON, BARACK OBAMA

Team Hillary Assures Us Everything Is Fine

Team Hillary, in their daily conference call, contend that Obama is weak in the southwest, against a Republican candidate who will probably be strong there, and that he's also weak in the big three, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.

They note that they've won all of the primaries in their "toss-up" states (as defined by MSNBC) except one, while Obama has lost most of his. There's limited value in comparing primary results to general election results (McCain;'s New York primary win doesn't make him more likely to win the state in the general) but I suppose of a state's Democrats and independents have found you lacking, then maybe the general election will be a similarly hard climb.

Andrea Mitchell notes that New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has said that if Obama leads the popular vote when all the primaries have voted, then he (a superdelegate) will switch his support to Obama.

(I now see that that's a bit of a misquote; Corzine wanted to make clear he would keep his options open if Obama wins the popular vote.) 

Harold Wolfson says they are confident of their opportunities in Pennsylvania and moving forward, and that they will" make the case that Hillary Clinton is ready to be commander-in-chief and ready to beat John McCain, and we believe Obama has not made that case."

Mark Penn: "When everything is done, all the superdelegates are going to take a look at this race... They're going to look at Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida... We'll see if he has the lead in the popular vote, and we'll see who is in better position to take on Senator McCain."

They think Obama will outspend them 2 to 1 on television in Pennsylvania. They're not worried because they claim they were outspent by that ratio in Ohio and Texas.

Penn notes that he and the other Hillary-ites aren't arguing that Obama can't win the presidency, but that he has glaring deficiencies among key demographics. (The Post reported they said otherwise.) 

04/03 10:16 AMShare