Originally Posted By: the G-man
Actually, BSAMS, at this point, I think Obama leads the popular vote too and Hillary is just holding out hope that, as the primaries go on she'll take the lead in that.


Or that she'll damage Obama enough to finally sway the superdelegates. From Sunday's LA Times:

 Quote:
Not only do Clinton aides believe that scrutinizing the caucus process can help them squeeze out more delegates, due to math or certification errors,
.. which they failed to do.
 Quote:
but they believe that a drumbeat of complaints about the caucuses bolsters Clinton's argument to superdelegates that they are not as legitimate as primary elections. In addition, the fighting delays the official delegate count, which helps keep Obama's lead from growing too fast and gives Clinton more time to raise questions about his electability.


That's pretty much her strategy. Stay in the race and kick up dirt and hope enough sticks on Obama to where the superdelegates have no other choice but to accept her as the candidate.

of course though the longer she keeps this up and strongarms her way thru the party, the more backlash she's generating. From Saturday's LA Times:

 Quote:
"There's a lot of feeling among Democrats on the Hill that the Clintons did very little for the party. It was all about them," said one Democratic lawmaker, an Obama supporter who did not want to be identified in order to preserve a working relationship with Clinton. "We lost seats in Congress, we lost governorships, we lost statehouses. . . . And the whole time defending [President Clinton] through the impeachment process, the entire Democratic agenda got shelved."

The latent tensions might be just so much psychodrama, or a political footnote, except that Clinton is now turning to some of the same lawmakers who felt used and abused -- along with state party leaders, who have their own gripes -- to help win the party's presidential nomination.

"It sure would be helpful to her if there was a little more personal loyalty to her in the hearts of those 300 or 400 people who are ultimately going to decide this," said one neutral Democratic strategist who, like most of those critical of the Clintons, did not want to be identified to avoid angering the couple.





And of course the polls show her in steady decline and voters losing trust in Clinton.

Still, she continues to try to sell superdelegates on her electability. And, her campaigni is trying anything and everything to prove the point. Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central was told by top Clinton strategist Harold Ickes that Rev. Wright is a "key topic" for the Clinton camp's talks with the superdelegates. Allegedly thirty-five years of experience and that's the "key topic"? That's actually pathetic.

I imagine superdelegates aren't just listening to the Clinton campaign spin. Chances are, many of them are looking at polls. And, if anything, the constant flow of independent polling numbers undermines Clinton's electability argument. The longer the race goes on, the worse it is getting for Clinton. Today's Wall Street Journal analysis of polling on the trust issue doesn't help:

 Quote:
In the weeks before the Pennsylvania primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton not only lags Sen. Barack Obama in the race for delegates, she also is losing ground in her effort to convince voters that she is trustworthy.

The debate over her record has left Sen. Clinton confronting her lowest approval rating since April 2006, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week.

According to the survey, 29% of the approximately 1,000 respondents said they had a very negative opinion of Sen. Clinton compared with 15% for Sen. Barack Obama and 12% for Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee.

A Pew Research survey released last week shows 29% of Democratic voters describe Sen. Clinton as "phony," compared with 14% for Sen. Obama.


The Clinton campaign has created this dynamic. And, Hillary's own words continue to undermine her. As Jed shows again, there is plenty of material:

Hillary Clinton's NAFTA Story Exposed