THE IRON LADY (Ryan Lizza, New Yorker) In the remaining dozen primary contests, which include the March 8th Wyoming caucus and stretch to the South Dakota primary, on June 3rd, Clinton needs to win by huge margins in order to overcome the more than hundred-delegate lead that Obama still enjoyed after March 4th… Would it be acceptable, I asked McAuliffe, for the superdelegates to overturn the results of the popular vote? “You keep trying to contend the nomination is over tonight!” McAuliffe replied loudly and happily, pointing and waving his arms. “I’m telling you we have twelve states to go. Don’t tell me about the popular vote. You call me in June and then talk to me about it. We don’t know where we’re going to be. We have a lot of states. I don’t want you disenfranchising all these great states coming up. . . . Why don’t you like these people?” The next day, a Clinton adviser was more candid about what lies ahead. “Inside the campaign, people are not idiots,” she told me. “Everyone can do the math. It isn’t like the Obama campaign has some special abacus. We can do these calculations, too. Everyone recognizes how steep this hill is. But you gotta keep your game face on.”
SNIPING BY HER AIDES HURT CLINTON’S IMAGE AS MANAGER (Adam Nagourney, Patrick Healy and Kate Zernike, New York Times) Interviews with campaign aides, associates and friends suggest that Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager. Juggling the demands of being a candidate, she paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois. Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise.
INFLUENTIAL DEMOCRATS WAITING TO CHOOSE SIDES (Dan Balz, Washington Post) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s trio of victories over Sen. Barack Obama last week appears to have convinced a sizable number of uncommitted Democratic superdelegates to wait until the end of the primaries and caucuses before picking a candidate, according to a survey by The Washington Post. Many of the 80 uncommitted superdelegates who were contacted over the past several days said they are reluctant to override the clear will of voters. But if Clinton (N.Y.) and Obama (Ill.) are still seen as relatively close in the pledged, or elected, delegate count in June, many said, they will feel free to decide for themselves which of the candidates would make a stronger nominee to run against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the fall.
OBAMA FAVORED OVER CLINTON IN MISSISSIPPI (Nick Timiraos, Wall Street Journal) More than one third of the state’s electorate is African-American. The primary is also open to Republicans and independents, who have favored Sen. Obama but who polls show may favor Sen. Clinton in the state. Sen. Obama leads his rival 58% to 34% in Mississippi, according to a poll Friday by American Research Group. He holds an even stronger advantage, 66%-31%, among registered Democrats in the state, while Sen. Clinton leads by 13 points among independents and Republicans.
MCCAIN USES BREATHING ROOM TO FOCUS ON COFFERS (Michael Cooper and Michael Luo, New York Times) Sewing up the Republican presidential nomination while the Democratic candidates continue to battle each other has given Senator John McCain a valuable commodity: time he can use to unite a fractured Republican Party, ramp up his lackluster fund-raising and transform his shoestring primary operation into a general election machine. The lull will give the McCain campaign some breathing room, but it could have drawbacks as well. Even Mr. McCain acknowledges that the tight, fierce Democratic race is likely to garner most of the news media’s attention in the near term, eclipsing coverage of his campaign.
A SCORECARD ON CONVENTIONAL WISDOM (Mark Leibovich, New York Times) RHETORICAL pop quiz: Who was more dead, Hillary Rodham Clinton a week ago or John McCain six months ago? Whose nomination was more inevitable, Mrs. Clinton’s six months ago or Barack Obama’s two weeks ago? Both questions are of course moot — if not ridiculous in retrospect (as fleeting as Rudy’s front-runner status or the media swoon over Fred Thompson). Yet they inspire a proclamation that might actually be true: The accuracy rate of “conventional wisdom” in this presidential election has plummeted to new lows.
DEMOCRATS DOWN THE TICKET WORRY ABOUT AN IMPASSE (John Harwood, New York Times) So far, the clash between the two history-making candidacies has appeared to be an unalloyed benefit to the party. In state after state, Democrats displayed their enthusiasm through robust primary turnouts that drew in many new voters. If Clinton and Obama supporters have fallen into consistent niches by gender, income, education and ethnicity, polls show that most Democrats would happily support either one in November. But now the threat of stalemate, vituperation and disillusionment hangs over a contest structured to declare a verdict a month ago. Potential fallout could imperil Democratic hopes for both the presidency and larger Congressional majorities.
CONDIMENT (Hendrik Hertzberg, New Yorker) If McCain really wants to have it all—to refurbish his maverick image without having to flip-flop on the panderings that have tarnished it; to galvanize the attention of the press, the nation, and the world; to make a bold play for the center without seriously alienating “the base”—then he can avail himself of a highly interesting option [for vice president]: Condoleezza Rice… Her nomination to a constitutional executive office would cost McCain the votes of his party’s hardened racists and incorrigible misogynists. They are surely fewer in number, though, than the people who would like to participate in breaking the glass ceiling of race or gender but, given the choice, would rather do so in a more timid way, and/or without abandoning their party. And with Rice on the ticket the Republicans could attack Clinton or Obama with far less restraint.
JOE TRIPPI ON THE DEMOCRATIC RACE (John Heilemann, New York) The architect of Howard Dean’s 2000 primary insurgency, most recently a senior adviser to John Edwards’s campaign and a leading advocate for the ‘bottom-up’ style of campaigning, which eschews big donors in favor of grass-roots organizing and small donations fueled by the internet, shared his thoughts on the current Clinton-Obama deadlock. Read on to find out why this won’t be resolved before the convention, a Clinton-Obama ticket is likely, and the end of the writer’s strike was a key moment in the race.
OUT OF THE TANK (Noam Scheiber, New Republic) In truth, the press hasn’t turned on Obama. There are simply two different press corps covering him, and the crankier one carried the day in San Antonio. In some respects, the split resembles the now-familiar divide in the Democratic electorate between blue-collar voters and affluent liberals. The press’s version of the lunch-pail set includes some of the local Chicago scribes, tabloid and wire-service reporters, cable TV and radio correspondents, and the ever-present “embeds”–the human production studios who race from stop to stop with all manner of equipment strapped to their backs. The campaign’s white-collar set includes many of the reporters at elite national newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, newsweeklies like Time and Newsweek, and general-interest publications like The New Yorker; columnists from all of the above; and writers from political magazines like this one… The elites are stringing together a “larger narrative.” The working stiffs generally live, if not from day to day, then week to week. Like the voters, the two press groups can part company on Obama.
MCCAIN’S DAUNTING TASK (William Kristol, New York Times) Buried inside Sunday’s papers was a noteworthy election result. In a special election to replace former Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, first-time Democratic candidate Bill Foster emerged victorious. George Bush easily carried the district in 2004, as has every recent G.O.P. presidential candidate. This Democratic pickup suggests that, for now, we’re in an electoral environment more like 2006 than 2004. Foster’s eight-percentage-point improvement on John Kerry’s 2004 performance in the district mirrors the general shift in the electorate from 2004, when Bush won and the Republicans held Congress, to 2006, when the Democrats took over Congress and ran on average about eight points ahead of the G.O.P. Most surveys have shown the Democrats retaining that sizable advantage over the last 16 months. Saturday’s special election would appear to confirm these polls. This isn’t encouraging for G.O.P. prospects in 2008.
