Day of Reckoning
A visitor to Clinton HQ sees signs of serious trouble.
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 2:17 PM ET Feb 29, 2008
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.
(Continued here.)
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 2:17 PM ET Feb 29, 2008
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.
(Continued here.)
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