HRC to throw in the towel in Iowa?

[draft_mario_cuomo]

It is amusing how "national" frontrunners HRC and Giuliani are struggling where voters have the most exposure to them and other candidates.

==From NBC's Chuck Todd
In one of his first appearances on the wire since re-joining AP, Ron Fournier and Beth Fouhy co-report on a leaked memo the AP obtained from Hillary Clinton's campaign which apparently argues for skipping the Iowa caucuses. We know it's not easy being the national frontrunner, but can any frontrunner skip an early state? As I detailed in a column a few weeks ago, skipping Iowa has proven to be a bad strategy. The last candidate to successfully do it was Bill Clinton and that's because EVERY one of his primary foes skipped Iowa due to the presence of Tom Harkin in the race. Oh, and by the way, Iowa is a swing state in the general election and voters will take skipping the caucuses personally and could punish that candidate should they happen to actually get the nomination.

From the AP report, which is not yet on line: "The memo is a sign of division among the New York senator's strategic advisers. The memo by Mike Henry was described generally by two senior Clinton advisers who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was little chance the senator would take his advice. Harold Ickes, a top Clinton strategist, said the campaign is studying various options for dealing with the rush of nomination contests in early 2008, including bypassing Iowa, but he said the senator was determined to continue her Iowa campaign. "Every campaign games out different scenarios and this is one scenario," he said. "The campaign is moving in Iowa, is going to stay in Iowa and Mrs. Clinton is very dedicated to winning the state."==

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/05/23/201420.aspx

[The Magistrate]

1. It Does Not Sound Like It, Sir, On the Basis Of Mr. Todd's Reporting

[jobycom]

2. I'm confused. Doesn't the report say that she is NOT bypassing Iowa?

:shrug:

[draft_mario_cuomo]

3. Right now that is the campaign's position

However, there is internal debate on it and if she fades in Iowa over the summer those who advocate skipping Iowa may win the internal debate. She realistically could fall to a weak 4th in Iowa over the summer. She is only 7 points ahead of a surging Richardson right now...

[jobycom]

5. So the campaign's position is they won't skip Iowa, but somehow the story is

that they might skip Iowa? So if someone in Edwards's camp said that maybe they should skip lunch, but they all decided to have lunch, would the story be that Edwards was considering skipping lunch? :shrug:

The friggin' media. They've been trying to destroy the Clintons since the 88 convention with Bill's "long, boring speech." I'm starting to hope she wins just to piss them off.

[William769]

11. Will you ever get your facts straight?

[jefferson_dem]

4. I agree with this conclusion - if she had wanted to skip Iowa, she can't now...

....

The officials who described the memo said the fact that its existence has leaked outside the campaign almost assures that Clinton will be forced to stay the course in Iowa. They said there are some in Clinton's camp who want to her to skip Iowa and the memo was designed to ensure that the option was fully debated. Others in her inner circle have argued that Iowa has been a focal point of the campaign for too long to be abandoned, and say that the senator has long shared their view.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3205194

Makes you wonder who leaked the memo and whether the Hillary camp is united...and loyal. Hmmmm...

[blm]

6. Doesn't even matter if it's true or not - she CAN'T skip Iowa now - so she won't.

Not after a leak like that.

[karynnj]

9. Even before she couldn't - not since the recent poll putting her third

If she were going to avoid it because there are so many up front states, the time to have indicated this would have been when she was still neck and neck with Edwards. Then she would have had to simultaneously indicated a long list of states she intended to concentrate on.

The real damage would be if she did come out third or foruth, it would immediatly call the national polls into consideration - the winner would claim she couldn't connect.

This will likely signal a lot of work by Hillary in Iowa now - you're right, she has to compete.

[ElizabethDC]

7. Highly unlikely that she'll be skipping Iowa. She's scheduled to go there this weekend.

And for the next three weekends, in fact.


Says the Hotline:

This is a one-week story at most. Votes permitting, HRC is headed to Iowa this weekend. She'll probably have a joke ready about the memo. (She will in Iowa for the next three weekends, in fact.) And then it will be forgotten by everyone except for us national campaign reporters who love to speculate about the inner workings of the Clinton Kremlin.


more: http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/on_hillary_the.html

[IndianaGreen]

8. She will do the country a favour if she skips the campaign altogether

and for once, take a solid stand against Bush on the war instead of this faux antiwar charade she has engaged in.

Will Hillary vote to strike out the oil law provision from the funding bill?

Will Hillary do what Kucinich, Edwards, and MoveOn have called for, and vote against the compromise bill?

[Big Pappa]

10. Congressman Kucinich is

the only one from that group who has all his integrity intact.

[William769]

12. You got your answer didn't you.