Day of Reckoning-A visitor to Clinton HQ sees signs of serious trouble.

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Fri Feb-29-08 06:03 PM
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Day of Reckoning-A visitor to Clinton HQ sees signs of serious trouble.

Eleanor Clift-Newsweek 2/29/08

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.

Clinton once led Obama in all the national polls; now she's behind him by a growing margin—as much as 13 or 18 percent in some soundings. In Texas, which votes on March 4, Obama is now ahead in most polls. For the first time he has also surged ahead of her in an Ohio poll—one taken before the debate. Hillary leads in three other polls, but by a margin of 4 percent at best. This is a state where she has the backing of the governor and once led by a double-digit margin. Campaign aides are dejected and demoralized, and they're turning up for work late. It's as if they've given up. Talk of a dream ticket—the idea that a deal would be struck to combine his youth and her experience—was once an exciting prospect. Now the likelihood of that happening seems to fade by the day.

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The much vaunted Clinton campaign operation, billed as the biggest, baddest game in town, had no post-Super Tuesday strategy because its leaders apparently didn't think one was needed. Whether that's due to arrogance or ignorance, it's the campaign equivalent of what President Bush did in invading Iraq without a post-Saddam plan. The primaries are in a very true sense a practice run for the White House, and if you emerge with high marks, as Obama has, it's a pretty clear statement of the kind of government you would run. Obama has shown a steadiness in demeanor and message. Clinton has blown through $120 million dollars, and her persona is more confused than ever. A USA Today cartoon captures the shifting moods with a political weather map and a "Five-day Hillary Forecast: Monday…Friendly; Tuesday…On the attack; Wednesday…Complimentary; Thursday…Hostile; Friday…Conciliatory."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/117151