Seven More Weeks? Hillary Opens Offices in WY, MT and Puerto Rico

K Gardner

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Mar-03-08 09:54 AM
Original message

Seven More Weeks? Hillary Opens Offices in WY, MT and Puerto Rico

Edited on Mon Mar-03-08 09:58 AM by K Gardner

Anyone think Hillary is really going to go quietly into that good night?

Wyoming Caucus, April 8/Montana Primary June 3

Hillary Hires Staff in MT, WY and PR

Clinton & Obama target WYO & MONT
On Montana's 4&20 Blackbirds, jhwygirl talks about the Obama-Clinton race, particularly how the battle is shaping up in her state of Montana and her former state of Wyoming. Here's an excerpt:

As LiTW reports today, Hillary is now hiring staff in Montana, Wyoming, and even Puerto Rico. Singer says that he thinks that the staff is going to be up and running only for the primaries -- in other words, they’ll pull out or be redirected for the general. He’s probably right….and isn’t that ironic? Even though it has been shown that Dean’s 50-state strategy is really the way to go (flashback 2006), neither candidate will give it the respect it deserves -- until it’s in the rearview mirror. And even then -- only as much respect as they absolutely have to give it. (”Oops!”)

I hadn't heard about Hillary hiring Wyoming staff. But we do know that Barack Obama is opening offices in Cheyenne and Laramie (reported Tuesday). To back up the claim that the Democratic candidates are only interested in capturing delegates in the primaries, I heard through the grapevine that the Obama people have only leased their Cheyenne office for four months, which would take them through the Democratic state convention on Memorial Day weekend. Still, a short-term presence is at least some presence. It may encourage turnout at the county conventions, and raise Sen. Obama's profile in Wyoming. As for Ms. Clinton, her profile is pretty low among Wyomingites, even Dems. A few staffers roaming the state won't be enough to repair damage done a long time ago -- in the 1990s.

Mississiippi Primary, April 11 - Obama heavily favored. Hillary would have to overcome the insult she gave to MI earlier in the year:

Hillary Insults Mississippi

WASHINGTON — Maybe it will be a 49-state campaign instead of the Democrats' much-heralded 50-state strategy if New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is the party's presidential nominee next year.

That's because of the insult the Democratic front-runner tossed Mississippi's way last week in an interview with Iowa's most important political reporter, the Des Moines Register's David Yepsen.

Expressing "shock" that Iowa and Mississippi are the only states that have never elected a woman governor or sent a woman to Congress, Clinton added, "How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism, that's not the openness I see in Iowa."

Mississippi's senior senator, Trent Lott, was not amused when word of Clinton's comments reached him. He demanded and, according to him, got an apology from Clinton.

"Having lived in Arkansas, which is something of a whipping boy, too, she knows better than that," Lott said of Clinton's slight of Mississippi.

Pennsylvania Primary, April 22 (Guam also has their Caucus on this day)

Obama, Clinton open campaign headquarters in Philadelphia
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA - Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama opened campaign headquarters in Philadelphia this weekend.

The Pennsylvania primary on April 22 is still seven weeks away. But it could be a key contest if Clinton does well in Texas and Ohio on Tuesday.

According to The Associated Press, Clinton trails Obama by 109 delegates. About 1,300 delegates are yet to be chosen.

Obama's office, in the heart of downtown Philadelphia, opened Saturday. Clinton's office, near the Delaware River, opens Sunday.

Spokesmen for both campaigns said they hoped to enlist the support of more than 1,000 people this weekend.

So, Obama will take Wyoming and Mississippi, and has already closed to within 6 pts in Pennsylvania, but do we face Seven More Weeks of This?

But the rhetoric is heating up on the trail. "You know, for some people, this election is about how you feel. It's about speeches," Clinton said yesterday in Ohio. "Well, that's not what it's about for me. It's about solutions." Obama shot back at Clinton's experience argument, noting that Clinton has said she did not read the entire national intelligence estimate on Iraq before voting to support the war. "I don't know what all that experience got her, because I have the experience to know that . . . if the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee says, 'You should read this, this is why I voted against the war,' then you should probably read it."

Even if Clinton does well enough to argue for hanging on through Pennsylvania on April 22nd, she may face more pressure to reconsider doing so. Seven more weeks of increased back-and-forth could sap the momentum of even this energized Democratic race.

Can or should the Democratic Party survive seven more weeks of this.. or even longer? At this point, it is obvious her only path to the nomination is to utterly destroy Obama. Will she be allowed to continue on this road? It seems the MSM is already gearing up to allow her to do so.