From today’s coverage:

“Clinton’s strategist, Mark Penn, tried to downplay the importance of momentum. ‘Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification for who can win the general election,’ he told reporters.”

Umm… no, but it is the only qualification for those Democrats who want to have a go at the general election.

Sometimes, it’s true, strategists can be so busy staring at the blue sky in the distance they lose sight of the shit-filled ditch just ahead.

[And to add, before anyone else does: I know what he really means is Obama's not the man to take on and beat the Republicans later this year. It's the riff the Clinton campaign use a lot; that, somehow, a figure as polarising as Clinton is the only person to take on McCain. That's crazy too. And I think that if I were a Clinton strategist I'd be trying something new, because I'm being thumped by the man I'm putting down as an inexperienced leader and sucky campaigner.]


COMMENTS / 4 COMMENTS

“Sometimes, it’s true, strategists can be so busy staring at the blue sky in the distance they lose sight of the shit-filled ditch just ahead.”

Exactly, H Clinton was so focused on how she would look in a general election and was so triangulating she forgot about the primaries, thinking she would swan in.

JohnofScribbleSheet added these pithy words on Feb 14 08 at 3:11 pm

I spent this morning with a bunch of high-powered political campaign students (and Alastair Campbell) and they certainly think that Hillary is done for.But I wonder if this is an especially febrile primary campaign partly because of the black/woman thing. I don’t think Hills is out of this yet.

Charlie Beckett, Polis@LSE added these pithy words on Feb 14 08 at 8:09 pm

I hear that the Democrats’ polling shows Obama is now, in fact, the person who could beat McCain, by a reasonable margin of safety. Hillary would be beaten, according to those numbers - and that’s going to lead to a lot of pressure from senior figures in the party, I’d imagine. They don’t want months of confusion ahead of the convention.

Neil Mc added these pithy words on Feb 15 08 at 12:14 pm

It’s tricky. After all a lot depends on what the grand 800 super votes of the Democrat seniors decide, but at the same time if Hilary accepted VP - which I don’t know if she would - then there’s still a good chance she’d get the job due to the number of attacks on Obama.

Or as someone put it to me today: “They only ever assinate the good American presidents”.

Craig McGill added these pithy words on Feb 15 08 at 6:24 pm

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