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 News from Around the Americas | February 2008 
Can Hillary Stem Obama's Momentum?
 Charlotte Raab - Agence France-Presse
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White House Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton fought to stave off a wave of momentum for rival Barack Obama before a primary contest in Wisconsin that will hinge on a large working class vote.
Obama, on a roll after eight consecutive victories in the nomination race, hopes to extend his winning streak in the Midwestern state as well as in caucuses in Hawaii on Tuesday.
Polls showed a tight race in Wisconsin with the Illinois senator enjoying a narrow five-point lead over the former first lady, according to a new survey by Research 2000, US media reported.
The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday and showed 11 percent of voters remained undecided.
The candidates faced freezing temperatures as they tried to woo working class voters in Wisconsin, which has 74 delegates at stake and has played a historic role in past nomination races.
Bad weather on Sunday forced both candidates to cancel some events while Obama reportedly paid a visit to North Carolina to meet John Edwards out of the view of reporters. Edwards, a former rival in the White House race, has yet to offer an endorsement for either contender.
Senator Clinton, who has tended to do well among blue-collar workers elsewhere, has spent less time in Wisconsin and has instead pinned her hopes on delegate-rich Ohio and Texas on March 4 to stop Obama's surge and turn the race in her favor.
As the Democratic candidates sought to rally the mostly white, working class electorate in Wisconsin, campaign officials and advocates argued over the role of "superdelegates" in selecting the party's presidential nominee.
Trailing Obama in the popular vote so far, the Clinton campaign argued that hundreds of "superdelegates" - party activists and elected officials who get a vote at the Democratic convention in August - were not bound by the results of voting in their home states.
Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, a supporter of the former first lady and himself a superdelegate, told Fox television on Sunday the independence of superdelegates was part of the process, and "those are the rules."
As a superdelegate, Strickland said "I think my responsibility is to vote my conscience, and I intend to do that."
But Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, a pro-Obama superdelegate whose state votes Tuesday, said that approach would defy the popular will and damage the party.
"I think it would be an absolute disaster for the Democratic Party for the superdelegates to undo the will of the people who have been selected in the primaries and in the caucuses and by the rules that were set out," he told Fox.
In a close race governed by elaborate party rules, neither candidate may emerge from the state-by-state primaries with enough regular delegates to clinch the Democratic Party nomination.
Hundreds of superdelegates would then hand one candidate the party's mantle, and as of now, Clinton leads among those party leaders and lawmakers.
The candidates traded attacks in television ads and speeches, with Clinton painting Obama as inexperienced and lacking substance while he portrayed the New York senator as hamstrung by Washington's partisan ways.
Hawaii, which has 20 delegates in play, is expected to break for Obama, who was born and raised there.
Including pledged superdelegates, Obama has 1,302 delegates so far, compared to 1,235 for Clinton, according to independent website RealClearPolitics. A total of 2,025 are needed for the nomination.
In the Republican race, front-runner John McCain is forecast to win easily against former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in Wisconsin and take another step to the 1,191 delegates he needs to secure the party's presidential nomination.
With Huckabee lagging far behind, the Arizona senator already has 825 delegates in hand and has started to position himself for the November general election - charging that his Democratic rivals would raise taxes if elected.
Discussing the troubled US economy, McCain promised no new taxes in an interview on ABC's "This Week."
"In fact, I could see an argument if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates, which are the second-highest in the world," McCain said.
What Hillary Has to Do to Win
Nancy Benac - Associated Press
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Ask a dozen die-hard Democrats around the country what Hillary Rodham Clinton can do to beat Barack Obama and win the presidential nomination and they have plenty of ideas — some of them contradictory.
The question generates strong sentiment, though, that Clinton simply can't compete on charisma, that there are forces at play beyond her control. Going negative could backfire, they warn. Laying out nitty-gritty policy details isn't enough, they say.
There's no shortage of advice, but also no shortage of head-scratching. Add it all up, and there doesn't appear to be a secret plan to save her candidacy.
A sampling of Democratic voices from the field:
_SHOW PASSION: "The challenge for Hillary Clinton is to be seen as an agent of change, to recapture the passion that the people who support her really have for her," says Kari Chisholm, a political consultant in Oregon who blogs at http://www.blueoregon.com. "I'm not sure that I'd want to be in the shoes on her team. ... She's considered the same old, same old, and she's not. But she's having trouble communicating that." Chisholm said Clinton should hit her universal health care message harder, stop using Washington insiders to defend her on cable TV and "find a way to communicate some excitement." Chisholm supported John Edwards, and says he could go either way between Clinton and Obama.
_IT'S THE ECONOMY. AGAIN: "HRC's firewall must be predicated on message," says Chris Lehane, a political consultant in California and former aide to President Clinton. "She is THE candidate who the public, press and pundits by instinct, temperament and history believe is the best on the economy at the exact time the economy is THE brooding, omnipresent force hovering over both the primary and general electorate." Lehane is backing Clinton.
_GO NEGATIVE: "She needs to come in strong," says Judy Carpenter, a third-grade teacher from Delaware, Ohio, who turned out at a Clinton rally at Ohio State last week. "I don't like vicious attacks. But gosh darn, she needs to call him on some things." Carpenter supports Clinton.
_MAYBE NOT: A candidate goes negative "at great risk," says Mitch Ceasar, the party chairman in Florida's Broward County. "You can alienate people. It's less of a risk for Republicans, because they're better at it and everybody expects it from them." Clinton, he says, should "talk about the distinctions" between herself and Obama on the issues .
_DEFINITELY NOT: Going negative "positively would be the absolutely wrong thing to do," says Ed Treacy, a former county party chairman in Indiana. "Democrats do not want to see them fighting at all. ... I'm not sure what she can do. So much of it is his momentum." Treacy hasn't endorsed a candidate.
_THE FORCE: "The most important thing is that the force is with Obama," says Glenn Browder, a former Alabama congressman and now professor emeritus at Jacksonville State University. "The election seems to be moving in his favor, and I don't believe that issues have much to do with it right now. It's not as if she could all of a sudden start pointing this or that out about his positions or his votes, and that would change things very much. He is a movement that goes beyond issues." Going negative could backfire on Clinton, Browder says, but it might help if the media or independent groups took on Obama. Browder is neutral in the race.
_REMEMBER IRAQ: "If she could come up with a more specific war plan," says Marcia Mainord, president of Texas Democratic Women. "That's what I hear people talking about. Who's going to end the war." Mainord is personally supporting Clinton but hasn't made a formal endorsement.
_BE YOURSELF: "She's a very engaging, very warm person if she lets that side of her be seen," says Warren Tolman, a former Massachusetts state senator. "There's a very warm, compassionate side that isn't often enough seen." Three things Clinton should do, according to Tolman: "Be yourself. Show compassion. Look like she's having fun." Tolman has endorsed Obama.
_READY TO DELIVER: "There is a narrative to be told that she hasn't quite put all together," says Tom Swan, who directs a citizen action group in Connecticut. "But she's close, on health care and her experience and her scars make her the one who can deliver now." Swan voted in the Connecticut primary but hasn't publicly endorsed anyone.
_GRASS-ROOTS ORGANIZE: "I am obsessive about precinct-based organizing," says Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic nominee who lost to George H.W. Bush. "We've got to get serious about this stuff. It's not just money and media." Dukakis, teaching a course this winter at UCLA, says Obama has done more local organizing than Clinton. He adds that neither candidate should be faulted for failing to do much of it in Ohio and Texas, which vote March 4, because no one thought the nomination race would extend beyond Super Tuesday. Dukakis hasn't endorsed a candidate.
_STEADY AS SHE GOES: "You've got a strategy, stick with the strategy," says Jim Crog, a longtime party operative in Florida. "Ride it and make it work. One of the most detrimental things a campaign can be involved in is a what-if campaign: What if we do this? What if we do that? You'll be literally bouncing around the room and off the walls." Crog hasn't endorsed a candidate.
_McCAIN FACTOR: "She's got to convince Democrats that, contrary to what the polls now show, that in the end she's going to be a better candidate against John McCain," says Garry South, a longtime Democratic operative in California. Can she still win the nomination? "Unfortunately, I don't think there is a secret formula," says South. "There comes a time when the worm turns, when the momentum shift is clear. And when that sort of thing happens, there just aren't a lot of options for the candidate who is trailing at that point." South hasn't endorsed a candidate. |
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