Polls Show Clinton Campaign Collapsing In Early States

[SixPackInBoxers]

POLLS SHOW CLINTON CAMPAIGN COLLAPSING IN EARLY STATES

NEW HAMPSHIRE

As I have commented before Rasmussen is a poll that seems to be constantly out of sinc with other polls and I find it unreliable.

However in yesterdays Rasmussen poll in New Hampshire they have Obama leading there (but within the margin of error). Obama 31, Clinton 28, Edwards 17, Richardson 8, Biden 4

The more significant statistic is that Rasmussen had Clinton two months ago leading Obama by 22% there. A change in Obama’s favour in two months 25% of percentage points. A colossal reversal.

Having said that the CNN poll yesterday has Clinton still in the lead there by 1% (well in the margin of error). However two months ago CNN had her leading by 23%. A CNN change in Obama’s favour by 22% points. But any reading of these polls is indicating a Clinton meltdown there should the trend continue.

The other polls in NH mostly had Clinton leading by 18-23% a few months ago and now basically level pegging. Her drop in New Hampshire as been simply mind-boggling. Of course that is not the final say of the voters but by any standards Obama has taken off, while her campaign seems to be heading South there.

For the full year of poll results in New Hampshire you can see them all by going to the below and scrolling down to them all from the Spring to the latest at:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_primary-194.html


IOWA

In Iowa Obama has steadily increased his numbers, while Clinton’s lead has been dropping and in almost all polls evaporated. Clinton only remains ahead there in the Rasmussen poll. In all the other recent polls Obama is in the lead

For the full year of poll results in Iowa you can see them all by going to the below and scrolling down to them all from the Spring to the latest at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ia/iowa_democratic_caucus-208.html

SOUTH CAROLINA

The latest poll in South Carolina (Insider Advantage) has Obama ahead by 6%. There was not a similar Insider Advantage poll two months ago so we have to go back to the Insider Advantage poll of four months ago where Clinton lead by 15% points. A change in Obama’s favour by 21% points over four months.

For the full year of poll results in South Carolina you can see them all by going to the below and scrolling down to them all from the Spring to the latest at: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/sc/south_carolina_democratic_primary-234.html

These are startling figures and all seem to indicate a similar picture and point to serious trouble for the Clinton campaign. Obviously the Clinton campaign have realised that they are in trouble and have moved almost all their major campaign heavyweights to Iowa but it would seem a huge mountain to climb to overturn this trend now, which appears more like an Obama bush fire.

Of course even a week is a long time in politics but this sort of collapse in polling so quickly seems unprecedented.

If Obama continues to catch on like this the Republicans would appear to be in real danger

 

[MystikWizard]

All the double talk, planting questions, faking Southern accents, and of course her Pro War Bush voting record are finally catching up to her.

But I heard on the Morning Joe today that some in her campaign are going to accuse Obama of being a drug dealer today, so we'll have to see.

Pot calling the kettle black. "I did not inhale." "I did not have sex with Ms. Lewinsky."

Voters at this point, may not care.

Dems safest bet may be to go with Edwards at this point. He seems to be the candidate with the least amount of dirt on him.

 

[lancelva]

A trend cannot be determined by one polling cycle. To declare three weeks out that Senator Clinton is "collapsing" is impossible. Both of these states are very hard to poll and a lot can change between now and when the votes are cast. Dick Gephardt's numbers improved in the last week of the campaign, but he ended up losing the election. The fact is that Senator Clinton's numbers have remained relatively stable over the course of the campaign--if you look at the pattern in the data you will see this.

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

Also interesting is that not only her campaign numbers are collapsing but the campaign seems to be turning on its own.

Clinton insiders question top aide's approach


BY GLENN THRUSH | [Removed by Moderator]
8:36 PM EST, December 12, 2007


DES MOINES - On the eve of the final Iowa debate before the Jan. 3 caucuses, Clinton campaign insiders are increasingly questioning the cautious, poll-driven approach taken by Mark Penn, Hillary Rodham Clinton's top political aide, sources familiar with the situation say.

With Clinton barely holding her own against Barack Obama and John Edwards in Iowa, dissatisfaction is growing with Penn, who some say has mistakenly run Clinton as a de facto incumbent.

"There are two people who have come up with this strategy -- one Hillary Clinton and one Mark Penn," said a top Clinton ally, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Mark wanted to run her, basically, for re-election, and we are seeing what happened."

Said another Clinton camper: "The heat's on Mark. ... He's got a lot of enemies."

Penn didn't respond to requests for comment. Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson downplayed the dissent.

Clinton's aides insist that no shake-up is imminent and that Penn still has her ear. But they concede Bill Clinton has taken a more active behind-the-scenes role as her campaign flags.

For months, tension has been building between the "Hillary" and "Bill" parts of the team, say several people familiar with the situation. Bill Clinton -- along with former White House hands -- have counseled her to adopt a far more aggressive approach with Obama.

Penn, sources say, has counseled moderation, believing an attack would elevate her already-high negatives and drive her too far to the left to win a general election.

The division wasn't a major issue when Clinton enjoyed a modest edge in Iowa and big leads in South Carolina and New Hampshire. But the acrimony has grown as all those races have become toss-ups.

On Wednesday, a CNN-WMUR poll found Clinton and Obama in a dead heat among New Hampshire Democrats, just weeks after polls in the first primary state showed her with leads approaching 20 percent.

CNN polling director Keating Holland said Clinton had lost a surprising amount of support from women but could rebound. "This race is not over by a long shot," Holland said. "Forty-three percent of Democratic primary voters ... say they are still trying to make up their minds."

To sway women voters, Clinton has begun campaigning with her daughter, Chelsea, and mother, Dorothy Rodham. And she's gone into attack mode on Obama, a trend that's expected to continue at today's debate, over his alleged lack of experience and episodes from his Illinois State Senate tenure.

Clinton's Iowa swoon has also revived the internal campaign debate over whether she should have staked so much on Iowa -- a mercurial state her husband bypassed in 1992. In addition, some insiders have complained about a lack of communication between campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and the campaign's Iowa guru Teresa Valmain -- one reason Solis Doyle relocated to Des Moines last week.

"The top officials on the campaign have never had a real understanding of Iowa," said a Clinton operative.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-ushill1213,0,2146646.story

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

All the double talk, planting questions, faking Southern accents, and of course her Pro War Bush voting record are finally catching up to her.

But I heard on the Morning Joe today that some in her campaign are going to accuse Obama of being a drug dealer today, so we'll have to see.

Pot calling the kettle black. "I did not inhale." "I did not have sex with Ms. Lewinsky."

Anyone as ambitious as Hillary Clinton when her campaign seems to be hitting the rocks will turn nasty. They already have. She is already polling as running the most negative campaign by a large margin. But I don't think it is going to harm Senator Obama. His decency comes across in spades and I think the Clinton campaign's efforts to emulate Rove will only remind people of her strong negatives and shrill attacks of the past - and why so many people don't trust or like her.

Here is the attack you refer to:

In Iowa, a Scrambling Lesson for Clinton


By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 13, 2007; Page A01


DES MOINES, Dec. 12 -- When senior advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton awakened to the fact that they faced a serious problem in Iowa, they knew they needed a summit. For the divided staff, the question was where.

It made sense to fly to Iowa, where support for Clinton (N.Y.) was flagging and her aides were scrambling to make up ground. But a key member of her inner circle, Harold Ickes, warned that a crowd of Arlington-based operatives descending on the Plains en masse might set off alarm bells, triggering "campaign in panic mode" stories, according to two people with inside knowledge of the Clinton operation.

In a symbolic twist, they met halfway -- in Chicago, the back yard of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). The irony was not lost on increasingly worried members of the Clinton team, and it was in many ways emblematic of the challenges in turning around a lumbering national organization as events unfolded to the benefit of their less experienced, and nimbler, rival.

On Thursday, Clinton heads into the final Democratic debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses with her earlier aura of inevitability gone. She is essentially tied with Obama and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) in Iowa, and her edge in New Hampshire is eroding as well.

If advisers were worried about appearing panicked in early October, some are less able to hide it now. Bill Shaheen, the Clinton co-chairman in New Hampshire, raised questions on Wednesday about Obama's admission that he had tried drugs, a risky tactic that telegraphed the nervousness within the Clinton campaign.

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight . . . and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen, the husband of former governor Jeanne Shaheen, adding that Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions.

"It'll be 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' " Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Shaheen later sought to backtrack, saying, "I deeply regret the comments I made today and they were not authorized by the campaign in any way." But the attempt to raise questions about Obama's electability met with a sharp reaction from his camp.

"Hillary Clinton said attacking other Democrats is the 'fun part' of this campaign, and now she's moved from Barack Obama's kindergarten years to his teenage years in an increasingly desperate effort to slow her slide in the polls," wrote campaign manager David Plouffe. "Senator Clinton's campaign is recycling old news that Barack Obama has been candid about in a book he wrote years ago, and he's talked about the lessons he's learned from these mistakes with young people all across the country. He plans on winning this campaign by focusing on the issues that actually matter to the American people."

Some prominent Clinton supporters said that, while they expected the race to tighten, they are now being forced to scramble. "The level of worry is, they feel like they're in a damned close race," said James Carville, who was a strategist for Bill Clinton and maintains close ties to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"I don't really think there's going to be any kind of, quote, shake-up or anything like that," Carville said. "But will there be some moving around? Sure."

With three weeks before the caucuses, Clinton's advisers are stepping up their criticism of Obama and are planning a final push that they said will draw distinctions between her level of experience and electability and his. Clinton brought in her mother and daughter to campaign with her here last weekend, and her husband made a swing through key college campuses this week. Her national campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, has more or less moved to Iowa as part of a wave of senior staff members relocating to the state.

From the outset, Clinton faced an uphill fight in Iowa, a state in which her husband was never forced to develop an infrastructure in his two runs for the White House. But in this campaign, her rivals moved quickly to assemble teams of veteran operatives.

Still, her initial strategy did not put special emphasis on the caucuses, treating them as part of a national campaign. Obama, meanwhile, assembled a team of advisers with lengthy track records in Iowa and frequently made the short trip from his home state to lay the groundwork for his bid. Edwards never lost his grip on a core of supporters from his 2004 campaign.

The chief concern, one person with immediate knowledge of the campaign said, was that Clinton simply did not visit Iowa enough over the summer and early fall -- a common complaint in national campaigns, but one that the Clinton team was unaccustomed to. No one on her senior staff has ever been through the grueling caucus process, which emphasizes direct contact with voters and is difficult to measure through traditional polls. In one infamous incident, a campaign memo from deputy director Mike Henry floated the idea of skipping the caucuses altogether -- further offending some in the state, but ultimately forcing the campaign to publicly recommit itself to campaigning in Iowa once the memo was rejected.

Another challenge facing Clinton's organizers, officials said, was sheer logistics. About 60 percent of her supporters say they have never been to a caucus, making it critical that she devise a strategy to lure them out on Jan. 3.

It was not until October that senior officials at Clinton headquarters realized there was something of a disconnect between the candidate and the sentiments of participants in Iowa's quirky system, two campaign insiders said. And it was Clinton who sounded the alarm bell, they said.

"She got it before anybody else, and she dragged them kicking and screaming to take it seriously and to focus," said one person who has worked for both Clintons. "She recognized you couldn't manage a state from a thousand miles away. You had to get in there, you had to be on the ground, and see and feel what she was seeing and feeling."

Teresa Vilmain, a veteran of the caucus process who was brought in as Clinton's state director in Iowa in late spring, said the caucuses are "first and foremost about relationships -- that is what you start with." For Clinton, she said, the challenge was building up those relationships over the relatively short course of the year.

"We have a game plan, we've had one from the day I got here, which was to introduce Hillary Clinton to this state, remind them of what she has done," Vilmain said. She said that it was for that reason that the campaign held organizing events around each of Clinton's visits in the summer, such as her major speeches on Iraq, the economy and health care.

Still, the October meeting in Chicago prompted the senior staff in Arlington to focus on how competitive the race had become and what the ramifications would be if she lost or finished third. Shortly thereafter, the campaign dramatically increased its staff on the ground in Iowa, bought additional advertising time and moved a senior communications specialist to Des Moines. Former governor Tom Vilsack, a key Clinton surrogate in the state, was quoted the next month as saying the candidate had not initially understood the importance of relationship-building in Iowa -- but that she had figured it out.

"We were being out-organized," one person directly involved with the effort said flatly.

Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, said she never expected to glide to victory in Iowa; if anything, she was simply pleased that "at some point this became a competitive race."

"It's really a three-way, close race" in Iowa, Penn said. "It's an extremely close race all around."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121202793.html?hpid=topnews

 

[lancelva]

Anyone as ambitious as Hillary Clinton when her campaign seems to be hitting the rocks will turn nasty. They already have. She is already polling as running the most negative campaign by a large margin. But I don't think it is going to harm Senator Obama. His decency comes across in spades and I think the Clinton campaign's efforts to emulate Rove will only remind people of her strong negatives and shrill attacks of the past - and why so many people don't trust or like her.
Here is the attack you refer to:

And Obama isn't "ambitious"? Which candidate isn't ambitious? It's interesting that you talk about turning "nasty" and "negative campaigning" when you and your fellow Obama fans have been relentlessly smearing Senator Clinton on this forum and other places. They started the attacks against Senator Clinton then accused her of attacking them when she responded. That's not "decency."

And the "attack" you cite was not part of any campaign "strategy" or anything like that. It was an individual speaking for himself who later withdrew his comments. As I've said before, we need to have a substantive discussion about the issues. That's why I said it was a "nonissue" in the past. Instead, let's talk about the fact that Obama's health care plan fails to cover every American, the fact that he has adopted to Bush rhetoric on Social Security, or the fact that he would invade Pakistan...

 

[NickCole]

A point of fact for the uninformed: Bill Clinton did not win Iowa in 1992.

He did, however, win the White House. And became a two term President who presided over the longest period of prosperity in US history.

Iowa's important and Hillary's not tanking as the HillaryHaters would have us believe --her numbers are competitive by any reasoned standard-- but no matter how Iowa goes, it's only the first primary. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

 

[White-Teeth]

As people have already said, a week is a long time. What must be taken into account, however, is the fact that Obama's bounce in the polls coincides with the lead-up to the not-so-subtle Oprah-Obama campaign tour. Personally, I don't think he can sustain his growth in the polls, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm not American, so I have no leanings one way or the other (although I would obviously prefer to see a Democrat in the White House rather than a Republican). Honestly though, I do think it's ridiculous that a chat show host holds this much sway in any society, let alone in the most powerful country in the world. I like Oprah, really I do. But all she seemed to contribute was frenzied shouts of "We need Barack Obama! We need him!"

Eh, that's not necessarily true, Oprah, and we don't particularly need you, either.

 

[lancelva]

A point of fact for the uninformed: Bill Clinton did not win Iowa in 1992.

Nor did he win New Hampshire.

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

So sad. But desperate campaigns get pretty desperate - and stoop pretty low. It looks like Hillary Clinton is toast methinks - and here is hopes for a decent America and a new dawn.

Any objective observer - or even non objective - going to the connections I posted above will see that Clinton is tanking big time.

A Dud From Team Clinton


By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, December 13, 2007; Page A35


David Axelrod, the seasoned Chicago Democratic operative who is chief strategist for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, was taken by surprise in the last minute of CBS's "Face the Nation" on Dec. 2. Howard Wolfson, Sen. Hillary Clinton's spokesman, accused Obama of running a "slush fund." In fact, the Clinton campaign was spreading that story privately months ago.

Last summer, a senior Clinton aide told a famous Democrat believed to favor Obama that the Illinois senator was using his "leadership" political action committee to spread money around the country to grease his presidential prospects. That message was private when Clinton seemed far ahead in the race for the Democratic nomination. It became public when Obama threatened to overtake her.

Before Wolfson spoke out, one of Clinton's close supporters was spreading word of unspecified defects in Obama that should deter Democrats from supporting him. This is the Clinton style that has proved effective for two decades, but Obama has continued to close the gap. This attack mode works best when the accusations are hidden from public view.

Last summer, a few Clinton insiders -- headed by her Senate chief of staff, Tamera Luzzatto -- paid a presumably social visit to the Cape Cod, Mass., vacation home of a prestigious Democrat reported to be in Obama's corner. Luzzatto warned that Obama was ethically challenged because of his leadership PAC. My sources indicated that this was not an isolated incident and that the slush-fund story was spread widely.

A month ago, a Democrat close to Clinton, though not on her Senate or campaign staff, approached a party activist who has not made a commitment to a candidate with this message: Skeletons in Obama's closet would make him vulnerable if nominated. He did not elaborate and said that the Clinton campaign would keep its anti-Obama information to itself, remembering mutually destructive assaults between Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt in 2004 that facilitated John Kerry's nomination.

The Clinton campaign denied all this, claiming it was a Republican plot. In truth, there was no Republican source for this story. In the wake of these denials, Wolfson made his slush-fund accusation on "Face the Nation" shortly after polls showed Obama passing Clinton for the lead in Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses:

"There's a lot that voters don't know about Barack Obama," said Wolfson, "and one thing that they don't know we found out this week, which is that he has been using and operating a so-called leadership PAC in apparent contravention of campaign finance laws." Wolfson demanded that Axelrod say whether he would "shut down Sen. Obama's slush fund." With only 20 seconds left, Axelrod's answer sounded lame: "I think it is shut down, Howard. . . . I don't know that there's any money left in it."

With more time, Axelrod might have noted that Obama's PAC contributed to Clinton's 2006 Senate reelection and, in the current cycle, to Jeanne Shaheen's Senate campaign in New Hampshire, even though her husband, Bill Shaheen, heads that state's Clinton campaign. The "slush fund" just did not measure up to claims of dark improprieties on the part of Obama, and the Clinton campaign did not pursue the issue after volleys were exchanged between the candidates.

The attack strategy has not affected Obama, and Clinton's aura of inevitability is fading. Not only has she fallen behind in Iowa, but polls show that primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina are too close to call. Howard Dean was in a much stronger position in post-Iowa primaries in 2004 than Clinton is today when his third-place finish in Iowa was followed by his national collapse.

The phrase "slush fund" is a hoary part of American politics, dating to a $5 million appropriation in 1874 administered by the federal Treasury, according to "Safire's New Political Dictionary." In 1952, contributions to a slush fund for the use of vice presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon nearly forced him off the Republican ticket. When Hillary Clinton started slipping two weeks ago, her campaign responded by unlimbering the Obama slush fund. The fact that this bomb proved pretty much a dud raises doubt about the whispers of impropriety by this untried candidate.

2007 Creators Syndicate Inc.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121202262.html

 

[NickCole]

Any objective observer - or even non objective - going to the connections I posted above will see that Clinton is tanking big time.

The numbers have been roller coaster all along, they're very close now and in some Clinton is still ahead.

It's beyond silly to characterize that as "tanking big time."

 

[lancelva]

You guys should really look at Mr. Obama's voting record and really make a decsion then on wether or not he is right for this job. The man talks a good talk, but his voting recordd stands on nothing.

And that's even when he bothers to show up and vote...

 

[MystikWizard]

I vote for Option C.

John Edwards.

 

[White-Teeth]

I vote for Option C.

John Edwards.

So why the virtual hate campaign directed just at Clinton?

 

[NickCole]

I vote for Option C.

John Edwards.

That's when you're not supposedly voting for Ron Paul.

Or waging a hate campaign against Hillary Clinton.

The divergent pieces of your supposed beliefs only match up if the connecting thread is Republican Smear Machine.

 

[NickCole]

being cute doesn't make him a good choice either....

Exactly.

And anyway he's not so cute anymore.

See him at today's debate? Looks old and worn.

Cute doesn't age well.

 

[MystikWizard]

That's when you're not supposedly voting for Ron Paul.

Or waging a hate campaign against Hillary Clinton.

The divergent pieces of your supposed beliefs only match up if the connecting thread is Republican Smear Machine.

If Hillary didn't have dirt on her, there would be no dirt to bring up, now would there? There's a reason why she's so despised in America. She did it to herself.

If you can't take the heat and want to whine and complain about it ... as the saying goes ... get out of the kitchen.

To be honest, I probably should be promoting Hillary Clinton. As she would likely be the easiest to beat in the General Election, of all the Democratic candidates. But I decided to take the high road. I simply want the most honest choices on both sides, so the American public is not caught with another Bush in the White House when this is all said and done.

After all, that was the original plan of the Establishment. Rudy vs Hillary. People are getting tired of the Media telling us who to pick as our next President. We're getting tired of the War Mongers who do not look out for the best interests of the American people.

 

[letme]

After all, that was the original plan of the Establishment. Rudy vs Hillary. People are getting tired of the Media telling us who to pick as our next President.

Very well said Midnight.

 

[lancelva]

After all, that was the original plan of the Establishment. Rudy vs Hillary. People are getting tired of the Media telling us who to pick as our next President.

After all the coverage we have seen, you can hardly say that the media are rooting for Senator Clinton. They have been smearing her for 15 years.

 

[MystikWizard]

After all the coverage we have seen, you can hardly say that the media are rooting for Senator Clinton. They have been smearing her for 15 years.

Maybe not now, but it certainly didn't start out that way. They pushed her to the moon when she first started campaigning.