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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Obama Has Money Edge For Final Primaries http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120877372366330875.html?mod=blog Obama Has Money Edge For Final Primaries By MARY JACOBY, AMY CHOZICK and NICK TIMIRAOS ========== CASH HANDICAP • The News: Clinton's campaign is in debt prior to must-win Pennsylvania. ========== Hillary Clinton crisscrossed Pennsylvania and unveiled a last-minute television ad invoking Pearl Harbor and Osama bin Laden, in hopes that a big victory in the state's Democratic primary Tuesday could turn around her long-shot presidential bid. While she is widely expected to win Pennsylvania, a new financial report showed the New York senator's campaign struggling for cash. That could limit her ability to stay competitive in the final nine Democratic contests with Barack Obama, who has considerably more money to spend on advertising and organization. Sen. Obama is favored in North Carolina on May 6, while polls show a tight contest in Indiana, which also votes that day. The Illinois senator has said Indiana "may end up being the tiebreaker." Pressure would likely mount for Sen. Clinton to concede the race if she can't win there. Sen. Obama has been running ads in both states for a month, while the Clinton campaign put up its first ads in the states two weeks ago. The last public polls in Pennsylvania showed Sen. Clinton holding on to a lead, but one narrower than when the campaign in the state began six weeks ago. Her goal is a big victory that would suggest Sen. Obama might have trouble winning working-class whites in the November election against Republican John McCain. A significant margin for Sen. Clinton might also show voters are having fresh doubts about Sen. Obama's ability to serve as commander in chief. That was the logic behind the new Clinton campaign ad, titled "Kitchen," which incorporates stock footage of the Pearl Harbor bombing, Mr. bin Laden, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Fidel Castro. "Harry Truman said it best -- if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," a voiceover says. [Hillary Clinton] Brendan Smialowski for WSJ Sen. Hillary Clinton took in the applause at a rally at the University of Pennsylvania Monday night in Philadelphia. In the latest example of the rapid-fire back and forth that has marked the final days of the Pennsylvania campaign, Sen. Obama quickly responded later in the day with his own TV ad, blasting Sen. Clinton for ties to lobbyists and her backing of the Iraq war, urging voters to back a candidate who "in times of challenge will unite us -- not use fear and calculation to divide us." Opening her final day of the campaign in her father's childhood hometown of Scranton, Sen. Clinton asked the audience to make calls and go door to door on her behalf. "The last day is here and the world is watching," she said. Sen. Obama, in an interview with a Pittsburgh radio station, said "we are going to do a lot better than people expect," but stressed, "I'm not predicting a win." If Sen. Obama is able to pull off a surprise win in Pennsylvania, Sen. Clinton will likely have to drop out of the race. But even if Sen. Clinton wins, it's unclear how much that will help her bid to overtake the front-runner. Sen. Obama holds a lead of about 140 delegates, according to the latest Associated Press tally. Because the delegates are given to candidates in proportion to their share of the popular vote, the two candidates are likely to split Pennsylvania's 158 delegates roughly evenly, unless Sen. Clinton wins in a blowout. In addition, her finances may hamper her ability to contest aggressively the remaining primaries that end on June 3. Sen. Obama reported to the Federal Election Commission Sunday that he had $42 million available at the end of March to spend on the primaries. Sen. Clinton's filing showed she had only $8 million in the bank and debts of $10.3 million to outside vendors. [Image] Almost half that debt was to the polling firm of Mark Penn, whom she removed as her chief strategist earlier this month. In addition to the $10 million debt, she has yet to repay the $5 million she loaned her own campaign in January. Clinton backers played down the significance of the money gap, arguing that success in Pennsylvania could lead to a flood of new donations. "A convincing victory will be empowering," said Steve Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a top Clinton fund-raiser. He defined that as winning by a margin of at least five percentage points. "We'll be honoring our debts in the weeks and months to come...no matter who they are to," campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said on a conference call with reporters. The Clinton campaign has visibly cut corners in recent weeks. It downgraded to a smaller chartered plane earlier this month, though it got a bigger aircraft in the final days before the primary to accommodate a larger traveling press corps. A menu of hot meals gave way to cold box lunches. Staffers spend more nights at the Holiday Inn and fewer at the higher-end Radisson hotel chain. In the final hours before the last big contests -- in Texas and Ohio on March 4 -- the Clinton campaign bought an hour of airtime on Fox Sports Net to broadcast a town hall hosted by "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria Parker, which was broadcast throughout the state. A victory party in Columbus, Ohio, offered staffers a catered meal including miniature quiche, chocolate mousse and freshly squeezed lemonade. In the final days before the Pennsylvania primary, Sen. Clinton took advantage of a flurry of free air time with a scripted appearance on the Colbert Report on Thursday night, followed by Monday night interviews with CNN talk-show host Larry King and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. [Numbers] Clinton aides are portraying the lack of funds as an opportunity to paint Sen. Clinton as an underdog who can continue to pull off strong showings even without deep pockets. "Obama is trying to spend his way to the nomination," said campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee. "When you're spending as much as he is in state after state and failing to win, it raises a big question about why he can't close the deal." Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor responded that Sen. Clinton, by historical standards, has had plenty of cash to compete. "Despite being the most well-known politician in the nation, Senator Clinton has spent at least $173 million in this campaign and still trails Senator Obama in states won, pledged delegates, and the popular vote," he said. The results in Pennsylvania will shape the importance of the next primaries, particularly in Indiana. If Sen. Obama loses by wider-than-expected margins in Pennsylvania, pressure will build on him to show that he can win a rust-belt state with large numbers of working-class white voters. Sen. Clinton, meanwhile, could shake up the race by winning on turf that is friendly to her rival in North Carolina. Indiana is the last good chance for Sen. Obama to win a state with large numbers of working-class voters because West Virginia, a swing state that votes on May 13, and Kentucky, on May 20, favor Sen. Clinton. Contests also remain in Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. A poll by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics shows Sen. Obama leading Sen. Clinton 50% to 45%, with a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points. The poll was conducted April 14-16. Sen. Clinton has won the backing of much of the state's party establishment, including Sen. Evan Bayh, a former governor and the state party chair. But unlike Pennsylvania and Ohio, Indiana's state party is unlikely to provide as much help in a heavily Republican state. "It's a rickety old machine," says Joseph Losco, who teaches political science at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. As in Pennsylvania, the candidates are hammering away on the economy in Indiana. Sen. Obama held a town-hall forum earlier this month in Gary, Ind., and highlighted his days as a community organizer in nearby Chicago at a time when LTV Steel Co. and other Midwestern steel companies were struggling or shutting down. "Many of you lived through those hard times and are still living through them today," Sen. Obama said. While North Carolina is the bigger prize -- it offers 115 delegates to 72 for Indiana -- the Clinton campaign is playing down expectations there. The Obama campaign has 21 offices in North Carolina and plans to add 10 more this week, while the Clinton campaign has 20 offices. Polls show Sen. Obama with double-digit leads in a state where African-Americans make up more than one-third of the Democratic electorate. The Clinton campaign hopes to keep the delegate tally close by focusing on rural and working-class parts of the state. "I think she has a chance to win here but the polls don't show it," says Ted Arrington, a political-science professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Mr. Arrington points to Sen. Clinton's strength in neighboring Tennessee on Feb. 5. He says that Sen. Clinton could sow doubts about Sen. Obama's electability by winning white and working-class voters by an overwhelming margin. Campaigning in Indiana earlier this month, Sen. Clinton sought to exploit Sen. Obama's remarks about small-town voters who he said have grown bitter and "cling to guns or religion" out of frustration. "I grew up in a churchgoing family," Sen. Clinton said at an April 12 rally in Indianapolis. "The people of faith I know don't 'cling to' religion because they're bitter." At an event in North Carolina, organizers handed out bumper stickers that read, "I'm not bitter." "I originally started out with Barack, but the more and more I learned about him, the less and less I liked him," said Michael Hunt, a 55-year-old Indianapolis day trader. But too many attacks could backfire. "I used to admire Hillary Clinton and believe that she was treated unfairly," said Karen Jones, a 56-year-old retired high-school teacher from Columbus, Ind. "I've really changed my mind about the way she's been treated."
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#1. To: nolu_chan (#0)
The Financial Times is already reporting today that Hillary's campaign is so short of money that it's had to cut back walking around money in the PA primary today. I wonder to what extent that will affect the results.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
I heard in an interview that the Obama campaign had not spread around one dollar of "walking-around" money. Rick Santorum and another guy were talking about it last night. They were indicating the Clinton campaign was spreading money about but did not indicate any shortage. It seems to be a time-honored tradition there. Whatever money the Clinton campaign spread about would seem to go advantage Clinton. However, this occurs largely in the cities where Obama runs strong, so it may go to pay people to vote who go in the booth and vote Obama. What a way to run an election!
It may just be that Clinton could score a pyrrhic victory in PA. The Obama strategy may have been, at least in part, to use his financial advantage to force her to run her campaign dry, making her ineffective in coming contests. Sort of like a Civil War strategy. Just keep 'em fighting non-stop until they run out of bullets.
That's a thought I hadn't had. Interesting.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
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