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Some Context
Anonymous Liberal
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I've been impressed throughout the primary race by the ability of the Clinton campaign to get members of the media to internalize their spin. Today, for instance, I saw very little attempt by anyone in the media to push back against the Clinton campaign's "tide is turning" narrative. So allow me to add some much needed context.
March 4 was supposed to mark Clinton's "comeback" in this race. On that date, Clinton won primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas (though she lost the Texas caucuses). That snapped what had been a long series of lop-sided wins for Obama following Super Tuesday. In the aftermath of those contests, polls indicated that Clinton had a massive lead in Pennsylvania (this PPP poll had the lead at 26 points on March 17).
Despite her victories, however, Clinton hardly made a dent in Obama's delegate lead and people began to realize just how difficult the math was for her. Obama's lead looked increasingly insurmountable, and as a result, the McCain campaign, the RNC, and most conservative activists and pundits began to focus their attention on Obama, whom they saw as the presumptive Democratic nominee. At the same time, the Clinton campaign realized that their only plausible path to victory was to throw the kitchen sink at Obama in the hopes of tarnishing his electability to the point where frightened superdelegates would come crawling back to Clinton.
So since late March (when Clinton was leading in Pennsylvania by over 20 points) Obama has had to endure a two-fronted assault with the Clinton campaign on one side and the Republicans on the other. He's had to deal with the two biggest controversies of his campaign: the Reverend Wright episode and the fallout from his "bitter" comments. And he's had to do all that while trying to stifle the momentum Clinton generated from her March 4 wins.
And after all that, when the results finally came in Pennsylvania, Obama lost by less than 10 points. Though I'm sure that the Obama camp was hoping for a better result, the bottom line is that Obama made up significant ground in Pennsylvania, and he did it during--by far--the most difficult stretch of his campaign to date. That has to be deeply discouraging to the Clinton campaign, no matter what they say outwardly.
posted by A.L. at 10:50 PM