Clinton女士真的被她的天兵幕僚给害惨了，在Texas、Ohio布署 重兵背水一战的决心固然令人动容，不过这些天兵幕僚居然这几 天才发现Texas初选的规则特别怪异，而且还运气颇背的怪异的 对己方颇为不利(请见11798)。 Clinton女士真该把一个个把天兵幕僚们抓来打屁股。 Lost in Wisconsin US elections 2008: Hillary Clinton's campaign has made a series of strategic and tactical blunders that will ultimately cost her the presidential nomination Richard Adams The Guardian http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2008/02/ lost_in_wisconsin.html If Hillary Clinton loses the Democratic presidential nomination - and after another hammering at the hands of Barack Obama in Wisconsin, it's increasingly looking as if she will - then it didn't just happen last night. Nor did she lose it last week, when she was devastated in the "Potomac primary" - three big losses in one day. Nor was it the series of defeats she suffered in states such as Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska, although none of those things helped. No, the day when the first nails went into the Clinton campaign's coffin was exactly two weeks ago, on February 6. We didn't know it at the time, but February 6 was the day when there began a big blank gap on the Clinton campaign calendar. Because her team of battle-tested veterans failed to plan for much of anything after Super Tuesday. We now know that the Clinton campaign blew so much of its cash on the February 5 multi-state primary that it didn't have much left in the tank for what was to follow, forcing the candidate to loan herself $5m and spend valuable time last night on television trying to raise more. So strongly did the Clinton campaign assume that Super Tuesday, with its 1,000-plus pledged delegates up for election in more than 20 states, would be the effective end of the nomination campaign, that it failed to have any Plan B. Organising for the string of caucuses that followed Super Tuesday? Opening field offices in the smaller states? Drumming up the extra fundraising needed to pay for it all? None of it, or not enough of it, got done. And as a result, when Super Tuesday failed to deliver the knock-out blow that Hillary Clinton expected, her campaign was exposed to a series of rapid jabs in places like Maine, Virginia and now Wisconsin - states the Clinton campaign should have competed in strongly, not lost by double digits. But again and again, following Super Tuesday, the Clinton campaign failed in basic on-the-ground organisation. In each of the states after February 5 it was the Obama campaign that arrived first, opened more field offices and began advertising on local television weeks ahead of its rival. Why have the Clintons, experienced politicians if nothing else, campaigned so poorly in this election? Partly, it may just be that they were out-organised - and the story then is how a solitary junior senator from Illinois managed to put together such a well drilled and accomplished political organisation from scratch. But another reason is that the Clintons have not fought a primary anything like this one. Hillary barely faced a contest in the primary for her New York senate seat in 2000. For Bill, 1992 was a long time ago - and Paul Tsongas was no Barack Obama. The Clinton campaign has had something of a shake-up, but the same bad decisions are still being made, by many of the same people who remain in post. First, after the Potomac primary, it declared that Ohio and Texas would be where the big showdown was to take place on March 4. But even if the Clinton campaign team even believed that - and to be fair, it made some sense as a straw to clutch - then they were stupid to say so (thus undermining their campaign in Wisconsin) and stupid to bracket Texas with Ohio, because the two states are very different - especially as Texas has a complex method of allocating delegates that makes it all but impossible for a candidate to win a significantly larger slate and actually has an built-in advantage for Obama. The Clinton team only realised this sometime in the last few days - which is stunning, considering the size and potential importance of Texas. And these people are meant to be smart? Second, the Clinton campaign is still trailing behind Obama in organisation for the upcoming primaries. Concentrating on Ohio as its last chance, the Clinton campaign has taken aim at its own foot again - by failing to organise in the other two states, Vermont and Rhode Island, which also vote on March 4. In Vermont, for example, while the Clinton campaign hasn't yet opened a state office, the Obama campaign already has seven paid staff and four offices there, and has been advertising for a week on local TV. Now, Vermont is tiny compared to Ohio or Texas - but it is another state, and another big win gives Obama more net delegates. As on Super Tuesday, Obama won the delegate race by winning big in small states and losing small in the big ones. But the Clinton campaign still hasn't figured that out yet. There are signs that Texas may be a tough battle for both sides, with Obama organising among younger Latino voters and helped by a sizeable black population, while Ohio is not so different to Wisconsin: blue collar, strongly white and heavily unionised. Well, Obama won in Wisconsin by two to one among those men that are so prized in Ohio, among white voters by a similar margin, and was close to splitting the female and union vote. By 63% to 37% the voters of Wisconsin thought that Obama was the most electable candidate in November. But now though, Clinton needs to win not just Texas and Ohio but win them by large margins, of around 20%, to stay competitive. So far those sort of big leads have eluded her, even in her home state of New York, where she only managed a 17% margin. The national polls show Obama now beating Clinton regularly, and eating away her support among women and Latinos. She has now lost 10 primaries or caucuses in a row - by big margins, as Obama won virtually unopposed, thanks to her campaign's mismanagement. Now Clinton desperately needs a new message and a new sense of competition. The spin coming from the Clinton campaign last night was that she was out-spent by Obama in Wisconsin. Well, duh. They are kidding themselves if they think it was about money - although the fact that Obama has more money is in his favour. The tone of the campaign has gotten nasty in the last week, as time runs out and the finishing line gets closer. A majority of voters in Wisconsin said they thought Clinton's attacks on Obama in recent days - the accusations of plagiarism, and of offering just "words" - were unfair. The Clinton campaign might be tempted to return to the attack over the next two weeks, but the reply from Wisconsin is "that dog won't hunt" - as they say in Texas. -- Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long -- a sense of aspiration. --

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