Is Clinton's campaign beginning to falter?

Is Clinton's campaign beginning to falter?

WASHINGTON — The thing about clichés is that they're true. A week really is a long time in politics. It actually isn't over till it's over.

Two month ago, pundits and prognosticators, including this one, believed Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was virtually unassailable.

She led her nearest rival by 30 percentage points in national polls. She was also ahead, though by narrower margins, in the opening states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

And she enjoyed substantial support among the elites within the Democratic Party and the leadership of labour, African-American and women's groups.

Barring cataclysm, it seemed impossible to imagine any of the other Democratic candidates overcoming such formidable obstacles.

Two months later, the New York senator remains favoured to win the nomination. The organization is still there; the endorsements continue to flow - including, over the weekend, the highly prized endorsement of the editorial board of the Des Moines Register. And she still leads her nearest rival by 20 percentage points in the national polls.

But there are cracks. Two Iowa congressmen have endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Oprah Winfrey delivered tens of thousands of supporters to events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where Mr. Obama gave some of his strongest speeches of the campaign.

In those crucial first states, Ms. Clinton's lead has vanished. She and Mr. Obama are essentially tied in the polls, and in Iowa former North Carolina senator John Edwards follows close behind.

I think Hilary is going to lose. Obama has a lot of support, specially a lot from Oprah, and i think that will be enough for him to be able to win. I think that come the elections, everyone is going to get tired of her.

Clinton made an elementary error on Obama

Clinton made an elementary error on Obama

It's one thing in politics to cite an opponent's record when criticizing him.

But it’s quite another to cite his Permanent Record—the legendary, indelible and largely mythical account of all that we do as schoolchildren.

Yet that’s just what the campaign of Democratic presidential contender Sen. Hillary Clinton did Sunday, issuing a spitball of a news release that alluded scornfully to an essay that primary opponent Sen. Barack Obama wrote when he was in kindergarten.

Referring to an old Associated Press story that quoted Obama’s former teacher, the release informed us that, “In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want to Become President.’”

The news release also noted that the Los Angeles Times has reported that Obama’s third 3rd-grade teacher recalls him writing “I Want To Be a President” in response to an assignment asking students to write an essay titled “My dream: What I want to be in the future.”

I called the Obama campaign’s Chicago headquarters on Monday: “I’m checking into rumors that your candidate used to write his R’s backwards,” I said. “Will you confirm or deny?”

Spokesman Ben LaBolt refused to go anywhere near the penmanship issue.

“All I’ll say is that we’re preparing for the charge that Obama flip-flopped when he decided in second 2nd grade that he wanted to be an astronaut,” LaBolt said.

Is there paste-eating in Obama’s past? Pigtail-pulling? The chewing of gum in school when he didn’t bring enough for everyone?

Clinton’s lucky that the late-night TV comics are on hiatus due to the writers’ strike, otherwise this blunder would launch a thousand jokes, each one portraying Clinton as desperate and ruthless as she tries to regain momentum in Iowa from the surging Obama.
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But then came Team Clinton’s triumphant yet ill-advised and thoroughly absurd mention of Obama’s boyhood fantasies, and with it an “I’m rubber and you’re glue moment for Obama:

I may be ambitious, but at least I don’t dig for dirt in my opponents’ elementary school files.

[...]

But we also know an opportunity to crack wise when we see one: “I want to confess to all of you right now,” candidate John Edwards told reporters Monday in Waterloo. “In third 3rd grade, I wanted to be two things: I wanted to be a cowboy, and I wanted to be Superman.”

But did he ever play hooky? If he climbs in the polls, the Clinton campaign is going to want to know.

I think Hilary is stupid for doing that. She's desperate and needs a life. I'm not shocked that she went that low. So what if he wanted to be president when he was small?! She should worry about herself and stop doing stupid things.