The Buckeye Brawl
Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:21 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a primer on tonight’s debate. “The large arena [at Cleveland State University] has been shrunk to an intimate theater holding 1,600 seats. The bulk of the tickets were distributed through each campaign.” Regarding the format, there are just a few rules. “Candidates will be asked to limit their responses to a reasonable length. There are no opening or closing statements.”
The New York Times helps tee up the debate. “After struggling for months to dent Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy, the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now unleashing what one Clinton aide called a “kitchen sink” fusillade against Mr. Obama, pursuing five lines of attack since Saturday in hopes of stopping his political momentum. The effort underscores not only Mrs. Clinton’s recognition that the next round of primaries … are must-win contests for her. It also reflects her advisers’ belief that they can persuade many undecided voters to embrace her at the last minute by finally drawing sharply worded, attention-grabbing contrasts with Mr. Obama.”
More: "[A]t a fund-raiser Sunday night in Boston, Mrs. Clinton told supporters that in the coming days, she planned to highlight what she called ‘the experience gap’ between her and Mr. Obama. Indeed, her advisers said Monday that she planned to hit this theme during the candidates’ Tuesday debate, though they said she would try to avoid making harsh personal attacks on Mr. Obama, particularly since Mrs. Clinton drew widespread attention and praise at the debate last week for saying she was ‘honored’ to be on the same stage with him."
Clinton keeps going back to experience because it fits the message box, but are voters responding? Again, we go back to every previous change election where the losing candidate tried to play the experience card; it helps close a race, but never seems to help win a race: see Gore '00, Bush '92, Carter '80, Ford '76 and Nixon '60. Change won out in each of those years.
Politico writes that the Clinton campaign is in “full recriminations mode.” “Looking backward, interviews with a cross-section of campaign aides and sympathetic outsiders suggest a team consumed with frustration and finger-pointing about the apparent failure of several recent tactical moves against Barack Obama. Looking forward, it is clear Clinton’s team has only a faint and highly improvisational strategy about what to do over the next seven days. Simply put, there is no secret weapon.”
“At Tuesday night’s debate in Ohio, aides are mapping plans for drawing persistent attention to Obama’s record without attempting any knock-out punch theatrics that could backfire. Many recent decisions have done exactly that. This has left the campaign awash in anger over who is to blame.”
