Hillary opens tip hotline asking for ideas to beat Obama, starts warming up her trusty Xerox.

[Occam Bandage]

Hillary Clinton's increasingly desperate campaign team held a phone-in yesterday for supporters to offer their advice on how to defeat Barack Obama.

The "helpline to Hillary" came as the former First Lady prepared for a televised debate with her rival for the Democratic nomination in Austin last night, where she needed a strong performance to revive her bid for the White House.

With his opponent on the ropes and short of ideas, Mr Obama yesterday completed his 11th straight primary victory, winning the votes of overseas Democrats.
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Earlier this week he won in Wisconsin and Hawaii, and has now won 26 of the 37 primary contests.

He is also catching Mrs Clinton in the opinion polls in Texas, which votes along with Ohio on March 4, a day that could prove decisive in the battle to be nominated to contest November's election.

In an email seen by The Hill newspaper, the Clinton campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, invited supporters to ring in because "we want to hear your thoughts, advice and questions as we move forward to the March 4 primaries".

The e-mail suggests that the campaign is banking on the support of unelected super-delegates to clinch victory for Mrs Clinton at the party convention in August.

But even former president Bill Clinton has now said that if his wife fails on March 4, her campaign will be over.

He told an audience in Beaumont, Texas: "If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be."

Since losing the first contest in Iowa, the Clinton team has tried different lines of attack against Mr Obama. None of them has worked.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/22/wuspols222.xml

[Independent-Voter]

1. Wow - that's all kinds of pathetic. She's looking more desperate by the hour.

[NDambi]

2. Man on the Street...

That's what MSNBC political director (name escapes me right now) said they should do..

go on the street and ask Obama supporters to name something Obama has done in Senate ala what Tweety did...and string the responses together as a commercials.

Ha Ha..they ain't gonna work..she tried it last night at the debate and it fell flat..

[stahbrett]

7. Yep, wouldn't work - because the Obama campaign responds quickly and effectively to negative ads

I'd imagine there would be a rebuttal ad on the air within 24 hours, with more $$$ to air it more often.

[thevoiceofreason]

3. I heard you can call her on her new-fangled car phone.

[City Lights]

4. Wow. That's really sad.

I almost feel sorry for her.

[TheZug]

5. I'll call one in on my cb radio.

Right after I finish disco dancing.

[ossman]

6. Fire up the Commodore 64

[cali]

8. tone deaf.

these vaunted pros are looking unbelievably politically tone deaf. And desperate. It really is almost over.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Shockingly so. You know,

she has learned to stay mostly positive, inspirational, and issues-oriented when she's debating. Just about every time she's gone negative at debates, either she gets booed, the audience goes uncomfortably silent, or Obama fires off a comeback. But overall, at debates, she mostly stays positive, and mostly does pretty well.

But interestingly, she seems to think the tactics that absolutely suck at debates are good ideas elsewhere. Even though her poll numbers take a skydive every time she goes negative, and even though she's lost every state she tried to win by going negative, and even though exit polling consistently shows that negative campaigning backfires on her, she still thinks the campaigning that gets her booed in debates will work well.

The hazards of living in a Penn-induced echo chamber, I suppose.

[aaronbees]

9. Is that how they got the Xerox line?

Unbelievably crazy. :o

[ericgtr]

10. There isn't much to lose at this point

Is it desperate? Yes but I can't hold going to the people against her, it does show democracy. It appears that she won't be lasting too much longer anyway and I don't see the point of rubbing it in at this point.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Some ugly crap is getting said in replys to your OP, by your own side n/t

[calmblueocean]

14. The most insulting posts are from posters who've only been on DU a matter of weeks

They've probably never known a DU that was anything other than infighting and backbiting.

[Occam Bandage]

15. Not worth replies or concern. They'll be gone in short order, I'd imagine.

Just gleeful freepers or "progressive independents" coming over to rub it in.

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. I tend to agree with both you and calmblueocean

I think DU will come to it's senses again after the nominee is chosen, but a part of me fears that a new style of really nasty politics has started to take root in the netroots that will not go away easily.

[BridgeTheGap]

12. What happened with all the "experts" she hired!?!

I've seen too often just how "expert" they are and how badly they can fuck up. HRC's campaign is proof enough. The decision to go negative was probably the worse thing they could have done. There is too much of a groundswell for Obama now and NOTHING, short of a nasty revelation with legs, will stop it!

[CreekDog]

16. Sycophants and Friends of Bill

who can't agree on whose strategy sucks more.

[Occam Bandage]

17. Penn and Wolfson should never be hired by anyone else again. But hey, Shrum got re-hired after

fucking over more politicians than Marilyn Monroe, so hey.

[Eurobabe]

19. Here's the number: 1-800-TRASHBO

[Window]

20. ..

[jasmine621]

21. I'm sure they get lots of SUGGESTIONS on their website.

maybe they should start paying attention to them.

[Occam Bandage]

22. I was mailing her campaign daily back when I was leaning pro-Hillary. Eh.