NY Times: Low Morale in Clinton Campaign, Staffers Quitting at 9 PM to Finish Off Bottles of Wine

[Dems Will Win]

This can't help campaign contributions...

Over take-out meals and late-night drinks, some regrets and recriminations have set in, and top aides have begun to face up to the campaign’s possible end after the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4. Engaging in hindsight, several advisers have now concluded that they were not smart to use former President Bill Clinton as much as they did, that “his presence, aura and legacy caused national fatigue with the Clintons,” in the words of one senior adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the campaign candidly.

The campaign’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, and its communications director, Howard Wolfson, have expressed frustration with the difficulty of “running against a phenomenon” in Senator Barack Obama; their attacks have not stopped Mr. Obama from winning the last 11 contests. Some aides said Mr. Penn and the former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, had conceived and executed a terribly flawed campaign, something Ms. Solis Doyle disputes. Both she and Mr. Penn have been especially criticized as not planning a political strategy to compete in the primaries after Feb. 5.

...

There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers, though, that a comeback this time may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary — a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/us/politics/24mood.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1203858135-KEHD9B2RUsyYWYrKlErJsA&oref=slogin

PLEASE RECOMMEND IF THIS MAKES YOU FEEL SAD FOR THESE PEOPLE -- OR NOT

[H2O Man]

1. Interesting.

This morning on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell was discussing the fractures in the Clinton camp.

[Coexist]

15. I think, when you invest your heart and soul to a cause

and things look like they may be heading south, it breaks your heart - you have to separate yourself a little, so you can breathe and look at the bigger picture again.

[EmilyAnne]

27. Yep. I feel bad for them. These are people who stood next to me at many war protests and pro-choice

were colleagues in my english classes for refugees. We need to take a step back and remember just how much we have in common. But, in the meantime, aattcks, mocking and gloating won't help. HRC supporters are hurting and that doesn't make me happy. Sick people derive enjoyment from the sadness of others.

[dkf]

48. And they thought they would have jobs...

[The Backlash Cometh]

66. Frankly, I've never been more depressed since I started subscribing

to DU than this primary. (Well, outside of outright losing the big elections) It's also the first primary I have ever really emotionally jumped into. Seeing how this process works, how anger flares, how sadness follows, how sympathy changes your mind completely, I understand now why I avoided getting involved in the primaries before, and just waited for you all to make up your minds.

Now that I see how it works, I really don't know how you all have the fortitude for all this. Being a registered Democrat must take more strength and faith, than I have. But, seeing what you all go through to find a candidate for November, guarantees my support, whoever it is.

[Oleladylib]

17. Miss Piggy is soooo obvious..in her repuke regard...

[Bread and Circus]

2. That's pretty funny...in a sad way.

I hope either she wins big or loses big...

I want this thing to be over. We need to start running against McCain.

[blm]

3. McAuliffe and MANY Dems owe Al Gore a HUGE apology for claiming he lost only because

he didn't use Bill more.

Al knew what he was doing, and the claim from Clinton camp about WHY Gore lost only assured that election fraud would be ignored by the party for another four years as they went around the country bragging only Clintons know how to win.

[x-g.o.p.er]

10. Nader is the reason Gore lost n/t

[blm]

20. No - that's technically not true. The extensive count showed Gore won Florida by over 100,000

votes. Election fraud beat Gore - whether Nader was in the race or not, Bush was stealing Florida - whether by 1000,000 or 1,000,000. Nader and 'didn't use Bill enough' conveniently distractd from rampant election fraud all over Florida.

[Tesha]

70. I think at this distance we can safely say that BOTH Nader and fraud cost Gore the election.

In NH, 9,000 votes went to Nader but the margin between Bush
and Gore was about 4,000.

In Florida, tens of thousands of voters were disenfranchised,
either by being prohibited from voting or by using a ballot
and a punching mechanism that was rigged to cause them to
fail.

Absent Nader *OR* absent fraud, Gore would have been declared
the winner. And there's no point in arguing which was the "real"
cause; they both were.

Tesha

[Leopolds Ghost]

81. Wrong. Bush stole the election by EXACTLY as many votes as were needed.

Consequently, the ACTUAL COUNT of ACTUAL VOTES CAST was an exact tie

(Gore by 3 votes when all precincts were counted by hand statewide).

Bush learned his lesson not to steal JUST ENOUGH votes to result in
a tie, and resolved to manufacture clear victories and further cause
Dems to turn against their own, as Gore voters turned on Nader and
Democrats turned on Kerry, unwilling to believe that their narrow
losses were entirely engineered. (sigh) predictable.

Just remember -- if Nader had not been in the race
the vote counts would STILL have revealed an ENGINEERED (artificial) TIE.

A couple more ballots would've been made up or discarded, that's all.

Gore sealed his own fate by refusing Bush's offer to recount EVERY ballot
state-wide, under which GORE WON THE GOD-DAMN ELECTION OFFICIALLY, UNDER
EVERY STANDARD. But you Nader-blamers refuse to acknowledge this, either.

You didnm't get past the headline in the Post ("Post/NYT Media consortium
determines Gore would've lost") which was an outright lie. The subsequent
story details how Gore would have won because ALL THE BALLOT THEFT was in RED AREAS,
designed to mathematically balance out ANY Gore total in Palm Beach etc.

Gore LOST every blue-area-only recount because of this mathematical artifact
of election theft. Which resulted in an entirely ARTIFICIAL tie.
Like Karl Rove putting his finger on a scale. You refuse to believe the media
is lying to you!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

21. I listened to a speech by McAwful last year

Not only did he dredge up that Al Gore b.s. but he had some shitty things to say about John Kerry too. Fuck him.

Howard Dean rules and Terry McAuliffe drools!

[blm]

25. According to McAuliffe Hillary would've won 2000 and 2004 by 10%.

Wonder if he will even TRY to push that line of bull on a Democratic audience ever again?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

26. If I were him I wouldn't be showing my face around Democrats for a long, long, time. nt

[cui bono]

56. Well if that's true then not only does she run a bad campaign, but her timing is way off too. n/t

[karynnj]

77. He had to say the bad things about them.

Gore really won - but could have done better if Bill Clinton would have gracefully left the stage - things like having a major televised interview of how he was putting his life back together after Monica days before Gore's convention fal under the category of unhelpful.

McAuliffe himself was responsible for several major problems that Kerry had - he picked the convention date that resulted in Kerry having 13 weeks when Bush had 8 to stretch general election money over, he made an issue of Bush's TANG service when Kerry didn't want him too (There was plenty of evidence that people did not care - most were completely aware that Bush was irresponsible until 40 - and most of use think to this day.), and he did not improve the state parties.

[blm]

78. I believe McAuliffe let crucial state parties like Ohio remain collapsed deliberately

so the RNC could have all the room it needed to manipulate the outcome.

[dkf]

49. Ooh can you imagine Bill on the trail for Al Gore and going off

at reporters?

Oh my.

[calmblueocean]

68. Good point.

I wonder if Al takes some tiny bit of satisfaction in seeing that particular point proved wrong.

[Occam Bandage]

4. Really, that's just sad. They just sound depressed.

[IndianaGreen]

5. It would be interesting to see how many of Hillarycamp end up in rehab

Hillary should have fired the two white dudes instead of blaming the Latino woman.

[anonymous171]

13. Well, she wasn't really skilled

from reports she was famous for watching Soap Operas during work and other acts of ineptitude.

[David Zephyr]

40. Here's the Amen Chorus to that.

"Hillary should have fired the two white dudes instead of blaming the Latino woman."

[yardwork]

44. Latina woman. Actually, Latina. The woman is implied by the "a" ending.

Latino man. Latina woman.

[Nailzberg]

6. Wine drinkers? They must be going over to Obama.

[anigbrowl]

41. ROFLMAO!!!

[skipos]

7. “running against a phenomenon?”

Maybe. In addition to "running with a bunch of overpaid, crappy consultants." Hillary was leading everywhere just a few short months ago. She has run an awful campaign.

[KoKo]

8. I can understand...Bush and this ELECTION are enough to drive anyone to DRINK...

and Debauchery!

[Greyskye]

9. photo from campaign HQ

[jmg257]

11. HA!

[Dems Will Win]

12. You're being kind.

[IndianaGreen]

19. LMAO

May I presume that was the Presidential train derailed on its way to Hillary's Inaugural?

[Window]

24. Too funny.

:rofl:

[CyberPieHole]

53. I like this campaign HQ picture even better...

Gotta love that murderous cretin, Che Guevara! What an incorrigible imp!:evilgrin:

[RandomKoolzip]

74. Too late - can't stop the train.

And don't imply that Obama and Che Guevara are aligned somehow. That's disingenuous and you know it. That IS, after all, a Fox screencap, isn't it?

[reggie the dog]

80. what do you have against Che?

He helped liberate Cuba from being a bannana republic. He did more good for the people of Cuba than Bush ever did for the good of Americans, not that that is a hard thing to do.....

[Tesha]

71. Oh you Nord'y boy! (NT)

[Barack_America]

14. I thought she was the beer-drinking candidate...

Does the wine-drinking suggest a change in allegiance? ;)

(chill people, it's meant to be a light-hearted joke)

[NanBo]

16. hey at least it wasn't

lattes, cuz those people are scum.

[Dems Will Win]

18. Touché!

[rainbow4321]

22. Are these the same people who just figured out the TX primary system/delegates 2 weeks ago??

If so, they brought this on themselves for getting too cocky way too early in the game...they were under the delusion that Texas wouldn't matter and that HRC coronation was inevitable.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4747997&mesg_id=4747997



And they are in deeper trouble is the stuff about Clinton fatigue is true...cuz BC is popping up all over the place this week in North Texas-DFW area.

[Dems Will Win]

32. kick

[Window]

23. K/R.

Can't blame the campaign workers. Hillary has driven me to drink, also.
And, I don't drink.

[NJSecularist]

28. That's kind of depressing

No matter what us Obama supporters think of Hillary, we can't take away from her campaign, who have worked their ass off for over a year now, morning and night.

[Dems Will Win]

29. Actually her campaign manager, Patty Solis Doyle, watched soap operas while working

and didn't return a lot of important calls.

[NJSecularist]

30. Obviously Doyle was a slacker

That's why she's out of a job. But let's not take anything away from the rest of her staff, especially her former assistants, who do all the dirty work.

[Dems Will Win]

31. I'll give you, and them, that - I'm sure they worked their hearts out

[dkf]

50. I dunno. I think she was hired to keep Hillary happy not for the

actual nuts and bolts and strategizing.

[anigbrowl]

43. She was getting in touch with America's soul

[Medusa]

33. the alcoholic content could explain the impaired decision-making

:eyes:

[Dems Will Win]

34. Hmmm let me do some research and get back to you on that

[TexasObserver]

35. "This is ground control to Major Tom ...."

"There's something wrong ...."

[Stephanie]

36. HRC's polishing some off too --->>>

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080219/480/a57ccc91939d43f39d6870bbef68df23/

[Dems Will Win]

37. Aha! Great Catch! This is the Photo of the Day, Not the Turban!

[Johnny__Motown]

38. She looks so.... happy?

[anigbrowl]

45. She jus realized she won't getting that $5 million loan repaid

Strangely, I like her more in this picture. I mean I have my pissed off days too. It'd be kind of entertaining if she swoed up drunk at the debate and told Obama what she really thought.

[Thrill]

39. Oh well order another round of 12,000 dollar Pizza

[Stephanie]

42. And book another suite at the Four Seasons.

This weekend we PAR-TAY!

[apocalypsehow]

46. I prefer donuts. Lots of them.

n/t

[apocalypsehow]

47. Check out this quote from the article:

"The campaign’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, and its communications director, Howard Wolfson, have expressed frustration with the difficulty of 'running against a phenomenon' in Senator Barack Obama; their attacks have not stopped Mr. Obama from winning the last 11 contests."

Translation: our subtle race-baiting and carbon-copy Rovian tactics have failed to work.

[Tatiana]

51. It's a sad thing, when you invest your time, effort, and essentially your life into a campaign

only to wind up losing. After working on two successful Clinton campaigns, I couldn't have been less prepared for the utter despair that Selection 2000 wound up being. I cried when Gore conceded. I cried like a baby. So I understand what it's like to believe in something, to want to achieve something and then feel like it has been snatched away from you.

I watched Dee Dee Myers on CNN and MSNBC today and listening to her, I thought... wow, this woman really GETS IT! Why in the heck didn't Hillary bring her in on the campaign. She basically gave a rundown as to how hard it was to run against someone like Obama and described some of the gender bias towards women in politics. Then she covered the whole African photo-gate drama with class and honesty, saying that she deplored such tactics and would not use them and that Hillary's team could have issued a better statement regarding the incident. She also described some of the campaign turmoil and how that has been a big contributing factor towards Hillary's drop in the polls and popularity.

She was just so insightful that I thought Hillary's campaign would really have benefited from having someone like that on the team. Of course, her sister is working for the Obama campaign...

[crispini]

63. I saw that too. I agree. With everything you said.

I put a lot of time into Kerry in 04.... boy, was THAT crushing....

[blm]

76. Except they also used their energy in 2000 and 2004 to undermine THOSE Dem campaigns.

Gore and Kerry planned their runs, too. They both won despite the undermining of other Dems. The DNC sat on their hands and made no move to secure the election process in the years PRIOR to those elections, assuring the RNC the room to steal both.

[boppers]

52. Beverage expense accounts...

... you can Xerox.

Seriously, as an orange-hat democrat, I personally know that this gets seriously physically, and emotionally, brutal as time wages on. I'm hoping TX/OH is either enough of a drubbing for Hillary that the battle will be over, or enough of a win for her that her troops can be re-energized.

It seriously sucks to lose, but it sucks even more to be a front line fighter and lose... and lose... and lose...

[crispini]

64. What's an orange-hat democrat? nt

[boppers]

83. Orange Hat = Howard Dean's ground troops.

Safety-Orange knit caps were given to a massive influx of canvassers, often young, and willing to work their butts off in door-to-door politics.

[WCGreen]

54. So I wonder if Rush mentioned this article even though it had

an anonymous source...

And n the NYT, no less...

[cui bono]

55. Now if only her supporters who defend her lunatic behavior would do the same. n/t

[Apollo11]

57. Interesting article

Thanks for posting this article from Sunday's NYT. I had not seen it yet! B-)

It is kind of sad but I think that ultimately Hillary is responsible for choosing her people, for managing and motivating her team, for how she deals with incoming advice and how she makes decisions.

For example - Hillary must have been involved in discussions about how much resources to invest in field offices or in buying ads in various states, including the post March-5th states.

There is nothing wrong with drinking a couple of glasses of wine. It can help you get to sleep! B-)

I just have one question - what's the difference between working dawn-to-dark and going home at 9pm?

Are there places in the northern hemisphere where it doesn't get dark until after 9pm? :eyes:

In February? :shrug:

[MagickMuffin]

58. Does this quote remind you of someone........

“When she’s on the road and someone has a negative news story, she says, ‘I don’t want to hear it; I don’t need to hear it.’ I think she wants to protect herself from that and stay focused.


I remember someone else not being able to deal with bad news.

[TexasObserver]

59. 99 bottles of expensive wine on the wall, 99 bottles of expensive wine. Take one down ...

"Put it on the vendor and walk the bill!"

[From The Left]

60. Maybe Hillary Should Be Drinking the Wine

The party is over.

[MadHound]

61. However many millions they paid Penn, I hope that they have a way of getting part of it back

Because yes, Penn ran a horrible campaign, and it really hurt Hillary post Super Tuesday. There is no excuse in this line of work to not have a Plan B.

We're seeing the sad spectacle of a campaign coming apart at the seams. People are backbiting and playing the blame game, while the effort and drive have leaked out of the campaign. Stick a fork in this campaign, it's done.

[Perry Logan]

62. Just more of that media pro-Clinton spin, huh?

[Canuckistanian]

65. So, Hillary's people are all quitters and alcoholics?

Thanks for the info.

[Vinca]

67. I hope they're taking advantage of the lax campaign accounting

to buy good wines. I'd hate to go out on the Gallo brothers.

[calmblueocean]

69. What if the NY Times had said her staffers felt rejuvenated and confident?

Look, I'm basically rooting for Barack here, but I hate when the media does these kind of pieces. It's basically the same as when they said Al Gore had zillions of consultants and was being told to wear earth tones. The media -- especially the NY Times -- has been legendary in their attempts to define our candidates in negative ways.

I say kudos to Hillary for putting up a hell of a fight. I don't underestimate her, or her staff. Just because the NYT says it don't mean it's what really is.

[Jennicut]

72. Nice use of Penn as a consultant and Bill as a campaign "asset"

If Hillary was the nominee I would vote for her over McCain (aka McBush). Don't ever want another pukehead in the whitehouse ever again. Still, I feel that using Penn of all people as a consultant when his other "client" is McBush is just disgusting. And Bill's rockstar status on the campaign trail was clearly shown not to be true. He was a liability. Negative and starting firestorms, yelling at reporters. Guess Al Gore was right not to use him after all. And Terry Mcloser can go kiss my ass regarding Gore's campaign. Maybe if Hillary hadn't run for Senator in 2000 all of the resources in the DNC would have gone to Gore. Then, maybe again, thats what McLoser wanted. Opened the door for Hillary's fantastic campaign in 2008. Oh, and sticking it to Kerry after the "gaffe" scandal was really nice and presidential on her part. Like Nader, I really truly believe that Hillary is interested in one thing and one thing only: her own ascent to power. No need to help the party to ensure there are no further Republican takeovers in the whitehouse and congress. Nope, its always been about what Hillary wants and her ambitions. Drink some wine to go with whine. I don't feel sorry for her or her staffers at all. I will be watching the primaries on Tuesday night and if Obama wins Ohio or Texas or even comes close to her in either state its all over. She won't get enough delegates to reach Obama. Its time for the Clinton's to understand that not everything is about them and there are other people in the Democratic Party.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

73. This line was interesting:

And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as “donors,” to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal to the Clintons.

[Dems Will Win]

75. The only question now is Dark Toast or Light Toast?

[reggie the dog]

79. smoke grass instead

they should just smoke a joint, it leaves you less groggy the next morning....

[ShaneGR]

82. They're Dems just like us.... and they worked 12-14 hr days for over a year....

I'd be having a drink too.