Hillary Campaign Reaching Out Via Surrogates To Antiwar Members Of Congress

[whometense]

Posted with no comment.

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/feb/19/source_hillary_campaign_reaching_out_via_surrogates_to_antiwar_members_of_congress

Source: Hillary Campaign Reaching Out Via Surrogates To Antiwar Members Of Congress
By Greg Sargent

This is interesting: A high-level Democrat tells me that several of Hillary Clinton's senior advisers are reaching out to top Dem donors and other political leaders with connections in Congress to ask them to make Hillary's case on the Iraq war privately to highly-visible antiwar members of Congress.

The idea appears to be to get these go-betweens to suggest to prominent antiwar members of Congress such as Russ Feingold and John Murtha that they either back Hillary or vouch for her position on Iraq...

...The effort was described by my source as not completely formal or orchestrated, but as something clearly viewed as important by Hillary advisers. "Clearly it's a strategy they're pursuing," the source says.

The campaign is not so much to get outright endorsements from such members of Congress, the source emphasized (though that certainly wouldn't be rejected, of course). The goal is more to get visible antiwar Congress people to vouch for Hillary's antiwar credentials, which she's being quizzed about due to her backing for the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to go to war...

[whometense]

1. Sorry if this has already been posted, but

a very interesting article in the Boston Phoenix about the campaign in NH, how money and early publicity is affecting the process, and how Hillary and Obama in particular have been received by the general public and by local political activists.

http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid33787.aspx

Rocky stars
Clinton, Obama, and the people who really make or break Presidential dreams in the Granite State
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
February 14, 2007 2:12:51 PM

DURHAM, NH, February 12, 2007 — Hillary narrowly won the opening round of New Hampshire presidential campaigning this week. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — political rock stars both — gave strong performances at large rallies where supporters had to be turned away from overcrowded gyms and at small gatherings in local living rooms. But it was Clinton who made the most headway among behind-the-scenes party activists — where it matters most.

It may be 11 months before the New Hampshire primary (and nearly two years before the national presidential election), but these are critical days for the swarm of candidates vying for the contributions, assistance, and endorsements of Granite State activists. What happens now will likely determine who has the resources and manpower to compete when the real campaigning begins this fall, and who ultimately prevails next January.

And so the heat is on. Clinton packed high-school gyms in Concord and Keene over the weekend, and Obama’s “town meeting” at the University of New Hampshire in Durham resembled the kind of rally candidates typically hold in the last days before the primary, not a year beforehand. Such extraordinary interest, truly unusual at this early stage of a presidential election cycle, is the kind of problem any candidate would love to have.

But it is still a problem: the people who traditionally matter most in New Hampshire primary politics — the influencers — don’t want to see candidates in a high-school gym or even at a 125-person house party. The New Hampshire influencers are the state’s current and former officeholders, labor leaders, special-interest lobbyists, and big-money donors, who help shape other people’s views about the candidates. They are people like Manchester’s popular former mayor Bob Baines and David Lang of the Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire. Some, like Terry Shumaker of the National Educators Association, can move mountains for (or against) a candidate. And some have credibility won through long-time involvement with key issues, such as the environment or reproductive choice...

[MBS]

2. thanks for this

I've been really bothered by the style of this circus so far. Iowa and NH have in the past have played an important role (IMHO, a crucial role) in serving as two venues that demanded that candidates meet voters one-on-one, early, and intensely, in the process. This is good both for the candidates and the voters. To have the race start this prematurely, and already dominated by large rallies and hype and huge celebrity/money events (Obama and HIllary in Hollywood), and the well-founded assumption that publicly financed campaigns are a thing of the past. .these are not signs of a healthy democratic process.

[whometense]

3. I totally agree.

It's really bothering me too.

It really doesn't matter to me who goes first, but it's essential that it be small states where the candidates are forced to address voters one on one. Witness all the headlines that guy in NH made for questioning Hillary over and over about her Iraq vote. It's not gotcha, it's a way of seeing what these people are truly made of.

The idea of campaigns being run 1984 style - big money, big tv ads, big rallies - gives me the shudders.

[Inuca]

4. And this is EXACTLY what seems to be happening

with the many large states (CA included) that have moved up their primaries. I find this very disturbing, and I don't know whether I should don a tinfoil hat or not, but seems like $$$$$ will play an even larger role early on. And this benefits.....

[sandnsea]

12. Yep

I pulled out that particular tin foil the second I heard about California. It's why I think it's important to get involved now, at least in pushing issues, because it may be too late by summer.

[_dynamicdems]

5. Interesting article.

This line is particularly revealing:

“ hasn’t had four years or ten years to prepare for this,” says Alan Solomont, John Kerry’s 2004 finance chair who has signed on to support Obama. “His campaign is very much a work in progress.”

[whometense]

6. hmmm...

ten years? Who's been planning for that long, I wonder?

We all know intuitively that there's a lot of arm-twisting going on behind the scenes, but it's interesting when someone who's in the position to know for sure lets a little nugget of info drop into the public domain.

[_dynamicdems]

8. Yeah...wonder who.

And interesting that the individual who said this is supporting Obama. Funny too how a lot of Kerry money people also went with Obama after JK announced he wasn't running.

[MBS]

7. These excerpts stood out fo rme. .

And neither is exactly feeding red meat to the party faithful. Obama’s wild, sign-waving audience in Durham spent much of the time waiting quietly to jump on any progressive morsel he might toss out to them. At one point, they cheered when he mentioned his work on death-penalty reform as an Illinois state senator, apparently not realizing that Obama is pro-death penalty, and that the reforms he worked on helped to restore the punishment after it had been ended.

And the disconnect doesn’t end there. Jackey Scott, a senior at University of New Hampshire, won’t find Obama as eager to bring troops home from Iraq as she is; Dick Courtney, a staffer with the state’s teachers union, might look askance at Obama’s reference to holding teachers “accountable.” Obama also opposes gay marriage and wants to increase the military budget. He might just be the Democrats’ Rudy Giuliani: intensely popular among those unaware of how much they disagree with his politics.

Certainly the several dozen Democratic state legislators watching from folding chairs were not applauding many of Obama’s answers.

As for Hillary, she proved remarkably disinterested in the listening part of her self-proclaimed “conversation with New Hampshire.” Even in house-party settings of 30 to 50 guests, she did not engage in the time-honored technique — mastered by her husband — of asking a personal question of the questioner before answering. In Nashua, a woman asking about Katrina recovery expressed her “very personal interest” in the topic; Clinton did not ask what that was. A man asking about government research funding made very pointed references to prostate cancer; again, she let it go without inquiring.

As for the last paragraph, I remember, in contrast, after a discussion of health care issues during 2003/2004 NH primary campaign, a couple coming up to JK afterwards and the wife mentioning her husband's prostate cancer;JK followed up immediately, with real compassion, asking him what his "numbers" were. . .when the man told him, Kerry replied, "You can beat that, you can beat that:. .

[Island Blue]

9. I have a question about this sentence from that passage ...

"Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — political rock stars both ..." What exactly makes Hillary and Obama "political rock stars"? Is Hillary a "rock star" in the same way that Yoko Ono is (was)? And what kind of "rock star" is Obama, exactly? The Hootie and the Blowfish kind?

Now John Kerry, THERE'S a political rock star. Just like all of those great artists that we knew and loved as kids, he's still around after more than 35 years, cranking out the hits.

I know it's stupid to elect a president based on who's the bigger "star" (that's part of our problem actually) but if they're going to use the metaphor, they could at least know what they're talking about.

[ProSense]

10. LOL! n/t

[_dynamicdems]

11. Would Obama be a rock star if it weren't for all the anti-Hillary sentiment?

Would Hillary be a rock star if she hadn't been married to Bill Clinton?

JK has earned his star status on merit.

[Inuca]

13. Obama? Probably. Hillary? NO!

How I wish somebody else beyond the "top three" will emerge, and SOON! I probably could live with Obama, and maybe even be enthusiastic at times, but I am very mixed about him. I HATE the idea of Hillary getting the prize. Even putting aside for a moment the substantial issues that make me dislike her, I simply hate the idea of women advancing mostly because of who they are married to. I do not deny that she is smart, etc., but without Bill... give me a break, NOBODY would even consider her, let alone " front runner". In a sense, I even have more admiration for Condi, enormously as I dislike what she stands for and what she does, at least she made it on her own. As a professional woman who did not have it easy, I am almost offended by her candidacy.