Obama Throws Gutter Ball, Clinton Plays Pals

At Bloomberg.com, Margaret Carlson writes:

For his first time running a $200 million corporation, Barack Obama has done a good job. No small vendors left behind in Iowa or New Hampshire with their bills unpaid, no newspaper stories about staff members screaming at one another, no having to lend the campaign cash to keep going.

Yet he's made two big mistakes, and they are doozies.

First, he didn't see how regular folks who saw the videos of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright wouldn't be able to get them out of their heads.

The clips are an unfair representation of 30 years of giving three sermons every Sunday, and Obama said he wasn't in the pews when Wright delivered them. Still, he hasn't said what remarks he was present for. And even if they were only a faint echo of what we've heard, why would Obama want his daughters to hear them or think those not conversant with black liberation theology wouldn't be shocked?

His second big mistake is bowling with others in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He ignored the risk every politician faces when trying to be one of the people if they're not, a risk that doubles if you pursue the official state sport when you've never worn a league shirt with your name above the pocket.

A savvy aide would have had Obama devote as much preparation to avoiding a 7-10 split as preparing for debates. Presidents know that if you aren't sure you can get the first pitch from the mound across home plate, better to toss it (like a girl) from the bleachers.

No Joke, Sir

By now, as many people who will ever watch a candidate forum have likely seen Obama's 37 score in a game that started with a gutter ball. He joked that an 8-year-old was giving him tips, but the reality is he didn't even know how low a score it was. He should be grateful this wasn't deer-hunting season.

It's easy to see why Obama tried to roll a few frames. Voters hunger for authenticity, or so polls say, so candidates and their consultants do their best to simulate it. This boils down to looking, acting, or sounding like the locals, eating homemade specialties, even if it's funnel cake and smoked meat products, or wearing a Teamsters or Yankees cap for the first time.

What's amazing this campaign isn't that Obama, who lifted himself up by his bootstraps but resembles George Clooney with a Harvard Law degree more than Clint Eastwood, is having a hard time passing himself off as ordinary folk. It's how easily Hillary Clinton is doing it.

Clinton, the antiwar Wellesley commencement speaker, Yale superstar, and darling of elite professionals who may have inspired the popular ``Die, Yuppie Scum'' posters, has come to epitomize the scrappy underdog.

A Bad Day

A bad day for her, we learned from her memory of landing in Bosnia, is being met with flowers and poetry on the tarmac after in-flight entertainment consisting of a live performance by Sheryl Crow.

What constitutes a good day for someone who hasn't waited in a line since 1992? Traveling with David Letterman and being greeted by a 21-gun salute? To her staff who never questioned her improbable tale of derring-do, a fine turn of events would consist of an evasive landing, dodging sniper fire from the press.

Clinton's lost her college-educated, professional base but made up for it by successfully wooing working-class whites. She couldn't change her hairstyle or job description in Washington without comment. I'm mystified that she's changed personas for the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, since I grew up in that swath of the Keystone State between Pittsburgh and the eastern seaboard that remains happily stuck in the 1950s, when men were men and the steel mills thrived.

Raising Eyebrows

When I return there -- which is often because my brother, of whom I'm guardian, lives in the house where we grew up -- I raise eyebrows for driving a foreign car and having gone to law school without signing on with the FBI.

Still, I can pass because I got through the 1960s and '70s without ever thinking of the policeman down the street as a pig or not trusting anyone over 30. My parents were beloved. My father worked for the Naval depot, golfed on the public course, and played cards at the Knights of Columbus hall.

My mother ran us -- I had two brothers -- and was the first one there when something went wrong, with a casserole, a pan of brownies and an open wallet. She wished she weren't so plump, but everyone else was and it wouldn't have entered her mind to jump around to an exercise video in a town that still lacks for spas. There were rocky marriages but most stayed together.

`Rocky' Grabs Them

In many places, the daughters and sons of such families look back and think their parents were hopelessly hokey, if not chumps. But not in Harrisburg, the town that Starbucks forgot until recently. Like upstate New York where the blue-haired ladies also had to cope with disappearing jobs and hound dog husbands, central Pennsylvania is Clinton country.

You look around my little Harrisburg suburb and her ``Rocky'' doggedness has grabbed the sympathy of people so unlike her yet drawn by what looks like a hard-luck story. It's a place where it's not such a leap from ``he can't bowl'' to ``How could he possibly know what I'm going through?''

Already, her strategists are telling superdelegates not to vote for Obama if he can't win big states like Pennsylvania. That's code for he can't win white working-class votes.

Obama doesn't have to overcome Clinton's lead, though he does need to go back to the days when he won the white vote by substantial margins in Wisconsin, Virginia and Maryland. He has to do better than the equivalent of a 37 score at Pleasant Valley Lanes, in Altoona.

Hillary Clinton's Blueprint

At the Washington Post, Chris Cilliza reports:

A trio of senior advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (N.Y.) presidential campaign held a conference call this afternoon to lay out what they believe is a blueprint that -- over the next two weeks -- will restore the race for the nomination to rough parity between the New York senator and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

The call came less than 24 hours after Obama claimed his 9th and 10th straight victories over Clinton with wins last night in Wisconsin's primary and Hawaii's caucuses. Those wins added to Obama's overall delegate lead and, as importantly, fed the sense of momentum surrounding the candidacy of the Illinois senator.

So, how can Clinton turn things around between now and March 4, when Ohio and Texas -- must wins for her future hopes in the race -- are set to vote.

Here's the battle plan and scenario that senior advisers Howard Wolfson, Mark Penn and Harold Ickes sketched out today.

1. Neither candidate will emerge from the primary fight with the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Ickes, a consummate party insider, insisted that if the race plays out as expected (Clinton victories in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania) it is impossible for either candidate to secure the nomination on the strength of pledged delegates alone. "When this whole process is over on the 7th of June, both candidates will need a number of automatic [super] delegates to clinch the nomination," Ickes said. " We believe Mrs. Clinton will be able to get those." Ickes' theory presumes that superdelegates will resist calls to vote as their districts or states voted and instead make up their minds independent of what their constituents decide. It also presumes that superdelegates won't begin moving en masse to Obama as he looks more and more like the inevitable nominee.

2. Two Weeks is a Long Time in Political Terms.. Not since the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 has there been so much time in between votes in the Democratic primary. There will be 13 days without a single vote between today and Ohio/Texas -- an opportunity, the Clinton team believes, to make their case for their candidate and against Obama without the distraction of primaries/caucuses. "This is a full chance to lay out the case," said Penn this afternoon. Time could be Clinton's friend or enemy depending on external circumstances. The Teamsters' endorsement of Obama (and the potential Change To Win endorsement tomorrow) suggests that a pillar of the Democratic party is rallying behind him. For Clinton to take full advantage of the break in primary voting, she must hope that outside groups -- and superdelegates -- give her one last chance to make her case against Obama and show she is still a force to be reckoned with. If not, the time between now and the Ohio-Texas Two-Step may only serve to cement conventional wisdom behind Obama.

3. Debates Matter. The Clinton campaign has been clamoring for more debates with Obama and even used his unwillingness to debate her in Wisconsin in television ads (unsuccessfully as it turned out.) But, over the next 13 days the two candidates will face off twice -- tomorrow in Austin and next Tuesday in Cleveland. These will be the second and third head-to-head debates between the two Democrats; the first one, in Los Angeles on Feb. 1, struck The Fix as something of a draw, but the Clinton campaign clearly felt they got the better of the exchanges. The two upcoming nationally televised debates represent Clinton's best chance to change the fundamental dynamics of the race. For those skeptics who dismiss the idea that debates can change things, we need only point you to the Philadelphia debate in late October; Clinton's inability to give a straight answer to whether she supported a plan to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses set off a series of negative stories that turned this race from a coronation into a contest. Can Clinton score a similar blow sometimes over the next six days?

4. Obama is the frontrunner = more scrutiny. For the first we can remember, Ickes referred to the Illinois senator as the "frontrunner" in the race for the party's nomination. "Mr. Obama is the frontrunner," said Ickes. "There will be increased scrutiny on him and his ability to be president." Later in the call, Wolfson greatly expanded on this idea, arguing that the recent charges of Obama lifting speech lines from Gov. Deval Patrick (Mass.), further revelations into his relationship with "indicted political fixer" Tony Rezko and questions over Obama's commitment to campaign finance reform are all the result of that increased scrutiny. The Clinton campaign has to hope that the media turns the full force of its investigative powers on Obama over the next 13 days and that something previously unknown -- and damaging -- is unearthed. None of the laundry list of charges from Wolfson rises to the level of damaging at the moment -- with the possible exception of Obama's relationship with Rezko. Still, it seems as though if there were a hidden landmind that could potentially end Obama's candidacy, it would have been surfaced by now. A corollary of this argument is that Obama has not faced a serious Republican opponent in his brief career in federal office, having crushed former ambassador Alan Keyes in his lone general election race in 2004. "Senator Obama has not faced a credible Republican challenge of any kind," asserted Penn. Clinton, on the other hand, has run -- albeit briefly -- against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and then Rep. Rick Lazio in her 2000 Senate campaign, opponents that tested her, according to Wolfson, and proved her mettle as a candidate.

5. Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) emergence means national security will be the key issue of 2008. With McCain going on the attack against Obama as an inexperienced and naive politician when it comes to national security, Penn argued that Democrats need to think long and hard about whether Obama can match resumes and credentials with McCain on national security matters. "The Republican nominee has extensive credibility in this area and the Democrat needs to be able to be commander-in-chief," said Penn, adding that Clinton's service on the Armed Services Committee as well as the fact she has visited more than 80 foreign countries makes her the far stronger choice. He derided Obama as a "candidate with relatively no experience on national security and limited time in the United States Senate." This argument is an extension of the "risk" argument that drew so much criticism earlier in the race. That is, the Clinton campaign is asking voters to take a hard look at whether they feel comfortable with someone who has spent just a few years in the Senate as president. The answer to date has been a resounding yes, but things in politics can change at the drop of a hat.

6. Big States Matter More. This is an argument the Clinton campaign has been making quietly for weeks -- that it would be unimaginable for a party to nominate a candidate who hadn't won any of the biggest (most populous) states in the country. That argument only holds up if Clinton can deliver wins in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania -- adding to previous victories in California, New York, New Jersey and Florida, which, of course, was not seriously contested. Does it resonate with voters? Obama has won hundreds of thousands more raw votes than Clinton at this point and had a delegate lead. And, given how many states have already voted, it's hard to argue that the will of the people has somehow been subverted in the process to date.

Do you buy it? Can the blueprint work? Why or why not?