The Billification of the Clinton Campaign

with pennsylvania's white working class a vote for hillary was a vote for bill.

wsj: Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. While she has jabbed her opponent over his "elitist" tone and controversial statements by his former pastor, Mr. Clinton delivers his own slams on the stump, calling Obama ads misleading.

The former president says he's in uncharted territory. "Being the spouse is more difficult than when I was the candidate," he says in a brief interview. "When you're running, you're out there driving every day. But when you're the spouse, you feel more protective. It's much harder."

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."

On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.

Mr. Clinton also told the campaign to double the number of his daily appearances. "Look at this schedule -- you've got me down for four events," he said the week before Pennsylvania's primary, according to one operative. "Give me six, eight a day. Get me to the suburbs where I can make a difference."

The campaign, which added the events before her Tuesday victory, is continuing the same intense schedule as the race moves to North Carolina, which holds its primary May 6, and other remaining states. Mr. Clinton's appearances are designed to boost Sen. Clinton's appeal with working-class and so-called "Bubba" voters, older white men who are likely to sympathize with Democratic economic policies but supported Ronald Reagan and other Republicans. Mr. Clinton is also sending out fund-raising appeals, with strong results, two operatives say.

His role has come at a cost -- to morale among some campaign staff, relations inside the Democratic Party and with African-American leaders, and in the view of some, his own legacy. He has lost considerable credibility with many party leaders, who, as "superdelegates" to the party convention, will be crucial in determining who is the Democratic presidential nominee.

Despite his influence, Mr. Clinton isn't running the day-to-day campaign. Sen. Clinton recently added Geoff Garin, who hasn't been involved in previous Clinton campaigns, to take a lead role with her message and strategy. Her new campaign manager, Maggie Williams, has worked to ensure that Mr. Clinton's role is "managed" in an attempt to prevent costly remarks.

Uncounted In Polls: Obama or Clinton?

here's some of "meet the press" this morning.
meet the press, by the way, is one of the better political shows. host tim russert asks good questions and all sides (even the ones you loathe) weigh in.

i flipped over to preposterous george stephanopolos and there was a roundtable of news folks debating the debate! they were trying to defend abc, saying that obama supporters attacked the messengers. well, yeah. the messengers in the debate asked really stupid things.

on meet the press: geoff garin, hillary's new chief strategist (who replaced the fired mark penn) and david axelrod, obama's chief strategist.

russert: will she bring the changes necessary?
axelrod: no. she says she can work the system. we want to change the system.

russert: will clinton stay til the end?
garin: that will be dictated by events. her commitment now is to let the process play through.

let me just say axelrod is clearly the better debater. garin's face shows his frustration and i kind of feel bad for him. at one point, he wasn't able to defend hillary's foreign policy. he says he's just her adviser, not her foreign policy adviser. at one point, he pleads, i've only been here for 2 weeks now.

both axelrod and garin claim to be good friends.

note that garnishing wages is part of hillary's healthcare plan. garin more or less conceded that one.

garin insists hillary is and was opposed to nafta. what she has said is that it needs to be changed.

axelrod: all of her public statements suggest she was in favor of nafta.

tim russert mentioned that the republicans will string all the distractions together to attack obama-- how will he beat that.

axelrod: that's what they're going to do. but he says once they get to know obama they'll know better.

i think we need to hear more from obama on his strategy to beat mccain.

russert: he brings up moveon (hillary dissed them, they support obama) and puts up two audio clips. hillary slammed them in one clip and in another clip, she panders to moveon, when she's trying to get their endorsement.

garin said he didn't see a contradiction in her statements.

in the second segment of the show, david brooks, an obama hater, who wrote this week, how obama fell to earth, was on saying how obama is no longer inspiring. well, that shows how in the dark he is. brooks thinks obama should have given a religion speech and a class speech, that he should go around speeching. brooks is really bitter.

russert: clinton's lead shrunk to 5 points. for fun, russert breaks out the poll data. among hunters, gun owners and bowlers, clinton is ahead.

among beer drinkers, obama tied with clinton. apparently, there are more hunters than beer drinkers in pennsylvania.

to me, this was one of the key points during the show.
michelle norris of npr brings up the fact that in pennsylvania, there are loads of people not being counted in polls: 150,000 new registrants and 150,000 who switched registrations. who did they sign up for? we may be surprised in the result.

russert: if clinton gets a net gain of 8 delegates in pennsylvania, how does she make her case to the supers?

michelle norris: it's a very difficult argument for her to make.

brooks makes a funny: the baggage candidate (hillary) vs. the no-baggage candidate (obama).