Crikey! Clinton Camp Chaos!

In linking to a Wall Street Journal article about the current tension and turmoil inside Hillary Clinton's campaign, Matt Drudge offers up this breathless headline. The article itself is a tad hyperbolic in describing a reeling campaign that, in reality, is locked in a practical dead heat with its adversary. From the Journal:

(T)he campaign has something of a shellshocked feel, as staffers privately chew over a blowup last week where internal frictions flared into the open.

Clinton campaign operatives say it happened as top Clinton advisers gathered in Arlington, Va., campaign headquarters to preview a TV commercial.

"Your ad doesn't work," strategist Mark Penn yelled at ad-maker Mandy Grunwald. "The execution is all wrong," he said, according to the operatives.

"Oh, it's always the ad, never the message," Ms. Grunwald fired back, say the operatives.

The clash got so heated that political director Guy Cecil left the room, saying, "I'm out of here."

Cecil was later seen "air-guitaring" to a "My Chemical Romance" album in his parents' basement. It's a cute story, but hardly a sign of a Clinton Apocalypse. Maybe Drudge is trying to give Hillary the same "Drudge Bounce" he gave her going into New Hampshire. The real story here, in my view, is the strategy, which has been wrong all along.

Mark Penn, if you're reading this, here's your new strategy: "Let Hillary Be Hillary!"

You might want to change it to something like, "It's the Hillary, Stupid!", but I wouldn't recommend it. I think you would agree, there's been more than enough Bill Clinton in this campaign so far.

More on that in a minute. First, I want to address all f this "Hillary on the ropes" coverage that we all knew was coming. New polls show Obama with his first lead, albeit small, in national polls. Now, Hillary has led those all along, but that was never a story, they were always discounted. When the shoe is on the other foot, suddenly the national polls will spell disaster for Clinton.

Also, last night on Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Richard Wolf dissected Hillary's new campaign ad, and characterized her as "going negative." This is a very mild, but clear, example of the unfair coverage she can expect. The ad challenges Obama to attend a debate in Ohio, positing that he would rather make speeches than debate issues. It's the most reasonable ad in the world. What's she supposed to do, run ads for him?

The public is on to the national media's anti-Clinton bias, and I firmly believe it was that, and not the infamous "crying jag", that delivered her New Hampshire. The same effect may come into play here, but the interval is a lot longer. Still, if we have three weeks of "Hillary Fading" headlines, and she wins Texas and Ohio by wide margins, then what?

I expect Hillary to do very well in Texas, and this brings me back to my first point. Hillary gave an awesome speech in El Paso on Tuesday night. Looking anything but beleaguered, she spun a moving, populist oratory that had the crowd ready to don kilts, paint their faces blue, and have at it.

This has been the story of Hillary's political life. When she ran for Senate in New York, she started out with high negatives, the remnants of relentless Clinton-era character assassination. But once people got to know her, she turned the whole thing around. I expect her support in Texas to build, not diminish.

This brings me to the Clinton campaign's strategy. It has been wrong at almost every turn. This is not a surprise, since Clinton herself, and the rest of the DLC, stood in vehement opposition of Howard Dean's wildly successful "50 State Strategy", preferring instead to focus resources on Democratic strongholds in "big states."

These are the same geniuses who convinced John Kerry not to "go negative" (i.e. factual) against the worst President in history, and had their asses handed to them by the political equivalent of Little Red Riding Hood. David Knowles has Mark Penn's current take on the "Big State" strategy.

They're also focusing on wooing "Super Delegates" to put them over the top in the event of a narrow popular vote defeat. This sends the wrong message on two fronts: first, it is almost an admission of popular defeat, and second, it tells the voters that Clinton doesn't care what they think, much the same way the "Big State" strategy does. Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks has the breakdown of Clinton's ground game versus Obama's, and her campaign's focus on conventional strategies.

Not only are these strategies archaic, they also downplay Hillary's greatest strength. She is great on the ground. Acquainting voters with her through TV ads just reinforces the media's framing of Hillary as cold, corporate, and pre-packaged.

Finally, they are doing a terrible sales job, damning her with faint praise. Ready on day one? Vetted? Experienced? They're selling her like a pre-owned Mazda, when what they've got is the original Knight Rider car. You wouldn't go around listing miles per gallon, or counting cup-holders and cubic feet of storage space. You'd be like, Dude! It's Kitt!"

To paraphrase Tom Cruise from Jerry Maguire, "Let Hillary be Hillary. Let Hillary be Hillary! Let Hillary. Be Hillary."

Here's the Young Turks clip I referenced earlier. Enjoy.