Despite today’s PPP poll (.pdf) showing Obama ahead by three points in Pennsylvania, the preponderance of the polls show that Clinton has a modest lead. Clinton is operating with dual purposes. She needs to dramatically narrow Obama’s mathematical advantage in delegates and the popular vote and she needs to change the national perception of Obama so dramatically that the superdelegates see him as unelectable. So, how can she further those two goals in tonight’s debate?
Before I address that, let’s look at the advice she is getting from Mark Penn’s polling partner and former Bill Clinton adviser, Doug Schoen.
Hillary Clinton took an important step Monday toward winning the Democratic nomination by launching an ad targeting Barack Obama’s recent comments about working-class voters clinging to “guns or religion.”
…As the underdog, Clinton’s positive message will not work unless she is able to undermine Obama’s candidacy…
…Clinton needs to argue that despite what Obama has said, he has done very little to actually promote and create bipartisan solutions in Washington and that he is, in fact, probably the Senate’s most liberal member. She needs to argue that his values are out of step with voters, as evidenced by his recent comments about why people are religious or seek to own guns. She also must argue that because of Obama’s lack of legislative accomplishments, he is ill-equipped to achieve what he sets out to do…
…It is too late for Clinton to wait for Obama to make another mistake. She must seize the opportunity that Obama’s self-acknowledged mistakes last week presented to her campaign; it is almost certainly her last chance.
To be fair to Schoen, this is not purely advice for how to handle tonight’s debate. He wants her to go negative ‘in public appearances, through television and radio advertisements, and direct mail.’ But the debate is the last big media event before the primary and if she is to follow Schoen’s advice, she must use it to further this negative narrative. Yet, I think it would be a mistake, and I’m not just saying that because I want to protect Obama from criticism.
With the preponderance of polls showing Clinton modestly ahead, she can probably assure herself a victory by playing it safe. It’s true that the victory might not be large enough to serve her purposes, but a defeat would be devastating. A narrow victory would lead many to call for her withdrawal, citing her initial twenty-point lead in the state and her failure to significantly narrow the delegate gap. But a win would also allow her to argue that she has once again carried an ‘important state’ and question why she is still winning if the party is so dead set on having Obama as the nominee.
More importantly, there is such a thing as losing gracefully. With her odds of winning a needed blowout clearly dwindling, she must make a cost-benefit analysis. Why throw a hail-mary pass that might get intercepted and run back for a touchdown when she can show some class and kneel on the ball? A loss after a rough campaign is one thing, but getting beat after throwing the kitchen sink is another. If she wants to have a role and any respect in the Democratic Party in the future its important that she grasp some opportunity to make a noble gesture.
And tonight’s debate might be her last chance to offer a noble gesture.
Part of Clinton’s problem can be seen in her current advertising strategy.
In most of Pennsylvania’s markets, the only TV ad Hillary is running right now is a negative one — the spot hitting Obama over his “small town” comments, a political ad buyer who tracks buys in Pennsylvania tells me.
The buyer says that as of this morning, that ad — and no positive spots — are running in the Pittsburgh, Erie, Johnstown/Altoona, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton markets.
Meanwhile, the buyer says, in the Philadelphia and Harrisburg markets, Hillary’s ad campaign is 50% negative — she’s running two spots, the new spot hitting Obama over oil companies, and another spot touting Hillary’s plans to right the economy that doesn’t mention Obama.
According to the buyer, the Philadelphia and Harrisburg markets add up to a bit over half the state’s households.
Upshot: Nearly half the state’s households are right now seeing only the “small town” spot, and the remaining half are seeing her economy spot and the oil spot hitting Obama, the buyer says.
If you line this up with the PPP Poll’s (.pdf) regional internals, it shows that she is going negative where she is strong and staying positive where she is weak. But in tonight’s debate there is no way for her to be positive in just those areas of the state where Obama is strong, and to be negative everywhere else. In fact, in going negative she may lose two votes in the heavily populated southeast for every vote she gains in the more sparsely populated southwest. And that could put her victory in Pennsylvania in further jeopardy.
If I were advising Clinton, I’d tell her to use tonight’s debate to refocus all process questions onto the issues that concern Pennsylvanians and show off her mastery of policy. A few digs here and there are permissible, but she should act like the frontrunner that she is. The campaign can worry about making the case that Obama is unelectable once she partially demonstrates the point by beating him in an election.
Anyway, I don’t expect her to take my advice based on the kind of advice she is getting from Schoen, but I think it is good advice nonetheless.
