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For Clinton It's All About Feb 5th and California, Not New Hampshire or Iowa

By Todd Beeton
Courage Campaign

Conventional wisdom has long had it that California's decision to move up its primary to February 5 (along with many other states) would result in several undesirable consequences, not least among them being the increased importance of money in the campaign and the rise in influence of Iowa and New Hampshire (although how they could be more influential than they were in 2004 is beyond me.) Both of these scenarios, so the argument goes, point to a Hillary Clinton victory, making a February 5 "national" primary all the more problematic.

But over the past few months, reality, as it is wont to do, has seeped in and undermined the conventional wisdom. Take Q1 fundraising -- Obama outraised Clinton in primary funds taking her title of presumed money leader away; and then there are the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, which have generally shown her to be much more vulnerable in the early states than she is nationwide. So what's a poor would-be front runner to do when the conventional wisdom that she had relied on to take her to victory falls down around her? It looks increasingly as though Clinton's answer is to buck conventional wisdom altogether and run hard for February 5.

This strategy requires the dismantling of one of the central assumptions about a frontloaded primary schedule, namely the heightened kingmaker status of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Step one in shattering this assumption: change the media narrative. Central to this was the "leak" last week of the memo by a Clinton deputy campaign manager recommending that Clinton skip the Iowa caucuses altogether. Clinton, of course, immediately came out and denounced the memo, stating unequivocally that she intends to compete hard in Iowa. But the memo did its job, which was to plant the seed in the media that for Clinton, Iowa isn't make or break. And we all know the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire depends entirely on the expectations game spun by the media. For example, right now, Iowa is must-win for Edwards, which is a dangerous place to be. Clinton is slowly building a new media narrative, which is about lowering expectations for herself in Iowa and building up the importance of Feb 5.

Step two: develop an aggressive early vote strategy. As Julia Rosen wrote in Working Californians, the fact that Iowans actually will not be the first to vote in the 2008 presidential election was central to the controversial Clinton strategy memo. California has that honor, as our permanent absentee voters, 3.9 million strong, will be able to vote beginning January 7. And how better to reduce the importance of the results of Iowa and New Hampshire than to maximize the number of votes people cast before those results are even known.

As we've seen Clinton swoop in for money over the past few months, it's become clear that California IS much more than an ATM for her, but it's not the voters she's engaging with; rather it's the politicians whose endorsements she's racking up, and the staff she's hiring on the ground. As Rosen put it:

She has locked up the two highest profile Latinos in the state and will use them as surrogates on her behalf...It will be a very top down coordinated campaign that relies heavily on voter files to drive in early votes.

But these endorsements are not only key to winning California, they are central to her overall February 5 strategy. The California Progress Report shared with us yet another strategy memo, this one on winning the Latino vote, released by the campaign on Wednesday morning, the day she received Mayor Villaraigosa's endorsement. The memo cites her polling strength in states with large Hispanic populations such as California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, Colorado and Arizona. She's way ahead in all of them. The dates of their primaries or caucuses: February 5. Not surprisingly, neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is anywhere to be found on that memo.

If anyone can pull this off it's Clinton, whose husband turned second place in New Hampshire into a media victory in 1992. Funny thing about conventional wisdom...even when it's wrong, sometimes it ends up being exactly right.

Todd Beeton has been the content director and lead blogger for The California Courage Campaign since April 2006. In 2004, he began an e-newsletter, Wild Democracy Ride, and was granted credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Posted on June 02, 2007

Comments

This is all spin. The memo advising her to skip Iowa was released because barring a huge blowup, she has no chance of beating John Edwards who is running much better among past caucus attendees even than he is among voters (who have him in 1st place in Iowa) and he is even further ahead in second choice votes.

Beyond that, Barack Obama being a Senator from Illinois has a large recognition factor because in large parts of Iowa they watch Illinois TV channels and although in the age of cable and satellite that's not as important as it once was, there is a lot of affection for Obama. So if Edwards falters, Obama is the more likely recipient of support than Clinton and given the likelihood of a 3rd place finish and the unknown status of New Hampshire where conceivably Dodd or Biden could do exceptionally well, she is just trying to make it look like they don't matter so that the news media doesn't start saying the wheels are coming off the wagon if she does badly.

The problem is that they are likely to anyway and in spite of her efforts, since no candidate can really compete in that many states at once, if is very possible that Edwards or Obama runs the table, especially if one of them follows a win in Iowa with a win in New Hampshire.

Posted by: Ted Lawrence at June 2, 2007 10:39 AM

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