Count Down to US Presidential Elections:
The political landscape is different this time
around. While Clinton had a rough start earlier this year, dogged by months of
negative headlines after it was unearthed that she used her personal email to
conduct State Department business as secretary, she rebounded with strong
debate performances and widely lauded testimony before the House Benghazi Committee.
Clinton World wants to knock Bernie Sanders out
of the Democratic presidential race with a resounding win in the Iowa caucuses.
Vice President Biden’s decision not to enter the presidential race also helped,
strategists say.
If the threat from Sanders isn’t neutralized by
the Feb. 1 caucuses, allies of Hillary Clinton hope to finish off the liberal
challenger on March 1, when 12 states hold contests on what’s commonly called Super
Tuesday.
The
ambitious schedule reflects growing confidence within Clinton’s team that 2016
will not be a repeat of 2008, when a liberal challenger named Barack Obama
upset the then-New York senator in Iowa and started on a trajectory
toward winning the Democratic nomination.
“Everything
is set up nicely,” said one longtime Democratic strategist who is in touch with
the campaign. “There’s always
post-traumatic stress disorder because of 2008, so we’re always a little
cautious. We’re far from being on autopilot. But we’ve had a good couple of
months and there’s been a lot of plateauing in our favor.
“Sanders have trouble figuring out a new
footing,” the strategist added. A spokesman for Sanders did not respond to a
request for comment on the campaign’s strategy.
The one hurdle the Clinton campaign faces is New
Hampshire, where the former first lady and the Vermont senator have been locked
in a tight race for months. Clinton could effectively slam the door shut on
Sanders with a win there on Feb. 9.
Mitch Stewart, who served as a senior adviser to
the Ready for Hillary political action committee and is a veteran of both Obama
presidential campaigns, said when it comes to Clinton nailing down the
Democratic nomination, “the big question
is New Hampshire.” If she wins,
Stewart predicted, it would be “a death blow” to Sanders.
“Does she come out of Iowa with the strength
necessary to jump on New Hampshire?” Stewart asked. “New Hampshire could be
close, but I don’t see that as a sign of weakness for Clinton.”
Christy Setzer, another Democratic strategist,
agreed, saying that a New Hampshire loss “is easily explained and forgiven”
because Sanders is from neighboring Vermont and voters there “prefer insurgents
to establishment candidates.”
“Al Gore nearly lost New Hampshire to Bill
Bradley, and in the end, Bradley wasn’t even a credible threat,” Setzer
explained. “So long as she seals it up with a South Carolina win right after, a
Granite State loss would hardly be a speed bump, let alone a stoplight.”
Team Clinton is expecting big wins in other two
states with early primary contests, South Carolina and Nevada, according to
allies of the former secretary of State. “He hasn’t been an efficient media
buyer,” the strategist said of Sanders.
The Democratic strategist close to the campaign
was surprised by Sanders’s decision not to make a bigger play thus far for
Nevada and doesn’t expect to see any changes in the polls. A CNN-ORC poll in October
showed Clinton had the support of 50 percent of Democrats in the state, and
that was before Biden’s decision to stay out of the race.
Still, the strategist doesn’t expect Sanders to
drop out, even assuming early-state wins by Clinton. For one thing, she won’t
have the delegates necessary to lock up the Democratic nomination, leaving
Sanders a mathematical chance.
“He’s not like the type of guy who’s going to
pack it up,” the strategist said, adding that Sanders can still pick up Super
Tuesday states such as Colorado and Minnesota. “He’ll continue to get local and national press where he goes.”
But even if Sanders picks up a few states, he
has no real path forward, Stewart and others said. Stewart compared Sanders’s
campaign Howard Dean’s bid in 2004. Dean, he said, “basically limped through,
and the campaign was over.”
......................................
By: KANWAL ABIDI *Journalist & Political Analyst
063 News (Global Press Agency)
No comments:
Post a Comment