Clinton Faces Steady Erosion Of Support

With the Pennsylvania primary only days away, the New York Times delivers a look at the challenges the Clinton campaign faces with regards to maintaining support among past supporters and increasing its fund-raising capabilities.

Former Supporters:

After nearly two decades building relationships with a generation of Democrats, Mrs. Clinton has recently suffered a steady erosion of support for her presidential campaign from the party stalwarts that once formed the basis of her perceived juggernaut of "inevitability."

Some of it is just business, practical politicians putting aside ties to the Clintons to follow the will of the voters in their states or making a calculation about who seems best positioned to win.[...]

But there is something more wrenching at work as well, a reckoning of whether the Clintons, on balance, have been good or bad for the party. It has the feel of a very personal testing of loyalties to a former president who once always seemed to be adding to the "Friends of Bill" list, and to a sitting senator who, if not so driven as her husband to win over everyone, used her fame to help elect other Democrats.

Fund-raising:

Senator Barack Obama is swamping Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton with television advertising in their prolonged battle for the Democratic nomination, putting fresh pressure on Mrs. Clinton's fund-raising machine to find new sources of money to help her keep pace.

But her big-dollar fund-raising apparatus that was once the envy of the political world is encountering obstacles as many of those in its regular networks of donors have reached the maximum on their personal contributions or grown tired of the relentless press for donations.

The campaign is actively hunting for new wellsprings of cash, while tapped-out donors who want to give more are contemplating financing independent efforts on her behalf that are not bound by contribution limits. So far, however, the independent efforts have been halting at best.

Comments

[criticalthinktank]

The erosion of support is due to prejudice....Blacks showing their true racist selves vote Black no matter what the man says or does; Men don't want a woman in the white house or a woman controlling them so they are against her, again, gender racism....voting for the only Male...Obama. Now the women who are against her, well that it is easy...They are CATTY! Women are the worst towards each other and have always been..Cattiness is the only reason they dislike Hillary...probably jealousy too. Why women are against women is one of the biggest mysteries to me but so very true.

[bmnehls]

I love how the media is always talking about the Obama endorsements, but when Hillary received the endorsement of Congresswoman Betty Sutton, Ohio's 13th District, it was nowhere to be found in the media. Hopefully

[goodbyetoallthat]

Hillary Clinton is, unfortunately, just a conniving old pol. Isn't it time to say good bye to all that?

[dora_rice]

NEW YORK TIMES. YOU JUST MADE MY DAY. SHOWS AGAIN HOW A LEFTIST PAPER CAN BE SO WRONG. HA HA HA

[DoninJoisey]

All you need to know about HRC - in her own words....
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U

[rthom]

Old CW: Clinton needs double digits in PA. New CW: Winning against 4 to 1 spending is incredible! Clinton will win by 6. Obama gets his money the same way as the banks, the oil compainies and the pharmaceuticals--consumer fraud, aka kool-aid.

[brrichter]

HUH?
So it is grassroots donations funding the banks and the oil empire??? What glue are you sniffing? Oh, you're saying it is Barack who is getting his money from tax breaks and price gouging... HUH? that don't seem right either...

rthom, so you now what the hell you are talking about? she was supposed to win by a huge margin. and you're celebrating her prediction to win by 6?

Consumer fraud is campaigning AGAINST the war, yet supporting it. Consumer fraud is campaigning AGAINST free trade, yet supporting it. Please educate your ignorant self as you're making yourself out to be a fool.

[Cfordy0]

..Wow.....

[zor2008]

Hillary Clinton is burnishing her image for another run for the WH in 2012. That's the conventional wisdom that people like Chris Matthews scream about on the wild airwaves. But, has Mrs. Clinton begun to destroy herself with heartless attacks against an inevitable BLACK candidate and bragged outreageously about 'sniper' fire in Bosnia, and midnight call while in the White House to help her goofy husband solve some world problem.

One thing that bothers me is that everybody keeps claiming that Bill Clinton is a mensa-level genious whose only flaw was chasing skirts while President. If he's that smart, why did he marry a loser like Hillary? If his intellect is so keen, why did he even attempt to hold the nation and his wife hostage to his constant denial of a set of circumstances that would eventually be discovered by the press? Did he think he could get away with that?

Bill and Hillary Clinton are also tearing down the Democratic Party with the 11th hour blitz to bury their party's only chance of beating John McCain this November. I think they are both stupid enough to mount a third party campaing a'la Ralph Nader.

Speaking of Ralph Nader, isn't he older than John McCain? I thought Ralph Nader checks in at 78. Now in the general election, I see Nader siphoning votes from McCain--they are both older than dirt and will attact the generational vote.

[pazen]

that "genius" is campaigning (and lying, too) for his wife to get back at those that sullied his ego/reputation in the 90's. but make no mistake, he STILL thinks he can get away with it, he is simply more discreet about it now.

Wonder what all the golden girls that support her would think if they knew that these two live completely separate lives, with him in Chappaqua and HRC in DC with her mom. These two will stop at nothing, and the GOP is having a field day as they go into hock to tear down Obama on their behalf

[LongTom]

Hillary has no chance at all of becoming this party's nominee, now or in the future. If Obama loses in November, she will be widely blamed and will face a stiff primary challenge for her senate seat. If Obama DOES win, she'll have a shot at remaining in the senate. But the landscape is bleak for Hillary. My guess is she'll be out of politics by 2012.

[drzoon]

that was supposed to be "older" women... not "olde" women.

[bakossi]

It's interesting to read how the Times, which endorsed Hillary Clinton, spins this story. The best example is their re-telling of the Richardson story. Someone not familiar with what happened would think that Richardson accused the Clintons of "gutter politics" in his speech endorsing Obama (in Times parlance "took the additional step"), and then got called "Judas" by Carville for saying this, when in fact Richardson only uttered his "gutter politics" remark in response to Carville calling him "Judas," and seemed to directly it pretty clearly at Carville and those of his ilk, not at the Clintons themselves. Throughout the story what the Clintons did for those who have "betrayed" them is given the stronger, more sympathetic telling than what those who supported them. You'd think people like Robert Reich and Bill Richardson were interns when the Clintons "discovered them" and "gave them their positions" and "made them a lot of money," rather than established figures in their own right who made plenty of sacrifices of their own to get Bill Clinton elected and stand by him through a lot of inexcusable behavior.

[thegulliblecitizen]

And the next competition is-the most preposterous lie by a sitting President or a Presidential wannabe. The contesting lies and liars are: Hillary Clinton's I LANDED IN SARAJEVO UNDER SNIPER FIRE, George Bush's(during the Gore debate)i WILL NEVER BE GUILTY OF NATION BUILDING, Bill Clinton's I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT WOMAN, and George Herbert Bush's READ MY LIPS....

Twenty years of the Bush-Clinton dynasty's most preposterous lie competition. Each one guilty of lies bigger than life itself, wins the competition.

Politicians win or lose. Nations, like soldiers, live or die. We have been the losers for too long expecting bettter results than the mediocrity that they have shown us. Now is the time for change. Now is our nation's chance to turn and to live.

[kaygee]

Hillary landed in a war zone where ALL of the soldiers were getting combat pay because there were still problems in Sarajevo although the snipers weren't firing near the airport on the day she flew in. I agree she didn't tell the complete truth nor did she talk about the extenuating circumstances of it being a war zone during the Philadelphia debate.

Don't blame Hillary for Bill's behavior. I first really noticed her when the Monica Lewinsky thing broke. She handled herself well both for her career and for us as a country.

Obama has spent big bucks on my home state of Pennsylvania. I no longer vote there but I'm prouder than hell that voters seem to be seeing through the Glitz. I think Pennsylvania is going to turn the race around -- definitively.

[drzoon]

you are spinning. or at the very least... passing the spin along.

there wasn't any sniper fire. none. she had a comedian and her daughter with her. oh.. and cheryl crow too.

whenever hilary has been under pressure... she has lied. its how she got fired off the watergate committee. for lying and unethical behavior. and.. without a reference from a job that ted kennedy got for her.

she lies and lies and lies. she has at least two or three going at the same time. its actually amazing that she can pull it off. and for whatever reason... olde women just can't see it or forgive her for it. and ... as a result take it out on Obama. for a lot of us... it just doesn't make sense. but it is what it is... so the only thing to do it... fight her.

ever ask yourself.... why can't Hilary raise the kind of money Obama does? at $25 a time?

when you want to know if someone is real or not... just try asking for money. money .. as evil as it is.... its the great equalizer.

[beauley]

So, does Hillary really have something to hide?
Is Hillary Clinton for "The Citizens" of the U.S.A.? That is the function of the "President", or is it for personal gain? She never divulged the truth. Why should she start now? Just check the 1996 bill submitted to congress by Hillary Clinton and look who saved all America's butts, which includes all our children. Please begin your learning experience here: Congressional records of Hillary bill
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/discover-and-imagine-ron-paul/successfully-fought-hillarycare-lite/
http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1998/dec98/psrdec98.html

[SharonB]

While Hillary panders to hunters, this guy probably has joined the anti-gun movement:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351877,00.html

I hate guns, I hate them.

[mero909]

If we didn't have guns, then we'd kill with knives or arrows.

Change people first and the gun problem will sort itself out.

[dortmunder]

Right...because people are generally so expert at changing.

[cityfox]

as far as I know, the only party to seize guns from citizens is the republicans. they, through blackwater, went door to door and seized guns from the citizens in New Orleans, after the levies broke.

[bimplebean]

Your statement would be true except for the degree of difference between guns on the one hand and knives and arrows on the other.

Knives: Get up close and personal, risk your life/health to kill.
Arrows: A little more distance, but slower and less accurate.
Guns: Point and click!

I'm not in favor of banning guns, but I am in favor of strong laws to register them and control their use, just like cars. You'd need a license to own/operate a gun, you'd need a license on the gun itself and there'd be a legal requirement to get training in the use of that gun.

That would, by the way, go a step toward changing people too. Win-Win.

[bratzilla]

I really believe she thinks no one is paying attention. Hillary continues to talk out of both side of her mouth. Try anything Hillary, Its a desparate campaign. Say anthing Hillary.

Shes # 1 with bowlers? Who is doing that poll. Are they calling bowling leagues?
# one with Hunters? How are they coming up with those polls?
# one with drinkers? How do they compile these statistics, What a bunch of crap.

[kato1]

The more she attacks, the more supporters she loses. Attacking Obama for saying the ether one of them would be better than McCain who is better than Bush was a real doozie. Does she think that we all forgot about she and Bill's love fest with MCCain? Does she think Bush is better? Really stupid. Rather, she really thinks we are.

She's just not a straight shooter and everyday more Americans see that. She might have mental problems but I'm not a psychologist so I'm just speculating.

[klintonista]

This will be the fourth attempt for Obama to knock Clinton out of the race. He"s been incapable of doing so, which demonstrates his lack of feasibility as a candidate.

There are good reasons why the superdelegates should ignore the Obama Campaigns cries for all Superdelegates to swing for Obama and instead endorse Mrs Clinton!

http://clintonista.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/why-clinton-is-more-likely-to-beat-mccain-in-november/

[mari2JJ]

Actually there are NO good reasons to reject Obama. He is a wonderful candidate. All that crap pushed by Republicans is just that, CRAP!!!!! Amazing that anyone does not see that, but alas, to each his own. Did anyone listen to the speeches of both of these candidates. Both were filled with nice compliments for the other and completely devoid of the venom I see here. Amazing. Democrats have two wonderful candidates and I shall work hard, give money and enlist voters to elect whichever. Our country is in such a mess that it is inconceivable to me to see all this bickering against both/either of the candidates.

[heal57]

You must live in a different galaxy. Hillary's done, kiddo.

[PhDiva]

Why can't she knock him out of the race? She has had every possible advantage except gender, but he's winning. According to your logic, she should also "lack feasibility" because she can't beat him.

[bimplebean]

She's on the floor, she's bleeding, she's in debt, her support is slipping, the superdelegates are going to Obama -- but Obama's not feasible because he hasn't knocked her out yet?

It must be nice to live in your fantasy world.

[GV97]

The Clintons are picking up all the "favors" that come with a huge political machine in Pennsylvania.
The same holds true for all the other big states.
In the end the Democrats will stand together to beat Bush/McCain's War and policies.

[urbanscorpio88]

Lord, have mercy up to almost 4,000 comments were war is raging between Hillary supporters and Obama supporters, anyone would think this was the General Election. Oh wait a minute, these 2 candidates are from the same party. So surely, both should be attacking Old Man McCain, but it appears not , the more your candidates carry on, the more its going to destroy the party. Senior Party members should step in already and say enough. Because come november when the Republicans War Machine starts, they're going to use this very race against you.