Clinton Putting Chips Down In South Dakota

Hillary Clinton's campaign is putting most of its remaining chips down on South Dakota, which votes on June 3, a source close to the Senator told The Huffington Post. In addition to a ramped up ad buy for this weekend, all available national field staff are reportedly en route to beef up the state office's get-out-the-vote effort.

An April poll conducted by the McGovern Center at Dakota Wesleyan University showed Sen. Barack Obama with a 46-34 advantage over Clinton, with undecideds in double digits. But with no further polls conducted since then, it's difficult to know whether the ground has shifted. Evan Tracey, COO of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, confirms that Clinton's presence on TV airwaves has bumped up steadily this week, after first going on the air in the state on May 20. Obama, by contrast, has been broadcasting since April. But TV only gets you so far in a low-media state like South Dakota, Tracey said, which is why on the ground troops will be critical.

On that score, Clinton may be able to tap a trove of passionate supporters from the state's Indian reservations. Her speech at Pine Ridge on Wednesday was well received among Native Americans, according to Oglala Lakota Tribe member and local journalist Tim Giago, who noted that Indian reservations have proved the difference in recent close races such as Sen. Tim Johnson's 2002 squeaker. Any chance Clinton may have to upturn the conventional wisdom -- as well as to embarrass the state's most prominent Obama backer, former Sen. Tom Daschle -- may reside on a combined late-stage surge by ground and air.

Comments

[jankvkleve]

"a trove of passionate supporters"

If Clinton's supporters are so passionate, why is her campaign in debt to the tune of seven figures? Obama's supporters put their money where their mouths are, and do so in large enough numbers that he has campaign cash coming out his ears.

[abby4ever]

What a great question.

And there's a great Kos idiary (on the Rec. List) by Angry Mouse, that I think answers your question, here's the link:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/31/194043/073/508/526316

[DinOhio]

Isn't South Dakota where Custer bought it? Or was that North Dakota?

[abby4ever]

Montana I think.

[genia]

Translation......................she's fixin ti rig the vote ............again

[briel]

Isn't if funny that not counting the votes was OK with Clinton until she was losing? Now she pontificates at length about the 'people' that are being disenfranchised. Why the F didn't she care about these people prior to her downturn? She's a liar.

[abby4ever]

That is what was so sickening by Ickes' shaking his head in mock despair and going on about the 'gall' and 'audacity' of the committee in putting themselves above 600,000 voters as he put it.
My God, if Hillary had been ahead, she'd have dumped those voters like so much garbage.

[KaAp]

Oh oh oh I cannot wait for Clinton to go
Home ...
Home to NY, home to Illinois, Or Arkansas or Pennsylvania or wherever the hell she is from ...
I cannot wait for her and Bill to crawl back into their deep dank dark spaces
like the vampires or zombies they are ...
Make sure to get some garlic a silver cross or some zombie killer goo
Because they will keep coming back to haunt us
And to ruin the nation

[hugs4u]

She is a carpetbagger. Hillary home is not New York. She only went there as that is the only place she had a chance of winning a seat in the senate for a jumping off point for her failed run at the WH.
I look for her to get her A$$ kicked the next time she is up for reelection by Bloomberg.

[briel]

I hope she does get it kicked, because she too busy with personal aspirations. That is, not only isn't she a New Yorker, she basically "used" the state for her own ends. And now I hear that she's planning on being on the road until Nov. I say, Clinton should get back to work doing what she was elected to do in NY. Tired of these 'entitlement' jerks.

[abby4ever]

It kills me when Hillary supporters say that Obama only went to the Senate as a step toward the Presidency---for that is just what Hillary did, as you point out.

[rleroygordon]

I lost any respect I had for her when she moved to NY (my home state) simply to qualify for a senate run. I'd felt that if she wanted to be a senator, she should have been running in her own home state of Illinois.

Betcha she's wishin' like hell right now that she had.

[wm1066]

Hillary will be holding a fundraiser in Cosmo S.D. in that funny room that distorts reality.
If you ever go to the Black Hills you can't pass up Cosmo!

[balladof]

I've been trying to state my case on various articles this evening and the case of most Hillary supporters because this as all liberal blogs are just so negative about her.

I'm a 27yr old man who has always voted but never really got involved until Hillary's campaign. I donated, time, money, late nights at the computer because she inspires me. No matter how unfairly maligned she's been by republicans, the press, even democrats she fights. Through public humiliation and scandal she remains intact with grace and heart. Anyone else man or woman would have crumbled by now but her ambition, strength and love of this country and its people sustain her. Hillary is a President I would be proud of. If the current path doesn't alter and Obama is given the nomination I will vote for him but, for two reasons, with a heavy heart. First obviously for the loss of Hillary and our first female President but also because that disappointment will diminish the pride I will have in our country for electing our first African American President. A moment that should be so joyous will have a tinge of regret for what could have been.

[kevenseven]

Sorry it did not work out for you.

But Obama will not be "given" the nomination. He earned the nomination.

[PAposter]

Yeah, "ball", I know how disappointed you must be. I mean Obama should wait his turn, right? First, 43 White men, then a White woman, then another 43 or so White men, then maybe a Black man, then another 50 or so White men, then possibly another Black man or woman, then another half century of White men, then possibly a Latino. That damn, Obama, he wasn't suppose to run for President for at least another 150 years. I guess we'll just have to make the best of it.

[SifSkade]

Don't get too upset; there'll be a female president well within your life time. Hillary Clinton was a doomed beta test for so many reasons: (1) before she even threw her hat into the ring, she was well-known but not well-liked (I think the political euphemism for this is "high negatives"), (2) a resume so thin (and with the disastrous health care initiative on it) that she was forced to co-opt her husband's record as an elected official, (3) an on-again, off-again relationship with the truth and reality, (4) what appears to be a rather unpleasant personality, (5) a major epic fail regarding the management of her campaign, from personnel choices to strategy to the tone, and (6) a husband who can't seem to sit down and shut up and who has made it clear that they're a two-fer, which is now a liability, not a selling point. There are plenty of women politicians out there with excellent records of their own who have none of these issues and would have made far better candidates, but they didn't have the name recognition that Hillary did. In the not so distant future, one of them will be our nominee and will take the White House.

[suzyku]

First of all you don't "sound" like a man! Secondly IF hillary had not run such a nasty, karl rove type of campaign, if she had not tried to be a "macho man", and when that didn't work, tried to be a "weak" female by "crying" on cue, if she had not attacked her Democratic opponent so viciously, if she had not pandered to racists and bigots and whoever else she thought might help her to win at any cost, if she had shown some grace or class, if she had not divided the party and helped to further divide this country, if she had not whined and complained and blamed everyone else for her mistakes and stupid comments, then MAYBE she might have had a chance. But she chose the low road at every opportunity and it didn't work. NO MORE POLITICS AS USUAL!

[laurinek]

I am so bewildered as to who is this woman with grace and heart that you refer to?

[memphispaul]

Hillary's last stand this election cycle will be behind the podium on inauguration day, bullhorn in hand challenging Obama to another debate while urging her supporters that all is not lost and to donate at hillaryclinton.com to help make the dream a reality.

[mdcolli]

Too funny! I can see it now.....

[CalGoldenBear]

Don't get your hopes up, folks.

The headline on the HuffPo Politics main page reads, "Clinton Making Her Last PRIMARY Stand in South Dakota."

It DOESN'T say a damned thing about a plain vanilla "last stand". And given HRC's conduct since 2/5/08, she AIN'T gonna quit anytime soon --- or at least until a crew from Bellevue Hospital in NYC come for her with a strait-jacket and haul her off.

She has a "controller" personality -- which means she'll go when she damned well pleases -- and not until she's good and ready to go. Logic has NOTHING to do with it.

Besides, her mother Dorothy Rodham is probably reminding her every day that she shouldn't be a "quitter"! (See Carl Bernstein's "A Woman in Charge" on HRC's wanting to drop out of Wellesley early in her freshman year when she faced classmates smarter than she was and Mama Rodham told her not to be a quitter).

[Fabienne]

Let Clinton continue to campaign all summer. What will this get her except more debts, more creditors, and more hostility? The media will not waste valuable reporters on covering her except as a sideshow now and then.

[rleroygordon]

"The media will not waste valuable reporters on covering her except as a sideshow now and then."

Actually, they probably will--especially the redstaters. Flacks news is great for this since they're doing everything they can to try to weaken Obama's run. I've observed in several posts that the only reason they keep after Obama is because they know that he's the real threat to their continued hold on power. If Clinton somehow, incredibly, won the Democratic nomination, she would fold within the first week of the campaign, whining and crying every step of the way about the unfair tactics of the Respooblicans.

And go on to win less than 1% of the popular vote in November.

[arkgrfx61]

Haven't we had enough of "no quitters".
It's not quitting if you get out while still on top...which she missed her chance a few weeks ago.

[emory]

HER LAST STAND IN S D IS A TRAIL OF TEARS

[KarateKid]

Last stand? Where? The Little Big Horn?

[wm1066]

Close, but thats in Montana on the Crow Agency.

[Grannysue]

Then she's gonna ask the committee to seat all the delegates from England and France, and after that she may leave!

[AxelDC]

England and France would both support Obama.

[abby4ever]

Leave this alone---it always backfires. Especially the France part. It backfired in 2004 when a big British newspaper tried to influence the elections so that Bush wouldn't get re-elected.

[tsloan]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/05/emails-prove-tpm-bias-for-clin.php

emails prove TPM bias for Clinton...

[windwalker1984]

No mention about Puerto Rico's voting this weekend and the Clintons presidential influence:

Have Media FALN Down on the Job?
By Ken Shepherd | May 29, 2008

Have the media fallen down on the job in pressing Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) about her war on terrorism bona fides? If silence over the 1999 pardon of 16 FALN terrorists is any indication, yes.

A Google News search for "Clinton FALN clemency" yielded but one result, this May 24 item from Politico's Ben Adler (emphasis mine):

[Y]ou have to look back roughly a decade to find the last time Puerto Rico played a starring role in mainland politics - the summer of 1999, when President Bill Clinton drew sharp criticism by offering clemency to 16 imprisoned Puerto Rican nationalists who belonged to an organization responsible for more than 100 bombings in the U.S. and Puerto Rico between 1974 and 1983.

At the time, Clinton was accused of attempting to curry favor with the large Puerto Rican community in New York, where Hillary Rodham Clinton was preparing to run for an open Senate seat. In response, the Republican-controlled House overwhelmingly passed a resolution stating, "President Clinton should not have offered or granted clemency to the FALN terrorists."

WHY HASN'T THE MEDIA BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS?

[JackND]

Today's media isn't journalism...it's commentary.

Sad, but true.

[memphispaul]

The better parts are commentary.
The rest is just plain entertainment for those poor citizens that need their Gerber spoon fed to them by folks that have graduated to cups with lids on them.

[Krikkit]

Puerto Rico will send delegates to the convention, but come November they won't have a say in the outcome, not being a state and not having any electoral votes. Even the media is growing weary of this endless nominating season and want to turn to the general election fight.

Incidently, that is why Hill-Toast is in SD and not in PR. She knows they won't count after tomorrow.

[chrissy22]

HILLARY IS A DRUNK
BE CAREFUL LMAO