Where Will the Chips Fall in Nevada?

The Nevada race has more clearly defined the fight-styles of Senators Clinton and Obama. The failed lawsuit filed by the teachers union to keep caucuses out of the reach of the Obama-endorsing Culinary union illustrated that Obama is capable of playing on the same tactical field as Clinton. Getting their endorsement in the first place shows that Obama has network and organization. Winning the lawsuit made them a huge voting bloc.

Another example: the democratic candidates debate in Nevada earlier this week. Obama was careful to reach out to hispanic voters, pulling them to see the shared concerns of all minority voters. Then, boom, an ad by UNITE-HERE running on Spanish radio saying, " "Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless."

This yielded a defensive response from the Clinton camp: "In Iowa, Obama and his campaign went out of his way to attack labor unions for independently promoting other candidates. But in Nevada, he's looking the other way as they falsely attack his opponents."

Obama is uncomfortable and awkward discussing tactics in public, but has an operation that is very adept at tactical maneuvers. They have managed to turn the game around again, taking Clinton, who was on offense after New Hampshire, and putting her on defense prior to Nevada's caucuses.

Having re-learned to take polls with a major grain of salt (but not tequila), everyone is cautious in predicting Nevada's outcome. And to look closely at, say, the Las Vegas Review-Journal poll conducted 1/14-16, which has Clinton up by 9, half the survey was taken before the democratic candidates debate and half afterwards. On the Democratic side, the poll, by Mason-Dixon, surveyed 500 likely democratic voters. But with a margin of error for each +/- 5%, for all we really know Clinton is at 36% and Obama is at 37%. Can't wait for those late-night results.

Comments

[raptor]

Did you get the late-night results? Not what you wanted? Praised by Chris Matthews. I'm so sorry.

[AnninCA]

The chips fell in Clinton's favor in a very decisive way.

Good old-fashioned campaigning made the difference.

[LeeFromVA]

Think about it folks. The republican playbook says you take what is an advantage of your opponent and turn it into a liability. Where has Hillary attacked?

Obama's opposition to the war from the start. (she says he's not consistent)

His message of Hope and Change. (She says it's false hope and change is just a word)

His race. (She brings up a controversial issue in the black community then accuses him of playing the race-card)

The theory goes that after you have completely trashed your opponent, you'll have time to smooth things over with your base. In a general election she can bring up a whole new set of crap that will make the Dems forget the nonsense that got her there. The sad thing is that this tactic almost always works, especially with a group of devoted surrogates looking for a position in the new White House. But will it work against Obama? Not sure, he's such a classy guy that it is possible that the plan could backfire. Unfortunately she is very good at manipulating the media, which is really not that hard in a Hillary-obsessed culture. The story is always about her. She actually has them reporting that Obama has attacked her as a racist! Amazing!

[OhCanada]

Why doesn't anyone seem to grasp the simple fact that the GOP HATES HILLARY. Even if you like her you have to see these fireworks ahead of time. They will come out in droves to bounce her. Obama winning does not bring out the "oh shit" factor with the GOP. Do you want the Jesus freaks to get off their knees and the gun nuts to put on clean tank tops and go vote in Nov? You do? Great. Vote for another Clinton.

[Crowhaul]

Well...this morning I'm off to the caucus here in Nevada after I finish this cup of coffee, and I'll be honest, I'm leaning towards Obama. It's that whole agentofchangething.

Hillary's message of 'hitting the ground ready on day 1' isn't enough. She hasn't committed to getting all combat troops out of Iraq either. Obama has.

I don't care what they say, it's not the economy stupid. It's Iraq. It's Iraq. It's Iraq. Ten-fold.

Anyway....I'm off to caucus. :)

[Bluetiger]

I find this piece narrow. We are about to have severe economic problems and all you can talk about is Ms Hillery Continue-The-Same-Stuff and Mr. OH-Why-Can't-We-Just-Get-Along.

Even Mr BushCo has forsaken supply side trickle down economics for some feed money in the bottom bubble up economics to try to stall the recession.

Why not look beyond this group Edwards is still in the race.

[Neighbor]

Does it really matter what the polls say? As we learned in NH the Clintons have the Deibold machines in their pocket. I understand Nevada is run differently than NH but once they're back to counting ballets with the machines it all over.

Obama won every district where ballets were counted by hand in NH and lost those districts counted by the Diebold machines.

The machine that is Bush/Clinton will not allow this election to slip from their hands.

Have fun watching.

[Spookcatcher]

The Picture of the Democratic Party is SO Much Bigger than these two Elitists Props! Tonight, Saturday, 19 January 2008, THE Clintons will be addressing people in Florissant, MO., a suburb of St. Louis. The Mayor of this town inherited this "Honor" out of being a Police Chief in a Hamlet of a Democratic Suburban entity born out of the Defense industry laden area: McDonell-Douglas, Malinckrodt,, Monsanto, Ford, General Dynamics, Emerson Electric, SouthwesternBel, some 50 of the top fortune 100 companies of the 60's and then it began to dwindle down as things, because of the center of gravity to Texas, moved to the "southern states".

[PulSamsara]

Barack Obama for President of the UNITED States of America.

Go Barack !

[Mort]

The title of this article reminds me of a favorite saying...

A buffalo knows when the chips are down!

[esl]

Do you realize what winning the lawsuit has given them? Wait until after the caucus when stories come out about union leaders who intimidated workers to vote for Obama, workers who could not vote in a neighborhood caucus. Forced to caucus under the watchful eye of their union representative. Reagan would approve of this idea.

[Puzzle]

We can't predict who will win, but brace yourself if it isn't Hillary. Bill will throw another temper tantrum and Hillary will cry - she always does when she is behind in a race. I am surprised at how undignified these two can look - not very presidential. Can you imagine Senator Obama or Senator Edwards crying because they didn't come in first? Hillary is much too fragile to be Commander and Chief.

[RichLiberal]

This one is simple. The fact is that unfair and unequal preference is being given to one group of voters. Ok, life is unfair, but the Clintons have every right to raise an issue.

Where the problem is, is that Obama immediately demagogues the issue as Hillary trying to disenfranchise Hispanic voters.

Obama has become the Great Divider: dividing the Democrats on age by dismissing the Baby Boomers, dividing the Dems on issues by saying to leave the tired old issues of the past as if they were meaningless. And now dividing us on race and culture by immediately turning every situation into "See, Hillary is against the African-Americans, See, Hillary is against the Hispanics, See, Hillary is against anybody I can fool."

I think it's time we started digging into Obama's past work in Chicago. For example, Obama touts the notion that he is against the death penalty. With a little research it turns out that the death penalty was in a state of moratorium because it was so disfunctional the governor called a halt to it. Then in comes our hero, Obama, to fix it, by putting together some detail about taping interrogations, everybody says hooray, the moratorium is lifted and Illinois is happily exercising the death penalty again. Great job, Obama.

[MariaHopeful]

Hillary says that she is the most qualified and has the most experience to run this country from day one. Fair. Let us examine how she has run her campaign and then compare it to how Obama has managed his. Bear in mind that I don't believe that she just decided to run for President 10 months ago as she claims.
Do you really believe that she would have been where she is now were it not for Bill Clinton and the Democratic establishment behind her? But with all of that what has happened with her campaign. Has she run a better campaign and accomplished more than Obama? I think not. And when things got real tough...when it looked as if she was going to lose, what did she do? Those tears were genuine in that she really could not believe that she could be losing but she cleverly spun her way out in talking about some people are more right and more ready than others. Compare that to Obama who for the whole darn Summer was being told that he had no chance as Clinton(s) was invincible. But he just kept on working. Never once did he complain or blame anyone. When he "lost" in NH he conceded early and graciously and said he lost because his campaign didn't do everything it could have done. How refreshing! And just who is in charge of Hillary's campaign? It seems to be more Bill Clinton. So Obama is contending with Bill Clinton and his wife and winning.
Competence and experience? Did Ms. Clinton read that Iraqi report before she voted for war? NO!! She relied on her staff and their summary. The other night she spoke about voting for a bill and then being glad that it was not passed. Huh?
The best run campaign is that of the newbie Barack Obama. The most honest campaign thus far is that of Obama. The campaign that has changed the trajectory of the political landscape is that of Barack Obama. The most qualified candidate has proven to be Barack Obama.

[kathcalla]

The union that sued and lost in their attempt to stem the tide of OBAMA voters...Is a teachers union and their most fervent complaint: giving casino workers the opportunity to work and vote on SATURDAY is not fair to us!

Teachers and school personnel don't work on Saturday!

And the Clinton's kept denying and saying over and over again, -We had nothing to do with the lawsuit! Thou doth protest too much.

I do not want 4 or 8 more years of that.............OBAMA Will Prevail and Win the Dem Presidential Nomination!



Kathy Callahan