Here’s more Clinton campaign Kremlinology because, well, it’s just so much fun. The following is total speculation, based not on any secret info I have but instead on simple pattern recognition from campaigns past. Here is what is going on inside the campaign: 1.) Kill the Idiot Who Came Up With This Strategy. Clinton campaign chief Mark Penn is not a shy personality. He’s ruffled mountains of feathers the wrong way. Now Hillary’s poll numbers are bombing and the long knives are out. I’d be more sympathetic to Penn if Hillary’s messaging and strategy had not been so bloody awful. And I’m not piling on late; I’ve cried loser on this campaign for a year. 2.) His and Her consultants. There has always been a fault line in Clinton world between the boys and girls. Hillary’s crowd is running her race and the Bill crowd is sniping from the sidelines. That sniping has gone from the odd rifle shot to constant machine gunning. I smell a whiff of Cajun spices in the air … 3.) Iowa Hates national. In every presidential primary campaign there is great tension between the national headquarters and local state operations. The nationals arrogantly try to micro manage the states and don’t trust the rubes in the states to understand the Big Picture that you must live in the HQ city to understand. The state staffers fume at the national campaign’s lack of understanding of local politics and think the national campaign staff are too busy bloviating behind the scenes to elite reporters to do anything actually useful for the campaign. Generally the states are right, but the national campaign has the candidate’s ear and therefore the power. In Hillaryland, I notice that national campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle has been sent out to Iowa to take hands-on control from famed Iowa organizer (though non-Iowa resident for the last few years) Theresa Vilmain. Which I decode as: Vilmain and Solis Doyle have been fighting like cats and, well, cats for a long time and the Iowa Clinton staff hates the national staff. Solis Doyle has won the fight and moved to Iowa to crush dissent and show the local hayseeds how it’s done. No more of this losing to Barack crap. But since Solis Doyle showed up, things have gotten worse for Hillary in Iowa. Look for Team Vilmain to make a counter-grab at control in the critical last two weeks. 4.) Donors Going Ape. In every campaign, the big donors secretly think they should be running everything instead of just giving money. They assume that the great fortune-making insight they brought to the chopsticks industry obviously qualifies them to run a campaign. So at the first hint of trouble, the big money types grab the phone and raise Hell with the campaign staff. Hillary’s large and forceful donor world is anything but shy, and I am certain the phone lines in and out of the Hillary campaign are on fire with hoots, howls, recrimination, and near panic. I’m sure there is at least one huge donor-driven coup being plotted to save the campaign per point Number Two above. 5.) Candidate losing confidence. Hillary is smart: She knows things are tipping. But what to do? No easy fix in sight and a staff massacre is hard cheese and no guarantee of an improvement. Difficult days. Hard choices. Not unlike being president. If she can weather this meltdown successfully, she’ll be another big step along the way.
