When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, Newsweek reported that Clinton staffers talked of three terms — two for Bill and one for Hillary.
The idea drew laughs at the time, but gained credibility as Hillary became the first First Lady to become a sitting U.S. senator.
The decades-long dream of Hillary Clinton to become the first woman president may appear to have gone up in smoke last week.
Reeling from her defeat in last week’s Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is reportedly in full panic mode as the latest polls show she’s likely to lose big in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary as well.
Long considered the front-runner, Clinton is now so beleaguered that political insiders are beginning to wonder when — not if — she will drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Rival John Edwards has reportedly told his senior staff that he plans to stay in the race because Clinton “could soon be out.”
Whether she stays in the race or drops out, it appears evident that the Clinton campaign is in freefall:
Hillary trailed Barack Obama by 13 percentage points — 41 to 28 — in a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted over the weekend.
She also trailed Obama in a survey by Rasmussen Reports, 39 percent to 27 percent.
A desperate Clinton went on “a rampage,” on Sunday, according to the New York Post, blasting Obama as all talk and no action and criticizing his stance on the Iraq war, lobbyists and other issues. The Post ran a photo of Hillary on its cover Monday under the headline “PANIC.”
After her third-place finish in Iowa, Clinton sent out a fundraising e-mail acknowledging she is in a dogfight and saying: “We’ve got more work to do.”
Hillary has been having so much trouble attracting large crowds of New Hampshire voters to her campaign events that she has been bussing in supporters from out of state, MSNBC reported. Obama, on the other hand, has been drawing standing-room-only crowds. On Saturday, so many supporters turned out for an Obama rally at a Nashua school that hundreds had to wait outside.
Former Sen. Bill Bradley on Sunday became the latest influential political figure to come out in support of Obama.
The Clinton campaign has been engaging in finger-pointing following her Iowa defeat, with advisers blaming chief strategist Mark Penn for failing to predict the Iowa results and for running a campaign that is “too cautious, too arrogant, too conventional,” according to Time magazine.
Women voters, long considered a strength for Clinton, are abandoning her campaign — polls showed that Obama beat Clinton among female voters in the Iowa caucuses, 35 percent to 30 percent.
Even Bill Clinton, Hillary’s trump card, has been drawing less supporters to events – as he openly talks of his wife’s difficulty in appealing to young voters. On Friday, he was greeted by rows of empty seats at the University of New Hampshire, and several people filed out in the middle of his speech.
Analysts say Hillary’s woes are compounded by several factors. First, if she loses in New Hampshire she will most assuredly lose in South Carolina where African Americans dominate the Democratic primary.
With early losses under her belt, Hillary will have an uphill battle convincing donors she can win. Deprived of cash, she will be unable to compete in Super Tuesday — which demands huge ad budgets to cover the large number of states voting.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
|
