Two tactical masters plot Democrat endgame
No one landed a knockout blow on Super Tuesday, so the fight between Clinton and Obama is set to go the distance. Now each candidate's king of strategy will assume a vital role as micro-management of the campaigns takes on an unprecedented significance. Paul Harris in New York reports
The slight figure, wearing a dark rumpled suit, stood in the cavernous press room at the Chicago Hyatt Regency hotel. All across America, millions of people had voted in 24 separate states, seeking a winner in the fight for the Democratic nomination.
But David Plouffe, campaign manager for Barack Obama, was not talking of grand strategy, or new policies or sweeping visions of a united America. He would leave that to his candidate.
Instead Plouffe was talking statistics, crucial in winning the delegates that decide the Democratic nominee. He had added up the estimated delegate totals from Obama and Hillary Clinton's respective home states of Illinois and New York. 'We should be net 15 up there,' he said, relaying the news to an eager press pack.
Such wonkish minutiae do not make for great headlines. But they are now at the heart of the epic battle unfolding between Clinton and Obama. It is a fight not so much between the two duelling candidates, but between their top staffers. It is over who can master the tiny intricacies of the remaining races and the labyrinthine party rules that govern the contest.
It was not meant to be this way. In recent history one candidate has quickly emerged from early contests and been declared the winner. Arcane delegate counts did not matter. But that has all been thrown out of the window. A massive ground war is breaking out across the rest of America as the Democratic party realises this contest will go on for weeks, and probably months, to come. It is a war of micro-managing that could end up being won by the slimmest of margins. That was why when Plouffe announced his 15-delegate positive result from Illinois and New York, he was smiling broadly.
The master of micro-strategy for Hillary Clinton's campaign is Mark Penn, an obsessive pollster whose specialism is defining and identifying small interest groups and then working out policies that will bring them into Clinton's camp.
Penn, who has been a long-term confidant of Clinton and her husband, Bill, is hugely influential in her campaign. His strategy might be ideally suited to the battle ahead which will focus on a series of divergent states and their complex shifting demographics.
He is a classic Washington insider, living in a $5m mansion in the plush Georgetown district with his wife Nancy Jacobson. Penn's constant polling for the campaign has been instrumental in shaping Clinton's strategic shifts - especially on the war in Iraq - and is likely to continue monitoring the thorny way ahead. Some see that attention to detail as vital in the coming fight as voters turn to the policy-heavy Clinton over Obama's talent for rhetoric that is heavy on inspiration but light on plans. 'It's an advantage for Clinton, especially as the economy goes down. She's got specific policies on so many concerns. Obama's team has more rethinking to do than Clinton's has,' said Professor Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside.
At the same time a host of other talented staffers will be alongside Penn seeking to negotiate Clinton's path through the battle. Chief among them is Howard Wolfson, a hard-edged communications expert. While Penn supplies the backstairs data and research, Wolfson is a sometimes ferocious operative not afraid to go negative on his candidate's opponents. In a tight race, in which handfuls of votes in key areas can make the difference between winning and losing, Wolfson's combative style will be invaluable.
Like Penn he too is a long term member of Hillaryland - the network of close advisers surrounding Clinton. He has been compared to Karl Rove, the mastermind of President George W Bush's two presidential victories and a man known equally for his aggression and attention to detail. Both men, and other top staffers such as campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, have already had to cope with a shift in tactics. Clinton's team envisaged her path to the nomination as an 'inauguration' but the stunning rise of Obama put paid to that. Now, as the smoke from the early battles recedes, they are adjusting yet again.
Lining up opposite Clinton's team are Obama's staff. Plouffe is the highly competent campaign manager who has engineered stunning victories in Iowa and South Carolina that have hauled the insurgent effort to level pegging with Clinton. He has run political races before, netting impressive victories that belie his quiet public persona.
But his real strength is his relationship with his business partner, David Axelrod. Axelrod is Obama's top politicial consultant and perhaps the biggest single strategic influence on Obama's staff. The tall, mustachioed figure is a dominant presence in the Obama camp and his status is rapidly rising among America's political classes as Obama's campaign surges onwards. The Jewish journalist turned political operative was born in New York but went to college in Chicago. It was there he came across Obama and the two have forged a close political and personal relationship. Axelrod is seen as a master media manager. His touch can probably be seen in much of the gushing press that Obama has generated, even though journalists following his campaign rarely get to interact on any level with the candidate. Indeed, though Clinton is far more open to reporters tailing her every move, she is still often portrayed as more distant and hostile. In terms of the 'media primary', Axelrod has already won a massive victory for his candidate. As the campaigns now invade states including Texas and Ohio, that few thought would ever play a role in the competition, that wave of positive media will have arrived before them. That could be crucial.
Yet the landscape of the coming fight is confused and difficult to predict with any confidence. 'We are now into uncharted territory,' said Cary Covington, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa.
The first battleground is demographics. The contests held so far have shown that the Democratic party has split into two camps with each one often dominant in distinct social groups. Following Clinton are women, white working-class voters, the elderly and Hispanics. Backing Obama are black voters, the young, college students and educated, often high-income, voters. Yet, as Super Tuesday showed last week, the two camps are pretty much in a numerical draw. Adding up all the votes cast across the nation last Tuesday the score reads: Obama 7,070,977 votes against Clinton's 7,293,588. In polling terms that is a razor-thin edge and to break it each candidate must cut into the other's support bases.
Yet it is unlikely now that the Democratic nomination will be settled by any 'big momentum' that suddenly has one candidate's support collapsing. It means that what matters is not winning states, but winning delegates. Clinton and Obama are now engaged in a race for the 2,025 delegates needed to to be voted the party's nominee at the convention in August in Denver. Currently the score is 1,045 for Clinton and 960 to Obama.
At the moment the race looks to favour Obama in the short-term. This week, races will be held in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC whose populations match Obama's main strengths. The so-called 'Potomac Primary', after the river that abuts all three states, could see Obama edge into a lead. However, after that come contests in delegate-rich big states, including Ohio and Texas, in March. They could go in Clinton's favour. One possibility now being discussed is the so-called 'Pennsylvania Scenario'. That state holds its primary in April, after a long break from other major contests. That could lead to a repeat of the sort of prolonged town-to-town campaigning in Pennsylvania that marked the contest in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Such a massive effort will be a huge drain on the resources of candidates, staffers and finances alike.
And it all might be in vain. For party rules also include some 796 super delegates, who are party officials, Democratic congressmen and other office holders. If public voting still leaves the battle for delegates unwon then the real fight will take place on the phone as staffers and candidates seek to plead, bully, browbeat and beg with individual super-delegates to get their support.
Both candidates have staffers who are more than adept at such tactics. Wolfson and Axelrod in particular are deeply well connected and have 'persuasive' talents. But it could be an ugly fight with a generation of political reputations at stake. Just look at the case of Rahm Emanuel. The Illinois congressman was heralded as a rising star after engineering the Democratic win in the 2006 mid-term elections. As an Illinois politician he is close to Obama. But he is also a long-term friend and ally of the Clintons who mentored his early career. He is a super delegate. He has joked that he is 'hiding under his desk' rather than make a hasty decision. That might be safe for now. But eventually Emanuel - and many others - will have to pick a side.
But it could also spell trouble for the Democratic base. After the entire national party membership has voted, the result could end up being sealed with backroom dealing between officials and political professionals. 'The perception of that sort of wheeler-dealing could easily poison the process. That has serious implications,' said Covington, the professor of political science.
Watching all this unfold is John McCain, in effect the Republican nominee. The contrast with the Republicans could not be more different. After a fierce, and comparatively brief, battle the Republican field is down to McCain and the outsider, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. The two are likely to scrap politely a little longer with McCain able to rack up more of the aura of a winner and Huckabee assuming the mantle of the leader of his party's conservative wing.
In the meantime, Republican operatives will already be laying the groundwork for McCain's November election campaign, raising money, preparing field offices, polling and getting their political machine in place. So by the time whichever battered, tired Democrat campaign emerges as the victor from the Obama and Clinton fight, they will immediately be plunged into the real fight: for the White House itself. McCain and the entire Republican attack machine will have been waiting for them for months.
No one landed a knockout blow on Super Tuesday, so the fight between Clinton and Obama is set to go the distance. Now each candidate's king of strategy will assume a vital role as micro-management of the campaigns takes on an unprecedented significance. Paul Harris in New York reports
The slight figure, wearing a dark rumpled suit, stood in the cavernous press room at the Chicago Hyatt Regency hotel. All across America, millions of people had voted in 24 separate states, seeking a winner in the fight for the Democratic nomination.
But David Plouffe, campaign manager for Barack Obama, was not talking of grand strategy, or new policies or sweeping visions of a united America. He would leave that to his candidate.
Instead Plouffe was talking statistics, crucial in winning the delegates that decide the Democratic nominee. He had added up the estimated delegate totals from Obama and Hillary Clinton's respective home states of Illinois and New York. 'We should be net 15 up there,' he said, relaying the news to an eager press pack.
Such wonkish minutiae do not make for great headlines. But they are now at the heart of the epic battle unfolding between Clinton and Obama. It is a fight not so much between the two duelling candidates, but between their top staffers. It is over who can master the tiny intricacies of the remaining races and the labyrinthine party rules that govern the contest.
It was not meant to be this way. In recent history one candidate has quickly emerged from early contests and been declared the winner. Arcane delegate counts did not matter. But that has all been thrown out of the window. A massive ground war is breaking out across the rest of America as the Democratic party realises this contest will go on for weeks, and probably months, to come. It is a war of micro-managing that could end up being won by the slimmest of margins. That was why when Plouffe announced his 15-delegate positive result from Illinois and New York, he was smiling broadly.
The master of micro-strategy for Hillary Clinton's campaign is Mark Penn, an obsessive pollster whose specialism is defining and identifying small interest groups and then working out policies that will bring them into Clinton's camp.
Penn, who has been a long-term confidant of Clinton and her husband, Bill, is hugely influential in her campaign. His strategy might be ideally suited to the battle ahead which will focus on a series of divergent states and their complex shifting demographics.
He is a classic Washington insider, living in a $5m mansion in the plush Georgetown district with his wife Nancy Jacobson. Penn's constant polling for the campaign has been instrumental in shaping Clinton's strategic shifts - especially on the war in Iraq - and is likely to continue monitoring the thorny way ahead. Some see that attention to detail as vital in the coming fight as voters turn to the policy-heavy Clinton over Obama's talent for rhetoric that is heavy on inspiration but light on plans. 'It's an advantage for Clinton, especially as the economy goes down. She's got specific policies on so many concerns. Obama's team has more rethinking to do than Clinton's has,' said Professor Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside.
At the same time a host of other talented staffers will be alongside Penn seeking to negotiate Clinton's path through the battle. Chief among them is Howard Wolfson, a hard-edged communications expert. While Penn supplies the backstairs data and research, Wolfson is a sometimes ferocious operative not afraid to go negative on his candidate's opponents. In a tight race, in which handfuls of votes in key areas can make the difference between winning and losing, Wolfson's combative style will be invaluable.
Like Penn he too is a long term member of Hillaryland - the network of close advisers surrounding Clinton. He has been compared to Karl Rove, the mastermind of President George W Bush's two presidential victories and a man known equally for his aggression and attention to detail. Both men, and other top staffers such as campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, have already had to cope with a shift in tactics. Clinton's team envisaged her path to the nomination as an 'inauguration' but the stunning rise of Obama put paid to that. Now, as the smoke from the early battles recedes, they are adjusting yet again.
Lining up opposite Clinton's team are Obama's staff. Plouffe is the highly competent campaign manager who has engineered stunning victories in Iowa and South Carolina that have hauled the insurgent effort to level pegging with Clinton. He has run political races before, netting impressive victories that belie his quiet public persona.
But his real strength is his relationship with his business partner, David Axelrod. Axelrod is Obama's top politicial consultant and perhaps the biggest single strategic influence on Obama's staff. The tall, mustachioed figure is a dominant presence in the Obama camp and his status is rapidly rising among America's political classes as Obama's campaign surges onwards. The Jewish journalist turned political operative was born in New York but went to college in Chicago. It was there he came across Obama and the two have forged a close political and personal relationship. Axelrod is seen as a master media manager. His touch can probably be seen in much of the gushing press that Obama has generated, even though journalists following his campaign rarely get to interact on any level with the candidate. Indeed, though Clinton is far more open to reporters tailing her every move, she is still often portrayed as more distant and hostile. In terms of the 'media primary', Axelrod has already won a massive victory for his candidate. As the campaigns now invade states including Texas and Ohio, that few thought would ever play a role in the competition, that wave of positive media will have arrived before them. That could be crucial.
Yet the landscape of the coming fight is confused and difficult to predict with any confidence. 'We are now into uncharted territory,' said Cary Covington, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa.
The first battleground is demographics. The contests held so far have shown that the Democratic party has split into two camps with each one often dominant in distinct social groups. Following Clinton are women, white working-class voters, the elderly and Hispanics. Backing Obama are black voters, the young, college students and educated, often high-income, voters. Yet, as Super Tuesday showed last week, the two camps are pretty much in a numerical draw. Adding up all the votes cast across the nation last Tuesday the score reads: Obama 7,070,977 votes against Clinton's 7,293,588. In polling terms that is a razor-thin edge and to break it each candidate must cut into the other's support bases.
Yet it is unlikely now that the Democratic nomination will be settled by any 'big momentum' that suddenly has one candidate's support collapsing. It means that what matters is not winning states, but winning delegates. Clinton and Obama are now engaged in a race for the 2,025 delegates needed to to be voted the party's nominee at the convention in August in Denver. Currently the score is 1,045 for Clinton and 960 to Obama.
At the moment the race looks to favour Obama in the short-term. This week, races will be held in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC whose populations match Obama's main strengths. The so-called 'Potomac Primary', after the river that abuts all three states, could see Obama edge into a lead. However, after that come contests in delegate-rich big states, including Ohio and Texas, in March. They could go in Clinton's favour. One possibility now being discussed is the so-called 'Pennsylvania Scenario'. That state holds its primary in April, after a long break from other major contests. That could lead to a repeat of the sort of prolonged town-to-town campaigning in Pennsylvania that marked the contest in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Such a massive effort will be a huge drain on the resources of candidates, staffers and finances alike.
And it all might be in vain. For party rules also include some 796 super delegates, who are party officials, Democratic congressmen and other office holders. If public voting still leaves the battle for delegates unwon then the real fight will take place on the phone as staffers and candidates seek to plead, bully, browbeat and beg with individual super-delegates to get their support.
Both candidates have staffers who are more than adept at such tactics. Wolfson and Axelrod in particular are deeply well connected and have 'persuasive' talents. But it could be an ugly fight with a generation of political reputations at stake. Just look at the case of Rahm Emanuel. The Illinois congressman was heralded as a rising star after engineering the Democratic win in the 2006 mid-term elections. As an Illinois politician he is close to Obama. But he is also a long-term friend and ally of the Clintons who mentored his early career. He is a super delegate. He has joked that he is 'hiding under his desk' rather than make a hasty decision. That might be safe for now. But eventually Emanuel - and many others - will have to pick a side.
But it could also spell trouble for the Democratic base. After the entire national party membership has voted, the result could end up being sealed with backroom dealing between officials and political professionals. 'The perception of that sort of wheeler-dealing could easily poison the process. That has serious implications,' said Covington, the professor of political science.
Watching all this unfold is John McCain, in effect the Republican nominee. The contrast with the Republicans could not be more different. After a fierce, and comparatively brief, battle the Republican field is down to McCain and the outsider, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. The two are likely to scrap politely a little longer with McCain able to rack up more of the aura of a winner and Huckabee assuming the mantle of the leader of his party's conservative wing.
In the meantime, Republican operatives will already be laying the groundwork for McCain's November election campaign, raising money, preparing field offices, polling and getting their political machine in place. So by the time whichever battered, tired Democrat campaign emerges as the victor from the Obama and Clinton fight, they will immediately be plunged into the real fight: for the White House itself. McCain and the entire Republican attack machine will have been waiting for them for months.