Chris noted this in Quick Hits, but I think it's worth a mention.
Two-thirds of Democrats say a victory in either Ohio or Texas would be reason enough for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) to keep her historic bid for the party's presidential nomination alive, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
While activists and elites are quite torn, Democratic base voters like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
I predicted that last night would see the most annoying scenario possible emerge, and that is in fact what happened: a series of wins by Clinton with a slight delegate advantage by Obama in Texas, making the whole thing nearly a wash. And the race goes on, muddled.
Now, I don't agree with Markos that Obama has never had to go negative; from where I sit, his entire campaign has had a negative frame. What do you think dismissing the politics of the past is, if not a negative argument, especially considering the overtones of 'old' in there? It is Clinton who has not had a negative frame until recently, now taking him on with a 'where's the beef' argument.
There is one upside to this outcome, and that is that Obama will now finally have to address the arguments that will come from the Republicans. Here's Michael Sherer.
Specifically, Clinton ran an attack ad in Texas, showing a young girl sleeping and a White House phone ringing at 3 a.m., that suggested Obama is not ready to take on the job of commander-in-chief. This is exactly the message that McCain will no doubt hammer over and over again in the months to come, especially if Obama is his opponent. "All we have to do," said Reed, "is run her ad and put a tag at the end, 'Paid for by the Republican National Committee.'"
I have no idea if this ad worked, and I'm not going to pretend any great insight. But if it did, and Obama's campaign has the polling data to know if it did, they should come up with a response beyond the one emphasizing his no vote on Iraq. And that response should be negative, and probably point out that Clinton didn't even read the NIE before deciding to send troops into Iraq, and now is acting like she didn't vote for the war. That kind of argument, that hawks are irresponsible, will work against Clinton and McCain.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Without access to campaign data and polling, it's worth about that much money. And it's going to get more annoying before it gets less annoying.
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