Mark Penn has an inside-baseball polling memo out today responding to the Obama campaign's memo last week on the horserace positioning. The David Plouffe memo from Obama basically said that Obama's in good shape, don't worry about the polls yet.
Mark Penn's response? Hillary is Inevitable. And I've got 40 million polls to prove it. Logical, I suppose. But is this really a great argument?
I'm a firm believer that the overarching message is critical to any successful campaign. In my mind, this was one of the key failings of the Kerry 2004 campaign...there wasn't a coherent meta-message. What was the 30 second pitch for a Kerry presidency?
Obama has a pretty solid meta-message...regardless of whether you think he's put the policy chops or "experience" into the stew yet. But basically you have an idea what Obama's campaign is all about.
Edwards as well: he's focused a strong populist theme along with the "stand up and fight" mantra (look at the recently announced poverty tour). You can get a sense of what an Edwards general election campaign and Presidency might look like.
What's Hillary's meta-message? Clinton Restoration? Not Bush? It's hard to say. What's interesting is the "I'm going to win so get out of the way" rhetoric at the moment. "I'm in to win". What's the meta-message going to be? Seems like they're trying to push "ready for change", but is that going to resonate?
Is the "Hillary is Inevitable" meme really a good one? Shut up and get in line?
The most interesting line from the memo is this one:
In recent election cycles, any time a candidate has had as much as 35 or 40 percent of the vote consistently across polls in a multi-candidate field, that candidate has gone on to win the nomination. In the last race, Joseph Lieberman was in the teens at this point while Walter Mondale’s numbers in the 1984 Democratic primary were comparable to Hillary’s now.
Wow. Do you really want to compare yourself to Walter Mondale? Talk about an inspiring example! Not to mention, doesn't that prove Obama's point...that Hillary is a quasi-incumbent? And wouldn't that be really bad news if Obama (or Edwards) starts gaining again this fall?
I'm going to ponder all of this over a stiff drink...I'll let you know what I discover.
http://www.politico.com/...