HOW CLINTON WILL WIN THE NOMINATION BY LOSING SOUTH CAROLINA
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on January 23, 2008.
Hillary Clinton will undoubtedly lose the South Carolina primary as African-Americans line up to vote for Barack Obama. And that defeat will power her drive to the nomination.
The Clintons are encouraging the national media to disregard the whites who vote in South Carolina’s Democratic primary and focus on the black turnout, which is expected to be quite large. They have transformed South Carolina into Washington, D.C. — an all-black primary that tells us how the African-American vote is going to go.
By saying he will go door to door in black neighborhoods in South Carolina matching his civil rights record against Obama’s, Bill Clinton emphasizes the pivotal role the black vote will play in the contest. And by openly matching his record on race with that of the black candidate, he invites more and more scrutiny focused on the race issue.
Of course, Clinton is going to lose that battle. Blacks in Nevada overwhelmingly backed Obama and will obviously do so again in South Carolina, no matter how loudly former President Clinton protests. So why is he making such a fuss over a contest he knows he’s going to lose?
Precisely because he is going to lose it. If Hillary loses South Carolina and the defeat serves to demonstrate Obama’s ability to attract a bloc vote among black Democrats, the message will go out loud and clear to white voters that this is a racial fight. It’s one thing for polls to show, as they now do, that Obama beats Hillary among African-Americans by better than 4-to-1 and Hillary carries whites by almost 2-to-1. But most people don’t read the fine print on the polls. But if blacks deliver South Carolina to Obama, everybody will know that they are bloc-voting. That will trigger a massive white backlash against Obama and will drive white voters to Hillary Clinton.
Obama has done everything he possibly could to keep race out of this election. And the Clintons attracted national scorn when they tried to bring it back in by attempting to minimize the role Martin Luther King Jr. played in the civil rights movement. But here they have a way of appearing to seek the black vote, losing it, and getting their white backlash, all without any fingerprints showing. The more President Clinton begs black voters to back his wife, and the more they spurn her, the more the election becomes about race — and Obama ultimately loses.
Because they have such plans for South Carolina, the Clintons were desperate to win in Nevada. They dared not lose two primaries in a row leading up to Florida. But now they can lose South Carolina with impunity, having won in Nevada.
But don’t look for them to walk away from South Carolina. Their love needs to appear to have been unrequited by the black community for their rejection to seem so unfair that it triggers a white backlash. In this kind of ricochet politics, you have to lose openly and publicly in order to win the next round. And since the next round consists of all the important and big states, polarizing the contest into whites versus blacks will work just fine for Hillary.
Of course, this begs the question of how she will be able to attract blacks after beating Obama. Here the South Carolina strategy also serves its purpose. If she loses blacks and wins whites by attacking Obama, it will look dirty and underhanded to blacks. She’ll develop a real problem in the minority community. But if she is seen as being rejected by minority voters in favor of Obama after going hat in hand to them and trying to out-civil rights Obama, blacks will even likely feel guilty about rejecting Hillary and will be more than willing to support her in the general election.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
THERE'S A METHOD TO CRAFTY BILL'S MADNESS
THERE'S A METHOD TO CRAFTY BILL'S MADNESS
By DICK MORRIS
Published in the New York Post on January 22, 2008.
Why is Bill Clinton courting such intense publicity, in evitably much of it negative?
Is he crazy? Crazy like a fox.
He has two goals and is achieving them both spectacularly.
First, he wants to be the same kind of lightning rod for Hillary that she was for him during his run for the presidency.
As the 1992 Republican convention approached, Hillary ratcheted up her comments and profile precisely to attract GOP fire so that they would leave Bill alone. He and I discussed the plan.
Hillary's comment, for example, about "baking cookies and serving tea" put her squarely in the Republican Party's sights as the convention approached.
The Republicans fell for the lure big time and spent their entire convention going after Hillary. Bill was scarcely hit.
And the 1992 GOP convention is one of the few that afforded its party no bounce at all. Now Bill is returning the favor.
In the days before Iowa and leading up to New Hampshire, Hillary was the prime topic of political discussion.
She took shots for misusing Bill's record and trying to adopt it as her own, for minimizing King's contribution to civil rights, for crying, for attacking her opponents, and for changing her campaign style to become more likeable.
Now, she rarely gets hit anymore. They're hitting Bill instead.
Like a red cape, he is attracting the attention of the bull so his wife the matador escapes unharmed.
The other method behind his madness is that Bill wants to suck up all the oxygen in the room and dominate the coverage of the Democratic contest. By doing so, he cuts Obama out of the news, pushes him off the front page, and usurps the headlines.
Of course, he also crowds out Hillary, but that's OK, given her large leads in the national polls and in all the big states whose primaries are coming up.
If there were a newspaper and television blackout, Hillary would cruise to an easy win, so Bill, by injecting himself into the coverage and hogging it, is accomplishing the same goal.
His tactics now are reminiscent of those he used to black out John Kerry during the lead-up to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
By scheduling book signings and speeches in Boston, he effectively took the coverage away from the prospective Democratic nominee, a man who would have eclipsed Hillary's presidential ambitions had he won the election.
Ultimately, the Clintons are playing a game of jujitsu with Obama, using his own strength against him.
By challenging Obama for the black vote - by promising to go door to door in South Carolina in minority neighborhoods, for example - Bill is highlighting the question: Will Obama carry the black vote? Of course, he will. He leads, 4 to 1, among African-Americans now.
But by making that the central question, Obama's South Carolina victory will be hailed as proof that he won the African-American vote. Such block voting will trigger the white backlash Sen. Clinton needs to win.
Once whites see blacks voting en masse for a black man, they will figure that it is a racial game and line up for Hillary. Already, she carries white voters by 2 to 1.
The Clintons can well afford to lose South Carolina as long as the election is not seen as a bellwether of how the South will vote but as an indication of how African-Americans will go. It's a small price to pay for the racial polarization they need to win.
So to seize the limelight, take Hillary out of the line of fire, and to call attention to his head-to-head battle with Obama for the loyalty of America's blacks, Bill Clinton is seeking all the coverage he can get, positive, negative or neutral.
By DICK MORRIS
Published in the New York Post on January 22, 2008.
Why is Bill Clinton courting such intense publicity, in evitably much of it negative?
Is he crazy? Crazy like a fox.
He has two goals and is achieving them both spectacularly.
First, he wants to be the same kind of lightning rod for Hillary that she was for him during his run for the presidency.
As the 1992 Republican convention approached, Hillary ratcheted up her comments and profile precisely to attract GOP fire so that they would leave Bill alone. He and I discussed the plan.
Hillary's comment, for example, about "baking cookies and serving tea" put her squarely in the Republican Party's sights as the convention approached.
The Republicans fell for the lure big time and spent their entire convention going after Hillary. Bill was scarcely hit.
And the 1992 GOP convention is one of the few that afforded its party no bounce at all. Now Bill is returning the favor.
In the days before Iowa and leading up to New Hampshire, Hillary was the prime topic of political discussion.
She took shots for misusing Bill's record and trying to adopt it as her own, for minimizing King's contribution to civil rights, for crying, for attacking her opponents, and for changing her campaign style to become more likeable.
Now, she rarely gets hit anymore. They're hitting Bill instead.
Like a red cape, he is attracting the attention of the bull so his wife the matador escapes unharmed.
The other method behind his madness is that Bill wants to suck up all the oxygen in the room and dominate the coverage of the Democratic contest. By doing so, he cuts Obama out of the news, pushes him off the front page, and usurps the headlines.
Of course, he also crowds out Hillary, but that's OK, given her large leads in the national polls and in all the big states whose primaries are coming up.
If there were a newspaper and television blackout, Hillary would cruise to an easy win, so Bill, by injecting himself into the coverage and hogging it, is accomplishing the same goal.
His tactics now are reminiscent of those he used to black out John Kerry during the lead-up to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
By scheduling book signings and speeches in Boston, he effectively took the coverage away from the prospective Democratic nominee, a man who would have eclipsed Hillary's presidential ambitions had he won the election.
Ultimately, the Clintons are playing a game of jujitsu with Obama, using his own strength against him.
By challenging Obama for the black vote - by promising to go door to door in South Carolina in minority neighborhoods, for example - Bill is highlighting the question: Will Obama carry the black vote? Of course, he will. He leads, 4 to 1, among African-Americans now.
But by making that the central question, Obama's South Carolina victory will be hailed as proof that he won the African-American vote. Such block voting will trigger the white backlash Sen. Clinton needs to win.
Once whites see blacks voting en masse for a black man, they will figure that it is a racial game and line up for Hillary. Already, she carries white voters by 2 to 1.
The Clintons can well afford to lose South Carolina as long as the election is not seen as a bellwether of how the South will vote but as an indication of how African-Americans will go. It's a small price to pay for the racial polarization they need to win.
So to seize the limelight, take Hillary out of the line of fire, and to call attention to his head-to-head battle with Obama for the loyalty of America's blacks, Bill Clinton is seeking all the coverage he can get, positive, negative or neutral.
BILL CLINTON'S TEMPER
BILL CLINTON'S TEMPER NEGATIVELY AFFECTS HILLARY'S CAMPAIGN
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on January 25, 2008.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen it all before.
That picture of the seething, red-faced former president of the United States shaking his finger at members of the press who dare to question his wife’s slimy campaign tactics, is all too familiar to those who have worked closely with him in the past.
Like Janus, the two-faced Roman god, there are always been two distinct personalities in Bill Clinton. That charming, smiling gentleman seen in public is too often eclipsed in private by his negative twin evidenced in the eruption of a furious, unexpected, and uncontrollable rage, often accompanied by loud cursing and occasionally, even physical violence. It’s not a pretty picture.
I’ve been at the other end of that anger too many times and I was always amazed at the suddenness and intensity of his fury.
Early one Sunday morning, he woke me up at my Connecticut home screaming into the phone, “have you seen the Washington Post?” Blearily, I said no that I wasn’t in Washington (it was in the pre-Internet days). Apparently, the paper’s lead article had our poll and focus group questions about his character and image.
“Who did you tell?” “Who did you tell?” he shrieked. I assured him that I never spoke to the press.
“Well, who DID you speak to?” he screeched.
“I only spoke to George [Stephanopopous] and Rahm [Emmanuel],” (his two closest aides).
That set him off even more. He yelled even louder: “You ONLY told George and Rahm! You ONLY told George and Rahm! Why didn’t you just send out a f-ing press release. Don’t you understand that you can’t tell those two anything that you don’t want to see on the front page of the Washington Post? They leak everything!
He kept screaming about how he couldn’t keep anything confidential because everyone who worked for him leaked. Then he slammed the phone down.
I was shaken.
The phone conversation recalled an even more difficult encounter with his temper.
Many years earlier, in 1990, he seriously overstepped his boundaries with me during one of his blind rages and permanently changed our relationship.
It was during his last gubernatorial race and he was falling behind in the polls. When we met at the governor’s mansion, it was close to midnight. Hillary and Gloria Cabe, his campaign manager at the time, were at the meeting with Bill and me. I had left Connecticut after oral surgery that morning to arrive in time for a 6 p.m. meeting. My mouth was killing me, but I avoided taking any pain killers to be alert for the strategy session. The meeting was changed several times because Bill had decided to do the Nightline Show. He finally arrived back to the mansion in a foul mood. Even though he was a teetotaler, I wondered if he had been drinking.
When he learned of his decline in the polls, he immediately blamed me, accusing me of spending too much time with other clients. Yelling and screaming, he escalated his charges, refusing to listen to me tell him that his latest ad had not been on television yet when the poll was completed. He kept ranting.
Finally, I had enough. I stood up and said I was leaving, quitting the campaign. I grabbed my coat and headed out of the mansion. As I crossed the foyer, I suddenly fell to the ground, tackled by Bill Clinton. I saw his large fist coming at me. Hillary was trying to get between us, yelling “Bill, Bill, stop it. Think about what you are doing. Bill, stop it!”
Bill got up and I walked out the door. Hillary ran after me. She tried to calm me and asked me to walk around the grounds of the Mansion with her. “He only does this to people he loves,” she told me. (I’ll leave that one for the psychologists.)
When the story appeared in the media in 1992 , probably leaked by a fellow political consultant I had confided in that night, I called Hillary to warn her that the press was on to the fight. Her advice: Deny that it ever happened. I never did that, but I refused to comment.
Years later, when I was writing my book, Behind the Oval Office, I sent the galleys to Bill. He marked up a few areas where he had questions or comments. Then he called me and said “I never did actually hit you.” He asked me to change the text and tone down the story.
At the request of the president of the United States, I did.
After that Sunday morning phone conversation about the Washington Post story, I wrote the president a letter telling him how upsetting I found his tantrums and saying that I couldn’t work with him any longer if that’s the way it was going to be. He seemed shocked that his volcanic outbursts caused personal pain. But he knew that I was serious and wrote me a nice note apologizing and the outbursts ceased.
Until, during the 1996 Republican convention, I called him in Wyoming, where he was on vacation. That was never his happiest time, and apparently, he was upset because his favorite golf driver, given him by the King of Morocco, had broken. (He once told me it took seven strokes off his game). He started screaming at me that he was on vacation and did not want to talk about the convention. Again, he was so loud that Eileen heard him across the room.
I hung up on him and went to sleep. A half hour later, Eileen answered a midnight call. A voice told her that the president of the United States was calling for Dick Morris. She told the caller that I was sleeping. Two minutes later, the phone rang again. “Miss, this is a call from the president of the United States.” Again, she told the caller that I was asleep. “The president wants to speak to Mr. Morris right now, please.” “I’m sorry, tell the president that he’s not available right now.” When the phone rang again a few minutes later, it woke me up. It was the president, calling to apologize and to talk about the convention.
Most of Bill’s tantrums were behind closed doors. But during Hillary’s presidential campaign, we’ve seen the real Bill boiling with rage.
But don’t think that he can’t stage blowing his top when he thinks it will be strategically useful. If you have any doubts, just remember another red-faced finger-pointing performance when he said “I want to say something to the American people. I want you to listen. I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
Bill’s tantrums are causing the press to focus on him and not Hillary. That’s what he wants. No more questions about her experience, her ethics, her flip-flops. Now it's all about Bill.
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FoxNews.com on January 25, 2008.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen it all before.
That picture of the seething, red-faced former president of the United States shaking his finger at members of the press who dare to question his wife’s slimy campaign tactics, is all too familiar to those who have worked closely with him in the past.
Like Janus, the two-faced Roman god, there are always been two distinct personalities in Bill Clinton. That charming, smiling gentleman seen in public is too often eclipsed in private by his negative twin evidenced in the eruption of a furious, unexpected, and uncontrollable rage, often accompanied by loud cursing and occasionally, even physical violence. It’s not a pretty picture.
I’ve been at the other end of that anger too many times and I was always amazed at the suddenness and intensity of his fury.
Early one Sunday morning, he woke me up at my Connecticut home screaming into the phone, “have you seen the Washington Post?” Blearily, I said no that I wasn’t in Washington (it was in the pre-Internet days). Apparently, the paper’s lead article had our poll and focus group questions about his character and image.
“Who did you tell?” “Who did you tell?” he shrieked. I assured him that I never spoke to the press.
“Well, who DID you speak to?” he screeched.
“I only spoke to George [Stephanopopous] and Rahm [Emmanuel],” (his two closest aides).
That set him off even more. He yelled even louder: “You ONLY told George and Rahm! You ONLY told George and Rahm! Why didn’t you just send out a f-ing press release. Don’t you understand that you can’t tell those two anything that you don’t want to see on the front page of the Washington Post? They leak everything!
He kept screaming about how he couldn’t keep anything confidential because everyone who worked for him leaked. Then he slammed the phone down.
I was shaken.
The phone conversation recalled an even more difficult encounter with his temper.
Many years earlier, in 1990, he seriously overstepped his boundaries with me during one of his blind rages and permanently changed our relationship.
It was during his last gubernatorial race and he was falling behind in the polls. When we met at the governor’s mansion, it was close to midnight. Hillary and Gloria Cabe, his campaign manager at the time, were at the meeting with Bill and me. I had left Connecticut after oral surgery that morning to arrive in time for a 6 p.m. meeting. My mouth was killing me, but I avoided taking any pain killers to be alert for the strategy session. The meeting was changed several times because Bill had decided to do the Nightline Show. He finally arrived back to the mansion in a foul mood. Even though he was a teetotaler, I wondered if he had been drinking.
When he learned of his decline in the polls, he immediately blamed me, accusing me of spending too much time with other clients. Yelling and screaming, he escalated his charges, refusing to listen to me tell him that his latest ad had not been on television yet when the poll was completed. He kept ranting.
Finally, I had enough. I stood up and said I was leaving, quitting the campaign. I grabbed my coat and headed out of the mansion. As I crossed the foyer, I suddenly fell to the ground, tackled by Bill Clinton. I saw his large fist coming at me. Hillary was trying to get between us, yelling “Bill, Bill, stop it. Think about what you are doing. Bill, stop it!”
Bill got up and I walked out the door. Hillary ran after me. She tried to calm me and asked me to walk around the grounds of the Mansion with her. “He only does this to people he loves,” she told me. (I’ll leave that one for the psychologists.)
When the story appeared in the media in 1992 , probably leaked by a fellow political consultant I had confided in that night, I called Hillary to warn her that the press was on to the fight. Her advice: Deny that it ever happened. I never did that, but I refused to comment.
Years later, when I was writing my book, Behind the Oval Office, I sent the galleys to Bill. He marked up a few areas where he had questions or comments. Then he called me and said “I never did actually hit you.” He asked me to change the text and tone down the story.
At the request of the president of the United States, I did.
After that Sunday morning phone conversation about the Washington Post story, I wrote the president a letter telling him how upsetting I found his tantrums and saying that I couldn’t work with him any longer if that’s the way it was going to be. He seemed shocked that his volcanic outbursts caused personal pain. But he knew that I was serious and wrote me a nice note apologizing and the outbursts ceased.
Until, during the 1996 Republican convention, I called him in Wyoming, where he was on vacation. That was never his happiest time, and apparently, he was upset because his favorite golf driver, given him by the King of Morocco, had broken. (He once told me it took seven strokes off his game). He started screaming at me that he was on vacation and did not want to talk about the convention. Again, he was so loud that Eileen heard him across the room.
I hung up on him and went to sleep. A half hour later, Eileen answered a midnight call. A voice told her that the president of the United States was calling for Dick Morris. She told the caller that I was sleeping. Two minutes later, the phone rang again. “Miss, this is a call from the president of the United States.” Again, she told the caller that I was asleep. “The president wants to speak to Mr. Morris right now, please.” “I’m sorry, tell the president that he’s not available right now.” When the phone rang again a few minutes later, it woke me up. It was the president, calling to apologize and to talk about the convention.
Most of Bill’s tantrums were behind closed doors. But during Hillary’s presidential campaign, we’ve seen the real Bill boiling with rage.
But don’t think that he can’t stage blowing his top when he thinks it will be strategically useful. If you have any doubts, just remember another red-faced finger-pointing performance when he said “I want to say something to the American people. I want you to listen. I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
Bill’s tantrums are causing the press to focus on him and not Hillary. That’s what he wants. No more questions about her experience, her ethics, her flip-flops. Now it's all about Bill.
Obama wins South Carolina
Obama wins South Carolina
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama scored an overwhelming victory in the South Carolina primary Saturday,
mccain alert com
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama scored an overwhelming victory in the South Carolina primary Saturday,
mccain alert com
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