Facebook Stumble Upon del.icio.us Digg Email

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama arrive on stage for a debate Tuesday at Cleveland State University in Ohio, their last debate before the crucial March 4 primaries. (AP Photo)

The political team that famously used the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” to vault to victory in 1992 could be in need of a new mantra 15 years later: It’s the campaign, stupid.

Hillary Clinton has slipped from “inevitable” front-runner to second fiddle over the past two months, and political observers have chimed in with their take on what went wrong: No plan for after Super Tuesday. A poor caucus strategy. Her husband.

Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton, is the latest Clinton loyalist to come out and criticize the campaign. And he suggests the problem was all of the above.

“It seems to me like they rolled the dice on Super Tuesday, thinking that would end it,” Panetta told The New York Observer. “And when it didn’t end it, they didn’t have a plan. And when it came to the caucus states, they did have a plan — which was to ignore them. I think those were serious mistakes.”

Since Feb. 5, when Barack Obama and Clinton ended the 22-state Super Tuesday marathon in a near-draw in terms of delegates, Obama has seized the lead in fundraising, contests won and total delegates. Clinton now is depending on a big comeback in the Ohio and Texas primaries next Tuesday, March 4, to turn the ship around.

Panetta put much of the blame on Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn, comparing him to an old-school operative like Karl Rove who is “all about dividing people into smaller groups rather than taking the broader approach that was needed.”

He said Obama captured the desire for change in Washington, and that the call for such change was underestimated.

He also spoke cautiously about his former boss, according to the Observer, saying that Bill Clinton sometimes has “quick reactions to things” and that it’s the job of his staff to prepare him and allow him to let off steam before entering the public arena.

The former president caused a stir before the South Carolina primary by calling Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war a “fairy tale.” He also snapped at reporters on occasion.

Clinton’s superdelegates — party officials and insiders who go to the August convention free to support either candidate, regardless of their states’ primary and caucus results — have started to cross over.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that one of Clinton’s high-profile superdelegate supporters, Georgia Rep. John Lewis, is formally switching his support to Obama. That was reported in The New York Times nearly two weeks ago, but a Lewis spokesman said at the time that the decision was not final. After some confusion over what the onetime civil rights leader would do, the Georgia congressman told the Journal-Constitution that “Barack Obama has tapped into something that is extraordinary.” He cited his Atlanta district’s preference for Obama in his decision to switch loyalties.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, an ally of Bill Clinton, also endorsed Obama Wednesday, citing his record on trade.

Clinton’s own campaign has started to talk with more candor about her possibilities if she doesn’t carry Ohio and Texas on Tuesday.

“If she wins those, we then go on to April 22 in Pennsylvania,” Clinton campaign national chairman Terry McAuliffe told a business group in Madison, Wis. “If we don’t, then she has to make a decision on what she’s going to do.”

Bill Clinton has made similar comments.

An article in The New York Times said Clinton is throwing the “kitchen sink” at Obama to regain her footing.

She was on the offensive Tuesday night in Cleveland at their final debate before March 4. Clinton challenged Obama on his commitment to providing universal health care and ending the war in Iraq since he was elected to the U.S. Senate. She also complained that she was frequently the first candidate asked a question by debate moderators, suggesting she feels she has been unfairly targeted by the media.

Democratic strategist and FOX News contributor Susan Estrich said the candidates ended the debate where they started.

“Whoever you were for going in, won,” she said. “There was no knockout punch and, frankly, Hillary could use a knockout punch.”

Polls show Clinton is leading in Ohio but losing ground quickly to Obama, who already has taken the lead in some Texas polls.

A Rasmussen poll taken Monday of 862 likely voters in Ohio showed Clinton with a 5-point lead over Obama, 48 to 43 percent. That’s down from a 14-point lead over the Illinois senator in a similar Rasmussen poll taken Feb. 13.

Bill Clinton told a crowd of 1,000 supporters in Fort Worth, Texas, Tuesday that the polls are up in the air.

“It is a tough election and the polls go back and forth and the Gallup polls say Hillary picked up 6 points in the last three days nationwide. It’s going back and forth, back and forth,” he said.

The latest Gallup tracking poll at the time showed the candidates tied at 46 percent each. But an updated poll from Sunday through Tuesday showed Obama with 48 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent.

Penn and Clinton spokesman Phil Singer released a memo Tuesday saying they’ve developed a campaign schedule “that demonstrates and underscores Hillary’s strength and experience on the national security front and in her approach to solving our economic challenges.”

They said the campaign has 41,000 volunteers on the ground in Texas and 26,000 in Ohio. Surrogates, including Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea, are traveling across both states, as the New York senator schedules addresses on child poverty, veteran issues and the economy.

Penn told the Observer that the campaign strategy has been misunderstood.

“The campaign has been about big goals, health care, ending the Iraq war, new energy, the future,” he told the newspaper. “There was a misunderstanding that this campaign was about small things. It never was. If anything, the Obama campaign has microtargeted constituencies.”

Click here to read the article about Leon Panetta in The New York Observer.

FOX News’ Shushannah Walshe and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.