Just scroll down to the comment section, and there's an advance copy of the article that will be appearing Sunday:
http://thepoliticker.observer.com/2006/03/sunday-magazine-lukewarm-on-warner.htmlEven though the article is about Warner, just substitute Kerry in for it, and I think there is a lot of interesting information in the article. Oh, and I advise reading it in a detached manner; whatever bad opinions made in the article about Kerry, I am interested in precisely what Hillary is doing, and what Warner (and, of course, Kerry) is doing to combat her. Here are a few quips (I just started reading it, so this is from the beginning):
If Hillary Clinton does decide to run for president, no matter who ultimately runs against her for the party’s nomination, she will begin with the kind of institutional advantages that have been reserved, in the past, for vice presidents like Walter Mondale and Al Gore. It starts with money. At the end of last year, according to the Hotline, the venerable Washington online digest, Clinton had more than $17 million in the bank for her re-election campaign in New York — and no serious opponent to spend it against. By contrast, Warner, capping what was widely considered a surprisingly sound fund-raising season, had amassed a little under $2.5 million for his political action committee, Forward Together. But that’s not the whole story. Thanks to the inscrutable wonder of campaign finance laws, Clinton can roll every penny that she doesn’t spend on her Senate campaign into a presidential account, which is why she could well start a bid for the White House with as much as $75 million, on course to obliterate the party’s previous fund-raising records. No matter how much a governor like Warner raises in his political action committee, on the other hand, the rules say that he can’t spend any of it on a presidential run; it can go only for general political activity, mostly backing other candidates. This means that should Warner decide to run, he’ll have to start again from zero, while Clinton is backing up 18-wheelers to the bank. What’s more, Clinton will arrive in early primary states with a built-in base of voters. She has been campaigning in these states, off and on, for 15 years and knows every stop along the way; she can count on the endorsements of most of the local elected officials and interest groups, all of whom come with their own e-mail lists and organizers.
snip
So formidable are the obstacles to challenging Clinton that even a lot of party operatives who don’t think she’s the best candidate are likely to work for her, just to be on the winning side. And this is precisely the strategy that her team has thus far cultivated. Just as Karl Rove set out to make George W. Bush’s nomination seem inevitable in 2000, successfully freezing much of the money and talent that might have flowed to his competitors, so, too, do Clinton’s advisers seem to be sending out signals that resistance is not only futile but also dangerous. When I asked Warner’s aides for permission to attend some of his policy briefings in January, word came back that the outside experts who had been asked to make presentations, some of whom worked in the Clinton administration, balked because they were afraid the Clinton camp would find out that they were granting courtesies to another candidate. No one wants to cross the party’s presumed nominee. Given all that, it’s a wonder that so many Democrats are thinking seriously of offering themselves up as an alternative. There are various interpretations among the party’s cognoscenti as to which hopefuls belong in the coveted ‘‘top tier’’ of potential candidates. As of the end of 2005, Kerry had more than $15 million in contributions stashed away for another bid, as well as a handful of major fund-raisers who remain loyal to him, but the general assessment among Democratic insiders is that his Swift boat has already sailed.
Now say what you will about the snarky swift boat comment, what I'm seeing here is that at least moneywise, Kerry is the most dangerous candidate against Hillary. AND, he has very loyal followers who aren't going to jump ship. It's a much more uphill battle for Warner. Having said all of that, I, the naive person that I am, am absolutely shocked by these anti-democratic maneuvers by the Hillary camp to destroy all other candidates in a Rovian style. Excuse me, ma'am, but I believe there is something called a primary and a secret ballot. It is the people, not party insiders, who should pick the candidate. But, alas, obviously, if people feel they MUST work for Hillary, then it will be extremely hard for the other candidates to put a team together. Anyway, read the whole article, and see what nuggets you can get out of it.
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