Hillary's New Hampshire Edge

[Herman Munster]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/03/hillarys_new_hampshire_edge.html

No success is larger -- and more unnoticed -- than the campaign team Clinton has recruited in New Hampshire. Talk to unaffiliated Democrats who know their way around the Granite State and they will tell you that Clinton's team is far superior to those of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) -- her two main rivals for the nomination.

Clinton's biggest coup was securing Nick Clemons as her state director. Clemons came to Clinton directly from his post as executive director of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. In that position Clemons oversaw Democratic takeovers of both of the state's U.S. House seats and the re-election of Gov. John Lynch (D). In 2004 he served as state director for Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) winning New Hampshire primary effort.

Clemons was highly coveted by several of the top-tier campaigns and his decision to go with Clinton was cast by political insiders as the first major development of the 2008 New Hampshire primary season. He has since recruited several other Democratic operatives with ties to Lynch.
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Organization is everything in presidential politics. Clinton made major strides to bolstering her team in Iowa earlier this week by winning the endorsement of former Gov. Tom Vilsack and clearly has the best operation in New Hampshire. Does this mean she is a shoo-in for the nomination? Absolutely not. But, what it does mean is that those observers predicting Clinton's downfall already are vastly misreading the reality on the ground.

[Colobo]

1. Good for her; she'll be tough to beat, but

still, she can get the endorsement of Jesus himself and have Buddha as her campaign manager and I'm still not voting for her in the primaries.

That's just me...

[mmonk]

2. Party apparatus won't save her

if she doesn't debate well and I don't think she'll be president.

[IChing]

3. South Park is doing a show on her tonight

I think I will watch that instead

[Raven]

4. Ahhh, I don't know about that...

You can't buy New Hampshire voters. You may be able to hire a good staff from NH but that doesn't insure success. I don't think she is going to do that well up here...people are looking at her positions on various issues that they care about, not at her campaign staff. She isn't very good on the war and has yet to be heard in a meaningful way on health care (which, second to the war, is a very big issue up here).

[John Q. Citizen]

5. No one ever claimed Clinton doesn't have an organization. Vilsacks endoresment

would have only been news worthy if it hadn't gone to Clinton. He was widely regarded as a place holer for the Clinton Campaign.