Hillary Clinton may believe it takes a village to raise a child but she has found out that it takes a hands on executive to run a campaign. And the best executive she has on her staff is none other than Hillary Clinton. Hillary's revival can be traced to her taking a hands on approach to strategy and standing up front and center as the candidate the people will be voting for, not her husband. Bill Clinton has gone from being a do and say what he wants kind of roving ambassador to a be where he's told he's needed and saying what he's been told to say campaign team player. Hillary's intelligent use of her daughter Chelsea to reach out to the youth voters has been slowly paying dividends. She's also made inroads into gaining online political donations, the populist way.
Hillary's sense of populist sentiment has caused her to soften her DLC stance on some issues, perhaps realizing that this DLC pro War, pro Business group is now out of touch with mainstream America. Hillary's strength in cross over big states is still her strong suit. I do think that as Hillary returns to her Democratic populist roots and continues to speak to the American People instead of just the special interests that she will continue to make inroads and strengthen her case to be the nominee in a potential brokered convention. It all starts and ends with her being the indisputable leader and spokes person for her campaign and her beliefs. People want to see confidence in their potential leaders. Confidence shows people that this person will not shrink from making the hard decisions.
It would appear that Hillary would indeed win Pennsylvania next month. The only areas in Pennsylvania that she might be weak are the Urban Philadelphia area and the surrounding suburbs. The rest of PA should be all hers. I suspect the map will look a lot like Texas with the Obama vote being centered around the big cities and Hillary carrying the rest of the state. I do believe that if Hillary continues to carry the fight to Obama herself like she has been doing lately, instead of using subordinates; she will continue to erode support from Barack Obama while appearing as engaged and in charge of her campaign. Which I believe she is, perhaps as in finally or even the first time. It ups the visceral respect factor a voter must feel to have confidence in giving someone his or her vote.
If Florida and Michigan have a do-over, you can be sure that it will be competitive. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be going toe to toe, one on one in each state. Hillary already has a considerable advantage in both states but if she continues to bring the fight and speak her mind with confidence, I have to give those states with a delegate bonus to her. This will be a no holds barred, Darwinian finish with each candidate exposing and exploiting any possible perceivable weakness in each other. Some may say that such a fight will weaken the winner for the ultimate fight against the Republican, John McCain. I say that this fight will make the winner only stronger and even more ready to take on what will certainly be a formidable Republican machine and very crafty candidate in John McCain.
