Even a broken clock...

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have official confirmation that the Wisconsin-as-Hillary's-mini-firewall meme, first predicted by yours truly in my Monday post "Wednesday's CW today," has become, well, Wednesday's CW.

I wrote on Monday that, as the "growing media consensus that Hillary's in trouble and March 4 might not be able to save her" collides with the reality of an Obama Beltway sweep, the result would be that Wisconsin would become "a pre-March 4 'firewall' for Hillary." I added, "Maybe [the MSM and her superdelegates] won't demand that she win Wisconsin, but if she loses badly (again)," she'll be in trouble.

Well, here what the AP's Scott Bauer has to say, under the headline "Clinton Scrambles to Contest Wisconsin":

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is moving belatedly to make a contest of next Tuesday's [Wisconsin] Democratic presidential primary. ...

Clinton hasn't conceded the 74 delegates at stake even though she has already begun campaigning for the larger delegate prizes offered in Texas and Ohio on March 4. Her advisers say the New York senator may not win Wisconsin but can't afford another of the lopsided defeats she suffered in three mid-Atlantic primaries Tuesday. ...

Scrambling to prevent an Obama runaway, Clinton plans to spend three days in the state. On Tuesday, she squeezed in three satellite TV interviews with Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay stations amid seven interviews with Texas and Ohio stations. Former President Clinton arrives on Thursday.

A new Clinton TV ad begun Wednesday asks why Obama hasn't joined her in accepting an invitation to debate at Marquette University...

So there you have it. The Irish Trojan: your source for occasionally-correct election predictions and media-CW prophesies! ;)

In less obnoxiously self-referential election news, Politico's Ben Smith says Obama is winning the spin war over whether the superdelegates should be lumped in with the pledged delegates as an undifferentiated mass in the media's delegate counts. (Answer: no.) But Hillary's camp isn't conceding the point, not by a long shot. Says communications director Howard Wolfson:

We are not making distinctions between certain kinds of delegates. We don’t make distinctions between delegates that are chosen by millions of voters in a primary or tens of thousands of voters in a caucus. We don’t make a distinction between elected officials.

Heh. I love the blatant dishonesty of the statement, "We don't make distinctions between [primaries and caucuses]." I wish someone had replied, "Of course you do, Howard! You've done it consistently throughout the last several weeks, and in fact, you're doing it right now, under the guise of denying it!" It takes a truly artful liar to lie about the very words he is saying, even as he says them. These Billary people really make dishonesty an artform.

Alas, they aren't going to quit with this delegate-count-obfuscation business, and even if Smith is right that Obama is gaining ground in the delegate-count spin war, the "total count" is still going to keep carrying a fair amount of weight -- as Team Billary obviously recognizes when it sets a "target" of being within 25 total delegates (pledged and unpledged) of Obama after March 4.

Of course, they're setting that goal because it should be a pretty easy one to exceed -- unless Obama can even out the superdelegate numbers in the mean time, which, as I mentioned in my P.S. earlier, would really help with the perceptions game in the event of an inconclusive situation when March 5 dawns. And this Clintonian spin tactic is precisely why.

UPDATE: More on Wisconsin:

The Clinton campaign has coaxed Teresa Vilmain (left), who earned high marks for running her Iowa operation, down from the wilds outside of Madison to run her suddenly-rejuvenated Wisconsin operation, we're told.

Early on, it looked like Hillary Clinton might effectively concede Wisconsin's Feb. 19 contest to Barack Obama. But her schedule released late last night shows an apparent change of heart...

(Hat tip: Politico.)

Comments

[Joe Loy]

"So there you have it. The Irish Trojan: your source for occasionally-correct election predictions and media-CW prophesies! ;)"

Yes but the Big question is, will you be the First to cry out to Team Clinton the dread Warning: that the time is upon them, pursuant to the fierce urgency of Now, to GET HIL THE HELL OUT! :}

[If so, you really oughta give Wolf Blitzer a shot at you, let Wolf take a whack at you, give Blitzer a chance, this time around :>. Tucker Carlson is such a dweeb anyway. :]

[Gardner]

..Predictions and all your Jericho needs. Where is the post about Jericho? Didn't it start last night?

[Joe Loy]

What about all our Black Donnellys needs? Where is the post about the unjust internment-without-trial of The Black Donnellys? and Didn't they have At 'em again with th' truncheons & th' ould Water Boards last night? Where is the Outrage? :)

Sincerely,
~ the winsome Jenny Reilly :>

[dcl]

The sudden influx of campaign resources to Wisconsin suggests there is some back room arm twisting or at least some supper delegate rumbling that Hillary can't loose another state (making it nine in a row) by 20 percent or more and expect the party to be happy about her staying in the race and expect to hold onto the supper delegates she has, much less get anymore. It would seem reality is setting in: you can't just campaign in the big states and hope to win an election every contest and vote matters... Imagine that...

[dcl]

Cynical side note, why did the Democrats in the Senate decide to have a big totally unimportant hearing with a sports legend the day after Hillary lost by landslide numbers in three states thus dominating the 24 hour network news coverage with Clemens instead of Hillary gets trounced. What do you think, the Democratic Senate Leadership is willing to make a mockery of themselves in an effort to save the Hillary campaign by controlling the news cycle?

[Brian Foster]

At the risk of seeming obnoxious :) , I do have a question, about both this and the prior incantation --

In both instances, the actual language/quotation you cite in support of your claim to have accurately predicted the "conventional wisdom" actually comes from unnamed advisors to the Clinton campaign.

Is it really conventional wisdom, then, or is it just the campaign trying to manage expectations?

IOW, doesn't it have to be generally accepted by the pundits/commentators/talking heads/media people/analysts/strategists/etc., and not just be a signal from within one of the candidates' camps, before it becomes CW?

To be clear -- I'm not saying that it hasn't happened. I'm just suggesting that a quote from the Clinton campaign setting it out as the goal or expectation, as opposed to an "objective" commentator setting it out as undisputed truth, does not prove that it happened.

Thoughts?

[Conventional Wisdom]

Oh Brian! Why do you doubt me?

[Derek]

It's interesting that the two most recent WI polls show Obama +4, +4, and the two most recent OH polls show Clinton +14, +17. It seems almost (almost!) as if, at this stage in the campaign, the "momentum" meme so valued in the IA, NH, or SC bounce is far less so valued later (post-Super Tuesday?). Perhaps it's because later voters are generally aware of the candidates and have picked one or the others, and they're not as swayed by what IA and NH have to say as the voters following those states are just tuning in for the first time.

In any event, I realize that a lot can happen in the next few weeks, but these two polls suggest that Clinton's still got some breathing room.

[Derek]

Also, a new set from Quinnipiac today (problem with Q is that they take a week, but at least it's all post-Super Tuesday), showing OH Clinton +21 and PA Clinton +16. Very interesting. I'm curious if the media support for Obama, or perhaps the interim WI primary, perhaps more important than HI or VT, would affect these numbers.