Drive-by campaigning
If you’ve been paying attention to the Wisconsin Democratic primary campaign, you’ve probably heard that Clinton has been running ads arguing that Obama is scared to debate her in Wisconsin, and he has run counter-ads saying that his priority is getting out and meeting the voters directly, and he has pointed out that she wasn’t even getting to Wisconsin until Saturday, while he has been campaigning there for pretty much the whole week leading up to the primary.
This is standard stuff — with Clinton now perceived as the underdog, it’s to her advantage to call for more debates and hope that Obama makes an amateur error (she also thinks that debates are her strength, while campaign rallies are his strength, and most people agree with that assessment). But she didn’t exactly help her case today when the campaign announced that she’ll be leaving Wisconsin Monday morning instead of Tuesday morning, spending a total of about 48 hours there. People seem to think this means that she doesn’t expect to do well there, and is focusing her attention even more on the Ohio and Texas contests in early March.
Anyway, this reminded me of when Bill Clinton used to boast of stopping “drive-by deliveries,” by fighting for legislation that required insurance companies to pay for at least a 48 hour hospital stay after a mother gives birth. I wonder how Wisconsin voters feel about the “drive-by campaigning” that his wife is now doing in their state.