Reporters who ask Hillary’s people what their response is to Obama’s fundraising announcement get this:
“We are thrilled with our historic fundraising success and congratulate Senator Obama and the entire Democratic field on their fundraising, which demonstrates the overwhelming desire for change in our country,” Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle said today.
Translation: Obama? He’s the one from one of those states in the middle, right? How cute that he raised so much money! All you boys did very, very well. Gold stars for everyone! I’ll just get back to writing my acceptance speech now…
There is one school of thought that backs her casually writing off Obama’s numbers; it’s called “The University of Howard Dean” (and the entire Democratic field has at least audited courses there). Says one Dem strategist sympathetic to HRC of the enthusiasm over Obama, “We’ve seen a version of this movie before and we know how that ends.”
UPDATE: If you want to try to make the above metaphors make sense, you have to imagine the the U of HD is a film school… (Too much coffee today, sorry.)
UPDATE THE SECOND: Just to lift my eyes from the fascinating process stories that Dem primaries seem to lend themselves to, there’s another thing about the HRC official response that’s completely — shall we say — on the money: donors want change. Looking at the Q1 reports through the widest angle lens possible, the most important comparison isn’t HRC v. BHO, it’s D v. R, or $65mil versus $50mil $78mil versus $51mil*. If people are voting with their wallets, the Democrats clearly won this round.
*Math is hard.