Coming to an Inbox Near You: The Clinton Spotlight

By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
Monday, September 15, 2008

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is ramping up her political machine for the November election, planning a series of e-mails over the coming 50 days designed to spotlight Democrats running for the House and Senate.

The e-mail campaign will coincide with "candidate spotlights" on Clinton's HillPAC Web site, according to Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for the senator from New York.

The first group of candidates are: Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), Reps. Edolphus Towns (N.Y.) and Chris Carney (Pa.) and Nevada congressional candidate Dina Titus.

Towns, who has represented a Brooklyn-based district since 1982, recently survived a serious primary challenge from Kevin Powell, an author and activist best known for being a cast member in the first season of MTV's "The Real World" in 1992. Carney, elected in 2006 to a Republican-leaning seat in northeastern Pennsylvania, is one of the GOP's top targets this fall. Titus is challenging Rep. Jon Porter (Nev.) after running unsuccessfully for governor in 2006.

Strand described the e-mail as "part of a series of efforts" Clinton will employ between now and November to help increase Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Strand added that Clinton will send several more e-mails to her donors over the coming weeks, and feature a number of candidates involved in top-tier state and local contests.

Another major part of Clinton's involvement in the run-up to the general election involves her being a surrogate and fundraiser. She has already made a swing through Florida for Obama, and she plans more trips. Later this week, she will travel to Kentucky to campaign with Bruce Lunsford, the Democratic candidate against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this fall.

"I'm honored to have Kentucky's adopted daughter come back to Kentucky and campaign with me," Lunsford said in a release announcing the trip. Clinton beat Obama in the May 20 Democratic primary contest by better than 2 to 1, winning more than 65 percent of the vote.

The main vehicle for Clinton's involvement in the election will be HillPAC, her longtime leadership political action committee that has recently begun to actively raise funds again. Now headed by Clinton confidant Capricia Marshall, HillPAC ended July, the last month for which reports are available, with $195,000 on hand after collecting just north of $400,000 in the month.

Polling on Palin

The Sarah Palin effect has transfixed pollsters since the Alaska governor burst onto the scene in late August as the Republicans' vice presidential nominee. But her impact on the GOP ticket may not be what you'd think.

For instance, it's more than a chick thing. According to new data by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Palin's support among men is slightly stronger than among women. Forty-five percent of male voters give her a thumbs-up; 31 percent view her unfavorably. Among women, 42 percent view Palin favorably, 36 percent unfavorably.

In a recent interview with The Fix, former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove predicted Palin's strength among men. He argued that Palin could help Sen. John McCain, the presidential nominee, among blue-collar, older men who "like the idea of a gun-toting woman."

The Greenberg survey reports a huge marriage gap among women. More married women view Palin favorably, 49 percent, than unfavorably, 37 percent. But that trend is flipped among divorced, widowed and never-married women: 32 percent favorable, 38 percent unfavorable.

Pollster Anna Greenberg said it makes sense that Palin runs better with men, because women are less likely to vote Republican than are men. She also noted that Obama's support with Clinton voters grew slightly after the conventions, suggesting that Palin is not tapping that market for votes, as the conventional wisdom would have it.

More worrisome for Obama is the poll's finding that he is underperforming with older white women, typically a natural Democratic constituency. According to the Greenberg data, McCain leads among white married women 55 percent to 42 percent. Obama also appears to be losing ground with white unmarried women, although he still holds a slight advantage over McCain, leading 49 percent to 45 percent.

Across the Ponds

Since Obama traveled to Europe earlier this summer, the McCain campaign has sought to raise questions about what it means for the United States to have a candidate for president who is treated as a celebrity abroad.

A new poll sponsored by the German Marshall Fund that tests attitudes toward the two candidates is sure to add fuel to that fire.

To the surprise of no one, Europeans are much more favorably inclined toward Obama than McCain. Nearly 7 in 10 Europeans felt favorably toward Obama, with his best reviews coming in France (85 percent), the Netherlands (85 percent) and Germany (83 percent). About one-quarter of Europeans had favorable feelings toward McCain; he was most well-liked in Portugal (35 percent), the Netherlands (33 percent), Spain (33 percent) and the United Kingdom (33 percent).

Europeans are similarly inclined when asked whether Obama or McCain would do more to improve transatlantic relations. With Obama as president, 47 percent of Europeans responding said, relations would improve, 29 percent said they would stay the same, and 5 percent predicted things would get worse. Eleven percent of Europeans said that relations between Europe and the United States would improve with McCain in the White House; 49 percent said things would stay the same, and 13 percent said relations would get worse.

Good thing for McCain that Europe doesn't get a vote this fall.

11 days: The long-awaited presidential debates begin at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Neither McCain nor Obama was the standout debater within his respective party, making pre-debate expectation-setting all the more important.

19 days: Former vice president Al Gore is the headliner at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner for the Iowa Democratic Party. Is the man who used to be the next president of the United States weighing a return to the arena?