Back in May, Barack Obama came to Philadelphia for a low-dollar rally at the Electric Factory, a noted concert venue. I hyped it a lot, and in the end, we packed the house with 2000 people. (You can see some of it on YouTube via this well-placed attendee.
So the Clinton campaign tried to copy that success, and dispatched Bill Clinton here for a similar rally yesterday. Exact same venue, same day of the week, same time of day. Former President, absolutely adored in Philadelphia, no problem, right?
Right?
Bill Clinton. In Philadelphia. As Democratic a city as there is in America.
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I found out there was a problem on Sunday night at about 7pm. See, my wife is, in addition to her many wonderful qualities, a supporter of Sen. Clinton's and contributor to her campaign, and we do receive fundraising calls from them on occasion.
This wasn't that. This was, instead, a robo-call from Terry McAuliffe on behalf of the campaign begging us to attend the event, revealing that ticket prices had been slashed from an initial $50 for students and $100 for everyone else -- to $25 for students and seniors, $50 for "young professionals" and $100 for anyone else. (Confirmed).
That's right, friends: Bill Clinton got marked down like a winter coat at Marshall's in April.
But that's not the kicker. This is: even with the discounts and the robo-calling, they still left the venue half-empty. One newspaper estimated the crowd at "hundreds".
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We know Bill's slipping on the stump and is just plain wrong on student voting ... is it possible that the political world has passed him by and he should focus on his admirable foundation work instead?
If he's serious about stepping up his involvement in the campaign, I'm not even sure it'll help at this point. Obama's now up as much as eight in Iowa and leading in at least one New Hampshire poll -- and as we learned in 2004, once his campaign starts to take off (see p3), the sky's the limit.