Hillary gunning for 2012?

[Karma]

Top House Democrat denounces Clinton campaign tactics
by: Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON - “Scurrilous” and “disingenuous” were among the words a top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives used on Thursday to describe Hillary Clinton’s campaign tactics in her bid to defeat Barack Obama for their party’s presidential nomination.

House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina and the highest ranking black in Congress, also said he has heard speculation that Clinton is staying in the race only to try to derail Obama and pave the way for her to make another White House run in 2012.

“I heard something, the first time yesterday (in South Carolina), and I heard it on the (House) floor today, which is telling me there are African Americans who have reached the decision that the Clintons know that she can’t win this. But they’re hell-bound to make it impossible for Obama to win” in November, Clyburn told Reuters in an interview.

Obama holds a sizable lead in delegates won in state-nominating contests which could be hard for her to overcome.

The purported theory is that an Obama defeat in November against Republican presidential candidate John McCain would let Clinton make another presidential bid in four years, Clyburn said.

Clyburn has not yet declared whether he supports Clinton or Obama. But in January, he raised his concerns about the heated exchanges between the two campaigns before the South Carolina primary.

On Thursday, Clyburn took Clinton and surrogates to task, complaining that they want the popular votes in Michigan and Florida counted, even though both states violated party rules for the early scheduling of their nominating contests.

“I think it’s so disingenuous … (adviser James) Carville and Sen. Clinton were all on TV. I’ve seen them two or three times this week, talking about counting Florida and Michigan.”

Obama did not campaign in those states because the Democratic Party said Florida and Michigan wouldn’t be included in the formal tally for the nomination. “Her name was the only one on the ticket in Michigan and still 42, 43 percent of the vote was against her,” Clyburn said.

Still, Clyburn said “I don’t think she ought to drop out.”

But he added, “There’s a difference between dropping out and raising all this extraneous scurrilous stuff about the guy (Obama). Just run your campaign … you don’t have to drop out to be respectful of other people.”

 

[Black King]

. . .I'm not too sure. I think if it is true its definitely despicably tactics. I'm going to wait and see how this keeps developing before the condemning starts.

 

[Karma]

you know, this really upsets me. because as a woman...i was only too glad to support Hillary. even NOW, I dont want to abandon her with my support but i look at the bigger picture and as it stands now despite her win in P.A. ...LOGICALLY SPEAKING Unless she SWEEPS the remaining state primaries, there's no way she can soundly win the nomination based on the numbers, so its being suggested (and it does appear) that she's trying to AT LEAST derail Obama's campaign. WHY!? Why must we suffer another 4 years of those wicked republicans, and basically get a 3rd BUSH term in Mccain because she wants to run again in 2012?

I'm a feminist...but i can tell you that MANY feminists around the country are getting upset with Hillary because she's not doing this right...she's NOT.

 

[Rampage]

This is my concern. Hillary had this from the get-go. She BLEW it, and Obama came from nowhere to beat her with organization and a coherent message. Now she cannot possibly win, and I have been hearing this as well. The theory is two-pronged.

1) Attack Obama and stay in it in the hopes he makes a mistake and/or she can get Michigan and Florida counted, thereby winning the popular vote (which is not really true but will be the claim) and laying claim in Denver that she should be the candidate

2) Damage Obama so much that the unelectable tag sticks and the superdelegates hijack the thing in Denver, sweeping her in. Barring that, McCain eats his lunch, wins, and is too old to run or too unpopular to win in 4 years, allowing her to come in and "save" the Democratic party.

If that happens, it will be worst thing ever in terms of betrayal to a political party. It is obvious she cannot win and that Obama is the one. Why can't she let it go?

In a perfect world for me, this is how I have it:

Obama - Pres.
Edwards - VP
Bill Clinton - Secretary of State (why not? he already has the connections and he was good at foreign policy)
Hillary Clinton - Supreme Court nominee (a great fit for her)

 

[Flashforward]

There's more. Here's a few opinion pieces from Huffpo.

McCain in 2008 = Clinton in 2012

Allow me to do a little downbeat and wet-blanket prognosticating here, a bit of bad-boy forecasting in the "worst-case" rather than the "blue-sky" register. So get out your tea leaves and/or chicken entrails and read along with me. Please, I beg you, tell me why the following scenario won't in fact obtain--I'd love to be wrong about this. But my nagging gut, unfortunately, tells me otherwise, rebutting what my heart fancies.

Here goes: Incredibly, John McCain will win in November--despite a tanking economy, a spiraling national deficit, $4.50 summer gas prices, an ongoing "debacle" in Iraq, rampant Republican corruption, eroded civil liberties, and a campaign that promises to extend many of his predecessor's wildly unpopular policies. No matter. The Democrats will blow it. On paper, you would think that they would sail into the executive office. But the old-shoe white guy tortured war hero will defeat the upstart visionary-albeit-angry black man. Don't bet the ranch on the black guy, hoping against hope.

Plain and simple, Barack Obama won't win enough swing states. MoveOn.org can't deliver them to him. Nor can Oprah. The Clinton camp isn't going to oblige him with a sudden surge of gushing enthusiasm. For that matter, a grand post-convention rapprochement and de-embittering reconciliation between the Obama and the Clinton camps won't be happening anytime soon, even though Hillary and Bill will go through the motions, making nice for public purview, paying lip service to wishing Obama well and all that. But significant numbers--just enough where it matters--of Clintonistas, centrist Democrats, moderate Republicans, and fence-sitting Independents will peel away from risky Obama as November nears.

Obama's negatives are already rising. The McCain people and their shady surrogates will certainly compound matters by deploying every form of character assassination imaginable. Much mud will be slung, and some will stick--that's the whole point of mud slinging (memo to the above-board Obama: the technique works, don't be naive). The McCain people will surely be playing the guns, God, and gay cards--and they will be claiming that Obama has some pinko, effete, elitist, defeatist, terrorist-loving, tax-loving, ultra-liberal, anti-Pledge of Allegiance, anti-Flag-lapel-pin cards up his sleeve. Oh yes, then there's the abortion trump card, too.

Whispered insinuations will be quite enough to tip the balance. The McCain strategists will provide plenty of distractions and abundant rationalizations to convince enough white folks not to vote for a black man. Period. End of story. Alas.

Hillary knows the above. She sees the primary handwriting on the wall. She's nobody's fool. She's already looking to 2012. Thus she's now pursuing a scorched earth policy for the Democratic Party. She's denouncing the activists while belittling Obama and reserving her praise for McCain. Her current strategy betrays her clear intentions: She wants McCain to win in November (though she could never admit that publicly). She's looked at the chess board and has repositioned her pieces, plotting two or three moves ahead of the current match: McCain's winning the presidency in 2008 will virtually guarantee Clinton's winning the presidency in 2012--and then again in 2016.

McCain, she reasons, won't be a two-term president. He'll do nothing about Iraq and Afghanistan, except perhaps to dig us in deeper. He might bomb Iran's nuclear facility, or at least look the other way while Israel beats us to the punch. He will continue to support tax breaks for the rich, while doing nothing to rebuild the infrastructure of the U.S. economy. He won't be leading the way into a green future. He won't be spending his limited political capital on fixing our national health policy, our national educational policy, our national retirement policy, or even our national campaign finance policy. He'll likely need to work with a Democratic Congress--but he's not amicably collaborative by nature, and he'll blow up behind the scenes the first time he doesn't get his way.

Besides, McCain just wants to be president once. That's enough to satisfy his ego. He'll be too old and too tired for a second term (one need not be ageist against all older persons in order to conclude that McCain in particular, after a tough first term, will be too decrepit to vie for a second).

Hillary has thought this through. After becoming the Big Loser Who Couldn't Reverse Bush-ism in 2008, Barack Obama will not be the party's nominee in 2012. By then, Hillary will seem as if she deserves vindication and a second chance, and her off-putting airs of entitlement and superiority will have dissipated. For 2012, however, she won't pull an Al Gore and defer graciously to other candidates. Mark my words: She'll be running. We haven't seen the last of her presidential aspirations.

I don't know exactly what my bottom line here should be. By attending ruthlessly to Obama's obvious weaknesses against McCain in the general election, I'm not suggesting that Democrats should now drop him in favor of Clinton. Nor am I pushing the idea that the specter of a Clinton resurgence in 2012 after a McCain win in 2008 will somehow scare a good number of McCain-leaning Clinton-haters back into Obama's camp for now. I suppose the lesson is simply that the Democrats shouldn't let their wistful idealism overwhelm their savvy intelligence. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. And if you find yourself forced to choose between cynicism and stupidity, don't be stupid.

and another...

It's About 2012, Stupid!

Never underestimate the Clintons. That much we know. But, perhaps we've been watching them slash and burn their way through the last few months of the campaign without realizing what's really going on?

To understand a Clinton, you've got to think like one. To pull that off, you've got to go places you've likely never gone before. Don't bring the kids....

Here I've been, along with everyone else who follows politics, wondering what in the world the Clinton campaign was still doing in this election. For some time now I've been convinced that Senator Obama will be the Democratic nominee come the fall. And, like so many others, I've been wondering why she's still doing her level best to sully Barack Obama's name for the coming general election?

Then it occurred to me: She's already running against President McCain in 2012.

We've all been busy trying to figure out what her campaign stands to gain by throwing mud at Barack Obama and why Team Clinton has no sense of reality (much less class or decency). But, like Dorothy trapped in Oz, the answer has been here all along.

She's teeing it up for 2012. In order to do that, she's got to make sure Barack Obama loses this fall. How better to do so than to stay in this race well past the interests of the Democratic Party? She can stick around and land a few body blows before she passes the fight against Obama to McCain in the general election. Does she have every right to stay in the race and blah, blah, blah? Sure. Whatever. Not my point. But isn't it time we all said out loud why she's still here?

She's trying to win an election and become President, just not the next president. That's so five months ago.

Senator Clinton is over the 2008 election. She's known for some time now that 2008 is not her year. She's too smart not to know. Her husband is too sharp not to read all these tea leaves. He wrote the book on tea leaves. Thus, she's already running a race that, for most of us, hasn't even begun. We're all scratching our heads and wondering what she's doing in this race while she and Bill use the political world and all of us who follow it as unwitting pawns in their game. They play at both a higher and lower level than anyone else.

That's how dark the Clinton political machine is. They are more savvy and more driven than any of us. We're still worrying about 2008 while they've already got things rolling for 2012.

Tell me I'm wrong. Make a real case, one that is rooted in reality, for her to win the Democratic nomination in 2008.

Everyone is so close to it, no one's really taken a big step back from the day-to-day election coverage and spelled this thing out for the mainstream media. She's trying to cause real harm to Obama so he'll be that much more beatable in the fall when he runs against McCain. After the family McCain, the folks who are rooting for our aging Senator from Arizona more than anyone else are the Clintons.

Ain't politics a bitch?

McCain, at the ripe old age of seventy-one, could arguably be a one term president, and if nothing else, eminently beatable in 2012. So, team Hillary thinks to themselves, let McCain win this year (a very bad time to be President anyway). Let him deal with the mess in Iraq, let him hold that hot potato for a few more years while Hillary gets her ducks in a row for 2012. If she bows out "gracefully" at some point, you'd have to consider her a shoe in for front runner in the 2012 campaign. And, remember, the 2012 race will start the day after this next President move into the White House.

The long anticipated Pennsylvania primary is finally, mercifully upon us. What will the results tell us? In many ways, the answer is a resounding "not much". Look at this race through a macro, rather than micro lens. Does it really matter if Hillary wins Pennsylvania by five, ten, or fifteen points? What if Obama scores an upset and wins? In the end, a lot of the damage to the Democratic party is already done.

A Democratic President in 2008 was once viewed as an eventuality. Today, most passionate Democrats (myself included) are far too scared and realistic to start measuring the curtains in the West Wing. But, Hillary's quiet objective (laying the groundwork for her 2012 campaign) is well under way. A lot of us in the Democratic party can't sleep at night at the thought of what we have been doing to ourselves of late. I have a feeling that the Clintons are resting just fine...albeit in separate beds.

 

[Flashforward]

There's been a lot of spin these last few days about how Obama is the new George McGovern. Well, McGovern happens to be a Clinton supporter and today he went waaay off message...

From Sam Stein at Huffpo:

George McGovern: Still Backing Clinton, But Going Way Off Script

Former senator and Democratic presidential aspirant George McGovern says he sees some striking similarities when it comes to his run at the White House and that of Sen. Barack Obama. But ultimately, McGovern argues, Obama has organized a much wider political coalition and thus a greater chance of electoral success.

"I think that is his strength," McGovern told The Huffington Post. "He has very broad appeal. He certainly is going to galvanize the black vote. But he has strong appeal to voters of all kinds. Some of the old buckaroos out here in South Dakota are for him."

In recent days, following Obama's loss in the Pennsylvania primary, concern has been raised in Democratic circles that the Illinois Democrat could not expand his political base beyond African-Americans and college students -- a limitation that stunted McGovern's candidacy.

But McGovern, who lost the 1972 election to incumbent Richard Nixon by landslide margins, doesn't attribute his defeat to merely the contours of his political base. Indeed, he argues that his candidacy was damaged more by the infighting that occurred within the Democratic Party even after he had secured the nomination.

"After I had the nomination won and everything except the crowning at the convention, the other candidates that I had defeated in the primaries and the caucuses ganged up on me and spent the next month just bad mouthing me around the country," he said. "And, of course the Nixon people used some of the quotes and threw them back at me in the general election."

It is in this regard -- not necessarily his general election defeat -- that McGovern worries history could end up repeating itself. Noting that Obama seems poised to be the eventually nominee, though believing Sen. Hillary Clinton should stay in the race, he called for a more civil discourse between the two candidates.

"That is the one minus," he said. "I think there has been a little too much negative backbiting. And that is the one negative that concerns me because it is what happened to me in '72... I had to go into that convention exhausted, instead of spending the last few months carefully and systematically picking a running mate and getting my convention organized. We can't have that again."

This, however, is not the only similarity McGovern draws between his run for the White House and the current process. In '72, after he won the California primary and clinched the nomination, McGovern's Democratic opponents argued that the delegation should have been rewarded on a proportional basis, rather than winner-take-all. It was, McGovern says, a changing of the rules in mid-game that resulted both in the weakening of his campaign and his limping into the convention. Thirty-six years later, he sees parallels with the Clinton campaign's push to count the results of the non-DNC-sanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries.

"We can't overturn those rules now that the counting is over," he said. "I think Barack didn't even enter one contest [Michigan]. Those states knew what the rules were, all the candidates knew what the rules were, and to change it now I think is wrong."

It's not the only process issue on which McGovern, who has endorsed Clinton, finds himself at varying odds with the New York Democrat. On the topic of superdelegates, which were created as a concession to the primary reforms that McGovern initiated, the South Dakotan argues that these party insiders must take into strong consideration the pledged delegate tally.

"Yeah, I think that is important," he said. "It also reduces the frustration we would have if the candidate with the most pledged delegates was rejected. There is going to be some frustration anyway. There always is. I just hope it doesn't result in the kind of back-fighting I had to face after I secured the nomination."

Despite these differences, McGovern is not backing away from his support of Clinton. He deems her "one of the most talented, articulate and well-informed people in the country," whom he has known for 35 years, since she worked on his campaign in Texas. And he expects her to stay in the race at least until the last primary commences in his home state. But in the interim, he hopes, the tone and tenor of the campaign will be ratcheted down a notch,

"I don't want to see Hillary or Barack giving McCain ammunition in the general election," said McGovern. "It is more important that we not have another four years of Bush government."

Note: Emphasis mine.

 

[Flashforward]

This article from Newsweek takes the cake for being one of the scariest political pieces of the year. The writer basically stresses the ruthlessness of the Clintons and the fact that they will go after everyone who sided with Barack Obama if they are elected to a position of power once again.

CAPITOL LETTER Eleanor Clift
Settling Scores
If Hillary Clinton finds a way to win, she'll have a long list of grudges and grievances.
Apr 25, 2008 | Updated: 3:14 p.m. ET Apr 25, 2008

I'm beginning to think Hillary Clinton might pull this off and wrestle the nomination away from Barack Obama. If she does, a lot of folks—including a huge chunk of the media—will join Bill Richardson (a.k.a. Judas) in the Deep Freeze. If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in "The Godfather," where the watchword is, "It's business, not personal."

Not that anyone will be sleeping with the fishes with Hillary in the White House, but with the Clintons it's business and it's personal. Just think of all the scores to settle, the grievances to indulge. Bill Clinton provided a preview this week, blaming the Obama campaign for playing the race card against him. Tricky maneuver, but perhaps the only way the former president can come to grips with his loss of standing in the African-American community, once his strongest constituency. (South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, an undeclared superdelegate who is African-American, told the New York Times this week that the black community had supported Clinton during his impeachment and that "I think black folks feel strongly that this is a strange way [for him] to show his appreciation.")

There's never been any love lost between the Clintons and official Washington. The Georgetown dinner parties they rarely attended during the Bill years might as well be in Outer Mongolia for all President Hillary will care. Notables who abandoned her for Obama will get the Big Chill. "He's dead to us," a Clinton aide was quoted saying of John Kerry, who along with Ted Kennedy was turned off by the perception of race baiting that led up to the South Carolina primary. A major donor, conflicted between the two candidates and apologetic over his backing of Obama, found Hillary less than sympathetic. "Too bad for you, because I'm going to win," she snapped.

During the 1992 campaign the pundits wrote off Bill Clinton, certain he couldn't survive allegations of infidelity and draft dodging. Aides strung together (with a background of Frank Sinatra singing "They All Laughed") declarations by many of the biggest names in journalism that Clinton was toast and would never be elected president. Hillary's people could do a miniseries on this campaign documenting her multiple comebacks and the egg on the media's face. When the polls closed in Pennsylvania and the race was for a short while too close to call, you could see the barely restrained glee among the commentators that perhaps the moment had finally arrived: Hillary might be gone!

Hillary lost the media a long time ago through a combination of arrogance and entitlement, but she has won grudging respect in some unlikely quarters. Conservative commentators Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough are openly rooting for her, and Tony Blankley, who first gained notoriety as Newt Gingrich's spokesman, confessed somewhat sheepishly, "She's almost beginning to appeal to me." This is a stunning development given Blankley's long and storied history as a Hillary hater. He was recognized in the Washington Post Style section in the early 1990s as the first to call Hillary "Evita," after Argentina's Eva Peron, an ambitious, strong-willed woman who used her husband's position to gain power. The turning point for Blankley was that moment in Pennsylvania when Hillary downed a shot of Crown Royal whiskey "like she'd done it before," says Blankley. "The way she threw it down, she didn't sip it. I know something about that. I've done it myself," he chuckles.

The debonair, British-born Blankley comes from the elbows-out school of politics popularized by Gingrich when the Republicans took over the House of Representatives just two years into the Clinton presidency. He admires the way Hillary has grown as a political commodity, convinced she has changed for the better, no longer a snooty Wellesley grad who's all into policy. Now she's like an old pol, mixing it up and enjoying the blood sport, laughing while she rips into Obama. She'll never get Blankley's vote, but she's won his admiration for her tenacity and the way she relishes the fight, unlike Obama, who dances away from confrontation, not wanting to damage his brand as the great healer. "Too much Fred Astaire," MSNBC's Chris Matthews huffed the other night.

Now the burden is on Obama to win the next round of primaries on May 6. He has said publicly that Indiana could be the tiebreaker, a prediction he could come to regret. If Clinton can win Indiana, hold Obama to single digits in North Carolina, and then run up a big margin in Kentucky on May 20, where she's leading in the polls, she could overtake Obama in the popular vote. "We have to win big and lose small," says an aide. Obama may yet discover his inner Rocky and recast himself now that the media is turning on him. It's hard to be the next new thing for 15 months, which is how long he's been running. And it's time enough for Hillary to win ugly, if that's what winning takes.

Plus, here's an interesting tidbit about the racial backlash against the Clintons, which has already been made apparent, and which would be worse if she stole the nomination from Obama. This comes courtesy of the Washington Post.

Party Fears Racial Divide
Attacks Could Do Lasting Harm, Democrats Say

By Jonathan Weisman and Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 26, 2008; Page A01

The protracted and increasingly acrimonious fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is unnerving core constituencies -- African Americans and wealthy liberals -- who are becoming convinced that the party could suffer irreversible harm if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her sharp line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton's solid win in the Pennsylvania primary exposed a quandary for the party. Her backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination -- handed to her by superdelegates -- would result in a disastrous breach with black voters.

"If this party is perceived by people as having gone into a back room somewhere and brokered a nominee, that would not be good for our party," House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, warned yesterday. "I'm telling you, if this continues on its current course, [the damage] is going to be irreparable."

That fear, plus a more general sense that Clinton's only route to victory would be through tearing down her opponent, has led even some black Democrats who are officially neutral in the race, such as Clyburn, to speak out.

Clinton's camp has a vastly different interpretation, arguing that the most recent primary demonstrated that Democrats remain very interested in seeing the contest continue.

"Pennsylvania did the job of calming any nerves that existed," said Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson. "It showed that the big states around the country think she's the best person to be president."

But that opinion is far from unanimous. More than 70 top Clinton donors wrote their first checks to Obama in March, campaign records show. Clinton's lead among superdelegates, a collection of almost 800 party leaders and elected officials, has slipped from 106 in December to 23 now, according to an Associated Press tally.

"If you have any, any kind of loyalty to the Democratic Party, perhaps you need to rethink your strategy and bow out gracefully in order to save this party from a disastrous end in November," Rep. William Lacy Clay (Mo.), an African American Obama supporter, said in an appeal to Clinton.

Clyburn accused Clinton and her husband yesterday of marginalizing black voters and opening a rift between her campaign and an African American Democratic base that strongly backed Bill Clinton's presidency. Some surrogates in her camp are trying to render Obama unelectable against the Republican nominee so she could run for the Democratic nomination in 2012, he suggested. The discussion flared up yet again when Bill Clinton suggested this week that Obama's campaign had played "the race card" after the former president compared the candidate to Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary.

"We keep talking as if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote, because since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he's in trouble," Clyburn said. "Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of the black vote. . . . It's almost saying black people don't matter. The only thing that matters is how white people respond. And that's what bothered me. I think I matter."

The reemergence of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama's controversial former longtime pastor, in an appearance on PBS last night may only fan the dispute.

"When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public, that's not a failure to communicate," Wright said in an appearance with Bill Moyers. "Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a 'wackadoodle.' "

Both campaigns sought yesterday to tamp down a race controversy, appealing for Democrats to stay focused on winning back the White House.

"I never believe in irreparable breaches. I'm a big believer in reconciliation and redemption," Obama told reporters in Indianapolis. "So, look, this has been a fierce contest. I've said repeatedly: Come August, there will be a whole lot of people standing on a stage with a lot of balloons and confetti raining down on the Democratic nominee, and people are going to be excited about taking on John McCain in November."

Campaigning for Clinton in Gary, Ind., yesterday, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Ohio), who is black, said she does not share her colleagues' concerns. "I don't think Bill and Hillary Clinton will 'do anything' to win this election," she said. "They are trying to be successful, but I disagree they will do anything or they are trying to hurt Barack Obama." She added that black voters "are not a monolith, and we recognize the importance of this election."

There are signs that the anger voiced by some African Americans is beginning to extend to the Democratic donor base. Campaign finance records released this week show that a growing number of Clinton's early supporters migrated to Obama in March, after he achieved 11 straight victories. Of those who had previously made maximum contributions to Clinton, 73 wrote their first checks to Obama in March. The reverse was not true: Of those who had made large contributions to Obama last year, none wrote checks to Clinton in March.

"I think she is destroying the Democratic Party," said New York lawyer Daniel Berger, who had backed Clinton with the maximum allowable donation of $2,300. "That there's no way for her to win this election except by destroying [Obama], I just don't like it. So in my own little way, I'm trying to send her a message."

The message came in the form of a $2,300 contribution to Obama.

Donors are not the only ones who have made the leap. Gabriel Guerra-Mondragón served as an ambassador to Chile during Bill Clinton's presidency, considered himself a close friend of Sen. Clinton, and became a "Hill-raiser" by bringing in about $500,000 for her presidential bid.

But he had a fitful few weeks as the battle between Clinton and Obama turned increasingly negative. Last week, he decided he had seen enough.

"We're just bleeding each other out," Guerra-Mondragón said when asked why he had decided to join Obama's finance committee. "Looking at it as coldly as I can, I just don't see how Senator Clinton can overcome Senator Obama with delegates and popular votes. I want this fight to be over -- the quicker, the better."

The Obama converts include William Louis-Dreyfus. The billionaire New York financier said he had been impressed by Clinton's performance in the Senate and distressed by eight years of the Bush administration when he donated the maximum to her campaign last August. Then, he said, he began watching more closely.

"However much one might have supported the Clintons, or one might support the usual suspects in the Democratic Party, I began to believe Obama represents a new approach. He gives off such a sense of relevance that he's sort of irresistible," Louis-Dreyfus said.

He also expressed, as did other big givers who crossed to Obama, exasperation about the tone of the Clinton campaign and frustration with the candidate herself.

"At the end of the day, all she had to do was open her mouth for me not to believe her," Louis-Dreyfus said.

Staff writers Perry Bacon Jr., traveling with Clinton, and Alec MacGillis, traveling with Obama, contributed to this report.

Any opinions?