It appears Clinton ally David Brock’s “Don’t Panic!” memo issued to Democrats yesterday is not working. This morning, Amie Parnes at The Hill spoke to several Democrats close to Clinton who are petrified of the direction of Clinton’s campaign and her ability to win a modern election:
“You have to think there’s some internal tension between some of the newer hands in the press shop who fully understand the need to get ahead of the story and some of the older hands who may be of the ‘never apologize, never explain’ school. But whatever the reason, it’s killing them,” she said.
Additionally, led by Brock’s anti-media rants, the Clinton campaign is struggling to see their candidate’s own weaknesses because everything is the media’s fault, in their eyes:
“With the Clintons, the media is always wrong and they can never get anything right, so when there’s a story about them, they’re not going to believe it even when it’s true,” said one longtime Clinton ally. “The whole world could be jumping up, saying, ‘You’re wrong,’ but they’re reaction is always, ‘What? Nothing’s wrong.’”
The longtime Clinton ally chocked it up to arrogance and insularity coupled with campaign aides unwilling to speak up to their boss.
Meanwhile, spokesman Brian Fallon was putting out fires on a donor call yesterday, as reported by Politico’s Marc Caputo. The tone on that call was similarly panicked:
Fort Lauderdale lawyer Mitchell Berger, who’s hosting an Oct. 2 fundraiser for Clinton at his home, said there’s “a fine line between apology and looking weak.”
Stressing that he was “not trying to be critical,” Berger said he appreciated the briefing, but he wondered aloud: “Is there a lesson learned? Because there will be five or six more of these between now and then. … There’s no question in my mind that between now and next November there will be new Benghazis and new emails.”
And all those polls that show Clinton losing to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders? They’re “garbage” according to the Clinton campaign:
The only non-Florida fundraiser to speak up on the call, North Carolina developer Tom Hendrickson, expressed some worries about “how deep things” are in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Clinton has slipped in the polls.
“Obviously there’s been a major shift in these early couple of states,” Hendrickson said.
Fallon replied by saying there are “a hodgepodge of public polls in the early states. And a lot of them are garbage.”
Interesting, considering many of those polls were conducted by reputable outlets like CBS News, WMUR, and NBC News.
One thing is clear: the Clinton campaign is in full-blown damage control mode and are willing to do anything to get back on track.