UPTURNS, DOWNTURNS AND TURNOUTS

From last Sunday's Talk/Talk with Jackie Salit and Fred Newman:

Salit: I think the Clinton camp is baiting Obama, trying to pull him into a direct attack on Hillary. They think that if they can get him into that zone, they can beat him. It’s interesting because at some point he’s going to have to take her on and face her down. He has to establish that his “vision” politic has some real honest-to-goodness toughness attached to it, that it has some guts. He’s got to be willing to have a fight with the old line political establishment. It needs to be principled – on his part. But it needs to be tough. The Clinton camp wants a fight. They think they can win it. I don’t know that Obama has decided whether he wants the fight or not.

Newman: You might well be right. I think the key is that the Clintons have started on a path and they’re going to stay on that path. And that path is, of course, that Hillary can win.
Salit: Hillary can win.

Newman: Yes. And, if you’re on that path, you’re going to play the campaign as I’m the winner and everybody else is trying to knock me over. I think that’s where it comes from, strategically. Not everybody accepts – and I’m one of those who doesn’t accept it – that Hillary is the winner and that the election is hers to lose. I don’t agree with that at all. I don’t know what the Obama people think. But I guess they think that she’s not the winner.....