Whoa Nellie! While it does appear that Hillary Clinton isn’t going to wait for voting to happen on the 19th of February before going off to devote the next two weeks to Texas and Ohio, I’m not so sure this implies Hillary has given up in Wisconsin. Not to say that I think her strategies are turning out well or anything. Here’s a first report from the Journal Sentinel Online about Hillary Clinton’s exodus from Wisconsin on Monday:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has scaled back her Wisconsin campaign schedule by a full day, and is now planning to leave the state after Monday morning instead of Tuesday morning.

The move suggests the campaign does not think it can overtake rival Barack Obama here. Obama has already campaigned in the state Tuesday night, Wednesday, Friday, and today. He also has single events planned for Sunday (Kaukauna) and Monday (Beloit).

The article goes on to note that Saturday was Hillary Clinton’s first day in Wisconsin, but I’m still not sold on either the prospect that she’s ignoring Wisconsin or that she’s given up there. After all, and this report is from Chris Cillizza of the WaPo, she’s running negative ads in Wisconsin at a pretty furious rate. In fact, Hillary Clinton is also doing softer “positive” ads about herself in Wisconsin, spending money like a drunken Yale cheerleader on a dual track message that I’d argue the Clinton campaign would not do unless they thought they could win the state. From Cillizza:

The fact that the Clinton campaign is “doubletracking” their advertising in Wisconsin reveals a few things. First of all, the campaign’s financial situation has to have improved considerably since two different flights of ads — even in a state like Wisconsin — is a costly endeavor. Second, it’s clear that the Clinton campaign recognizes that while it must try to take the bark (or the halo — choose your symbol) of off Obama, they must also find a way to balance that more negative message with a positive storyline about her. Third, it shows the Clinton campaign is investing serious resources in Wisconsin — believing that a win (or at least a narrow loss) is possible.

The question before Clinton is whether she will be able to financially keep up this sort of dual messaging on television in far more expensive states like Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. And, if not, which track does she choose? The positive? The contrast/negative? Or something sort of hybrid?

Of course, going hand in hand with “spending like a drunken Yale cheerleader” is the word “incompetence,” at least over the last seven years. But I’m not going to call the Clinton people incompetent. I think they’re trying to slow the landslide here. As all sorts of pundits note, they’ve got to win Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania by huge margins in order to have a chance for a Clinton nomination. I’m betting they’ve recognized that every Obama win hurts them in those three big states, and the bigger the Obama win the more they get hurt. This isn’t the wrong strategy in Wisconsin, if their hope is to blunt the impact of the Wisconsin victory, that is. Of course, I’m betting that no negative campaigning by Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama will help, since each time she takes off on a negative tack the supporters of Barack Obama, indeed, ALL DEMOCRATS, will recognize that as an act of politics as usual. Besides, the Barack Obama people have been outspending Hillary Clinton by a huge measure, so it might be that her campaign has been trumped.

Dick Polman has a good take on that, the notion that Hillary Clinton must run negative, a virtual scorched earth policy in order to have a chance to win. He sees that she either runs negative now or start being a gracious also-ran. Polman warns about how this risks damage to the Democratic Party, but I’m not so sure. My suspicion is that negative ads against Barack Obama will not just bounce off, but that they will make the candidate stronger. Of course, Polman also warns that Hillary Clinton will go to the back room and manipulate the Democratic Party system in order to win. There he is absolutely right — that’s a scenario that could severely damage our party and its chances of gaining the White House. She’ll push for those superdelegates, lean on them until they bleed, and she’ll also lobby for those Michigan and Florida primary votes to count, even though Hillary Clinton herself agreed to those rules. But Polman gives us a little bone — even a scorched earth strategy might not work. Here’s Polman from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Clinton is similarly risking charges of treachery if she tries to erase Obama’s edge with parliamentary maneuvers, and I wonder whether wavering superdelegates would tilt her way if she did so. Notwithstanding her ties to these insiders, it’s also true - and often overlooked - that many are not blinded by love for the Clintons. Some are liberals who disliked Bill’s centrist policies; others recall the campaign-finance scandal of 1996 and the Lewinsky scandal of 1998; others blame the Clintons for the conservative revolution that seized both congressional chambers. In short, many have been looking for a viable alternative candidate who would give them a valid reason to vote against Restoration.

Polman talks about how those insiders, the superdelegates, will not cotton to the Clinton scorched earth and back room strategy. I’m here to tell you that as we go forward, and certainly before the Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, the scorched earth and backroom strategies of Hillary and Bill Clinton are going to become widely public, and not just the subject of political reporters and bloggers. Stories like this are going to make voters puzzled, and probably angry at the Clinton campaign, whether Clinton was involved or not. I’m betting they’ll even be talking about those ugly tactics in sleazy strip clubs (next door to Clinton campaign HQ), the kind of venue where they will seem natural. But I’m thinking when those tactics come widely to light they will lose their effectiveness, and actually harm the Hillary Clinton vote. The positive will eventually win out, like positive endorsements from the Houston Chronicle and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.