HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton Read Online Free

took her until the spring of 2008 to get her delegate outreach into gear, Obama had first approached Altmire in the summer of 2007. By October of that year, the junior Pennsylvania congressman was invited, along with Representative Patrick Murphy, to attend a speech that Michelle Obama gave to a group in Philadelphia. After the speech the two congressmen spent the better part of an hour backstage with the future first lady, who sat on a couch and sipped a bottle of water as she explained her husband’s strategy for beating the Clinton juggernaut. Even though he had slipped far behind Hillary in the national polls, Obama would win Iowa and New Hampshire, turning the race into a three-way fight with Clinton and John Edwards. Edwards would drop out of the race soon thereafter. “When it’s a one-on-one battle, that’s when Barack’s going to shine,” Michelle told the two junior Democrats. “She’s not going to know what hit her.”
    Four years later Altmire was still impressed with Michelle Obama’s presentation. “She called exactly what happened,” he said. “She was wrong about New Hampshire, but she called exactly what was going to happen.” Murphy, a close friend of Altmire, alreadyhadendorsed Barack Obama, joining the future president at a time when the outlook for his election was bleak. Altmire, rumored to be ready to join up, too, held off—he would keep his powder dry. Obama made another appeal on the floor of the House of Representatives during President George W. Bush’s 2008 State of the Union address, asking Altmire if he was “ready to come over,” then made contact every six weeks or so to check in and see if an endorsement was forthcoming.
    Hillary finally reached out to Altmire on February 29, 2008. She called his house and left a voice message. “The momentum’s on our side,” she said, alluding to the Texas and Ohio primaries set for the following Tuesday. From a public relations standpoint, they were must-win contests. If she failed to at least win the popular vote in either state, her campaign was over. The delegate count was a different matter because the general public, and even many experienced political journalists, didn’t really get how important it was. Win or lose in those states, Hillary couldn’t catch Obama in the national delegate math without an implausible wave of superdelegates rushing to her side. But she wasn’t ready to give up on flipping them into her column, and neither was Bill.
    Altmire got a phone call from one of Bill’s aides on the morning of March 4, the day of the Ohio and Texas primaries. He was told to hold for the former president, but Bill never came on the line. The races were still too close to call. Once it was clear that Hillary was going to capture the popular vote in both states, Altmire got a second call. This time Bill was ready to make the pitch.
    “He comes on the phone. He is flying, you can hear it in his voice,” Altmire recalled.
    “We really need you,” Bill told him.
    But Altmire worried that Hillary would fail to connect with the conservative voters in his Pennsylvania district. Bill pushed back, citing the margins of his own victories in the district in 1992 and 1996. He knew the voters there as well as Altmire did. Hillary, Bill argued, had been a popular state-level first lady in rural, conservative Arkansas and had won her Senate seat twice in part because shehad done better than expected in conservative upstate New York. Calling an old favor to mind, the former president also thanked Altmire for his work on the 1993 health reform task force. As he had with Obama, Altmire told Clinton he didn’t like the superdelegate system or the idea that his vote would carry more weight than those of each of his constituents. He didn’t plan to endorse anyone, he told the former president.
    But the Clintons didn’t give up easily. Altmire was one of about a dozen Democratic superdelegates invited to a cocktail party on March 12 at the