Down To Stunts

This is funny, in a pathetic sort of way. In order to prove she has the personal touch, Hillary Clinton knocked on the doors of a few houses in New Hampshire to make an appeal for people's votes. She knocked on a total of ten doors, according to the Associated Press. The reporters then spun this effort into a "personal campaigning" victory for Clinton.

The New York senator knocked on doors along a snow-covered block of Manchester, less than a month before the crucial January 8 New Hampshire primary, the second binding contest of the 2008 presidential campaign.

"I'd be honored to have your support," Clinton said on the front porch of Mike Glickstein, a Manchester resident.

Glickstein, a 38-year-old maintenance worker whose beagle howled incessantly as he spoke to the former first lady, said he had intended to vote for Clinton already.

"I like her support of the middle class, I like her husband a lot," Glickstein said, referring to former President Bill Clinton…..

…..In a subsequent speech to voters in Plaistow, New Hampshire, Clinton said the state would be important to her efforts to secure her party's nomination.

"I'm counting on you for this primary election," she said. "It's a decision that I know you take very seriously. That's why you attend events like this, that's why you open your doors to us when we come knocking."

A whiff of desperation? I think yes. Because she pulled out the stops promising to deliver all the hot button promises:

Clinton said that if elected she would work to find a way of providing universal health care to U.S. citizens, a fight she faced before as First Lady when her husband was president. She also said she would do away with the controversial education program No Child Left Behind and that if elected she would call on the leaders of the top emitters of greenhouse gases to meet every three months to agree on a solution to cut back their emissions.

I rather suspect that a lot of this has to do with a steady drip, drip, drip of ugliness coming out in the media all of a sudden. Things like huge amounts of foreign money financing the Clinton library:

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions.

The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has for months faced questions about the source of the money for her husband's presidential library. During a September debate, moderator Tim Russert asked the senator whether her husband would release a donor list. Clinton said she was sure her husband would "be happy to consider that," though the former president later declined to provide a list of donors.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has made an issue of the large yet unidentified contributors to presidential libraries, saying that he wants to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in such donations. Obama has introduced legislation that would require disclosure of all contributions to presidential libraries, including Clinton's, and Congress has actively debated such a proposal. Unlike campaign donations, money given to presidential libraries is often done with limited or no disclosure.

The far left, led by Michael Moore, made much of ties between Saudi Arabia and the Bush family. It seems the Clintons are in the same boat – and maybe are even more beholden to foreign money. For the record, I don't think any American president should take funds from a foreign government or private individual even for a library. The appearance of impropriety is too great even if there are no strings or expectations. (George W. Bush would be blasted if he does so, so he's better off leaving that money on the table and walking away.)

But how desperate is the internal polling if Hillary is down to stunts for the camera to try to gain traction?