NO ONE ROOTS FOR US STEEL:

Bill Clinton clashes with Hillary's advisers (Philip Sherwell, 16/12/2007, Sunday Telegraph)

Bill Clinton has finally succumbed to temptation and intervened personally to salvage his wife's faltering bid for the White House, according to leaks from her secretive campaign team. [...]

He went on the offensive on her behalf this weekend with his strongest attack yet on Mr Obama's qualifications for office, and said that voters would be taking a "risk" if they chose him.

He is understood to be particularly frustrated that her chief strategist and polling guru, Mark Penn, chose to portray the former First Lady as the "inevitable" and "invincible" nominee - a strategy that Mr Clinton believes has failed to sell her merits as a candidate.

It's vital for even inevitable nominees to pretend to be underdogs. Campaigns are narratives and the scrappy battler against the odds is simply a more sympathetic character.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 16, 2007 11:52 AM