How Obama won Wisconsin

For most of last week, Clinton wasn't in the state, but her face was on every TV in every tavern. Double negatives may be bad form in grammar, but apparently not in political advertising. In one 30-second spot, she accused Obama of ducking a debate at Marquette University and trumpeted that only her healthcare plan would provide universal coverage. She also sent out a mailer claiming that Obama's plan would leave 15 million Americans uninsured. Gov. Doyle was miffed that Clinton was attacking Obama with ads, instead of attacking him to Wisconsinites' faces.

"I think that their ads didn't help her at all," Doyle told Salon on election night. "They put out an ad saying he wouldn't debate her, when she wasn't even in the state and he was here meeting thousands of people."

Clinton finally showed up at the Democratic Party's Founders Day Dinner in Milwaukee, where she accused Obama of making empty speeches. Later, she accused him of stealing those empty speeches from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, making them empty of meaning and originality.

Obama, in turn, linked Clinton to the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by her husband, which is blamed for encouraging companies to export jobs from Wisconsin.

At some point over the weekend, Clinton seemed to decide that Wisconsin was worth winning. An ice storm froze out her Sunday events, forcing her to spend an extra day in the state. Snowed in, she realized it might be nice to leave with some souvenir delegates. Her plane didn't leave until late Monday, after a 5,000-strong rally in Madison.

As Clinton hustled between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, her press office chucked out a 13-page "Economic Blueprint." Aimed at working-class voters, it included a plan to end the subprime mortgage crisis by freezing interest rates and halting foreclosures for 90 days.

Clinton looked grim in her election night speech. She certainly chose a grim venue: Youngstown, Ohio, a city of scrap heaps and abandoned steel mills. There, she doggedly stuck to the message that her competence will beat his charisma. Her concern for the needy is genuine, but it's sounding drab against Obama's calls for hope and change, however abstract those may be.

"We need a president who relies not just on words, but on hard work, to get America back to work," Clinton said. "We can't just have speeches. We have to have solutions. I know what's happening in America. People are struggling. They're working the day shift, the night shift. They don't have healthcare. They're just one paycheck away from losing their homes."

Wisconsin is never an easy state to carry. Its grass-roots political traditions make voters maddeningly independent -- at least for political professionals. In 2000, Al Gore drew a huge crowd to the state capitol as he tried to fend off Ralph Nader. In 2004, George W. Bush and John Kerry held competing rallies in Milwaukee on the day before the election. (In both cases, the Democrat prevailed -- by less than 1 percent.) This year's primary came at a turning point in the nomination process. Obama and Clinton are nearly tied in delegates, and while Obama has been inching ahead, he hasn't yet broken the race open. It also provided a chance for both candidates to show that they could reach into the other's base, which is going to be the key to breaking this stalemate before the convention in Denver.

Obama also benefited from two legacies of the progressive movement: open primaries and same-day registration. Open primaries allowed moderate Republicans to cross over for Obama. With that in mind, he campaigned in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, the state’s most Republican county. As a result, he won 72 percent of Republicans, and 64 percent of independents. Same-day registration brought in young voters, an important Obama constituency. Obama’s campaign posters declared "Students Can Register at the Polls." He carried 70 percent of the under-30 vote.

As the first true showdown state, Wisconsin opened Obama's path to the nomination, Doyle said.

"Obama won in a state that Hillary Clinton was 15 points ahead in," he said. "By winning across the board, I think that makes it hard for her to go on."

Obama was already 1,200 miles away, in Houston, a city that could not be more different from this one: semitropical, conservative, multiracial. He thanked Wisconsinites, briefly, for coming out to vote in 5-degree weather. Then, already looking ahead to the general election, he gave Texas a message similar to the one he'd given Wisconsin: "We're going to need all your help, your organization, your mobilization, your voice, to change America in the next four years."

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