DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

Last week Hillary Clinton's campaign distributed a two-page news release that was 627 words long (and was principally an attack on Barack Obama).

Paragraphs one and two were a sum-up of what was to follow. Paragraphs three, four, and five were devoted to describing Clinton's current dominant position in opinion surveys ("Recent polls in the early states of New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina show her with consistent, wide leads while the latest data in Iowa shows that her support is growing"). Paragraph six described her successful fund raising.

Not until paragraph seven, after 255 of the 627 words had been expended, did Clinton mention any issues, and then it was in the vaguest terms -- her "message of experience and change … her well received healthcare plan."

I got out my file of Clinton's Nevada news releases since she entered the race. Nearly all of them deal with tactics, particularly endorsements. From the Pahrump town board chair to the Nevada Senate Democratic floor leader, from Nevada Local 13 of Bricklayers and Craftworkers to Nevada tribal leader Arlan Melendez, the Clinton campaign has covered the state with news of endorsements, momentum, and fund raising. It is very reminiscent of the 1972 campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie, who also ran an endorsement campaign, and the 1980 campaign of Republican presidential candidate George Bush the Elder, who ran a momentum campaign.

Muskie ended up losing the nomination to George McGovern, whose supporters were more dedicated and determined. Bush lost the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan, who stood for something more than momentum.

Many of the candidates in the Democratic race this year stand for things and, among party loyalists (which is what caucuses like Nevada's tend to attract), their records are well known: Joe Biden as a leader of the war on drugs and as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bill Richardson as a proponent of greater mediation in foreign affairs, John Edwards as a critic of policies that trap people in poverty, and so on.

Clinton, on the other hand, is not really known for issue stances, with one exception. Her term in the senate has been undistinguished (no major legislation enacted) and cutting ribbons as first lady isn't really the kind of experience that qualifies anyone for the presidency. The one exception, the only major issue associated with her, is her ill-fated 1993 health care plan, which is a negative credential. It is the only place where she has spelled out her 2008 plan, and she did it principally for strategic reasons, to try to neutralize a negative.

With such a minor record, she has little choice but to run on inevitability, as Muskie and Bush tried to do. As long as the public is not focused on the campaign and as long as opinion surveys continue to reflect mainly name recognition, that will work. But the Muskie and Bush precedents can illuminate whether Clinton can beat their jinx.

In Muskie's case, he faced an opposition supporting McGovern that was among the most passionate campaigns ever run. If the Obama and Richardson campaigns in Nevada are any indication of their motivation nationally, their workers are much more zealous than the Clinton people, who tend to be technocratic or bewitched by frontrunner status. But while their supporters are ardent, it is nowhere near the level of fervor the McGovern people had, just as opposition to the Iraq war has never approached the level of intensity there was against the Vietnam war.

Bush the Elder in 1980 ran a campaign arguing that he was ahead in the polls, so he should win the nomination, because he was ahead in the polls. Among dedicated party workers who are in politics to promote issues, this didn't cut much ice. As reporter Jeff Greenfield later wrote, "Instead of building a base of supporters that was drawn to Bush out of a sense of what he might DO as president, Bush had built…a following based on the idea that he could BECOME president; with his first bad stumble, the politics of momentum became Bush's millstone."