Today, on The Page, Mark Halperin offered Hillary Clinton ten things she can do to survive February.  As a part-time political consultant, I feel obligated to offer my own analysis on the merits of his advice.

1. Hope changing campaign managers both streamlines her operation and provides a turn-the-page narrative for the press.

Bit late for a turn-the-page narrative.  If Clinton had made the move (officially) after Iowa and before New Hampshire, it would have added even further resonance to her shocking comeback win.  Right now, the firing replacing of Solis Doyle just feeds into the narrative of a flailing campaign, bookended by the $5 million personal loan Clinton made to her campaign last week and five straight weekend losses– with three more likely to follow in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.  Though I do understand why she made the move today.  It splits Monday’s evening news broadcasts between Obama’s weekend sweep and anything else.  Otherwise, tomorrow’s news cycle– the day before Hannah Mon-Tuesday– would be all Obama.

2. Get the debate-about-debates to catch a spark and trip up Obama.

This won’t work.  Everybody is tired of debates, and for her to ask for five in one month is excessive, even to the most gluttonous political junkies.  After, what, 20 or 30 debates over the past 12 months, any voter who cares about debates has seen all they need and more.  Any voter who doesn’t care about debates isn’t likely to start now.

3. Push her women-rallying fight with NBC News.

Again, the gender baiting hasn’t worked to this point.  I’m someone who believes that Clinton didn’t win New Hampshire because she cried, she won because she had a 20-point lead a few weeks before, and Obama just wasn’t able to close that large a gap in five days, no matter what the pre-primary polls said.  I support the Clintons going after some of the mysogynistic buffoonery that has taken place on MSNBC, but there won’t be any political pay-off to it.  If they were going after Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News, the story would have legs.  It would be pretty huge, actually.  But nobody knows who David Shuster is, and nobody watches MSNBC.

4. Win the Wisconsin primary.

Now you’re talking, Halperin.  The best thing Clinton can do for her campaign at this point is to just flat-out start winning some states.  She won’t win Wisconsin, and even if she did, that alone wouldn’t stop the bleeding.  But she needs badly to start putting some more states in her column.  Actually, looking at the pre-March 4th calendar (Maryland, D.C., Virginia, Hawaii, Wisconsin), Wisconsin is in fact her best bet to win.  And it’s a slim one.  Either way, no one ever turned a campaign around by winning Wisconsin.

5. Keep making the case that caucuses are less democratic and more disenfranchising than primaries.

This might be convincing, except for the fact that she’s lost 10 out of the 11 caucuses.  Will she really be able to blame that on the process?  Eventually, people are going to look at the numbers, shrug their shoulders, and say, “Maybe the other guy’s just more popular.”

6. (Quietly) point out Obama’s reliance on African-American votes in some February victories.

It’s funny to see Halperin channeling his inner Karl Rove and advising Clinton to play the race card.  The inference here seems to be that relying on African-American votes is somehow…. I don’t know, what?  Black people aren’t Americans?  Their vote doesn’t count the same as everyone else’s?  Since when does overwhelming popularity among a large segment of voters become a liability?

I don’t see anyone advising Obama to (quietly) point out Clinton’s reliance on women votes in some February victories.  Which she relied on heavily, by the way.  In California alone, she won women by 23 points, but only won the state by 10.  But again, they’re Americans, their votes count the same as everyone else’s.  If Clinton can win their votes, good for her.  Just like if Obama can win black votes, good for him.  Rather than pointing out Obama’s reliance on African-American votes, maybe Clinton should start going after some of her own.

7. Stoke the Florida and Michigan delegate fights.

Like I said, if the Florida and Michigan delegates get seated and become the decisive margin she needs to win, all hell will break loose in the Democratic Party.  Practically, it’s one of her last options, and she almost has to do it and just hope the sky doesn’t fall.  But realistically, it’s no way to win.  Even if it works and she becomes the nominee, a large segment of Democratic voters will be happy to defect to a (relatively) moderate John McCain, if only to spite the egregious unfairness of the Clintons’ tactics.

On the other hand, another thing Clinton can hope for by stoking the Michigan/Florida fires is that the party will cave to pressure and revote in those states.  Two more big delegate states means two more opportunities for Clinton to close the gap on Obama.

8. Pull in more massive Internet contributions – for both practical and symbolic reasons.

Solis Doyle deserved to get fired replaced for this reason alone.  The online fundraising disparity between Clinton’s campaign and Obama’s is ridiculous– almost $20 million in January alone.  It’s never too late to start raising money, but really they should’ve been plugging the website and courting small donors months ago.  Like, last spring.

9. Continue to amass superdelegates (through friendships, chits, promises and arm-twisting).

This is a must, if only to continue providing the media with fodder for the neck-and-neck race narrative.  If she starts losing the superdelegate race the way she’s been losing the pledged delegate race (and the state race and the popular vote race…), she’s in big trouble.  In fact, the race is probably over at that point.

10. Secure John Edwards’ endorsement.

I don’t see this working.  According to polls, Edwards’ supporters have overwhelmingly moved towards Obama.  Or more to the point, they’ve overwhelmingly moved away from Clinton.  After a year of John Edwards telling voters what a calculating, flip-flopping, establishment, corporatized candidate Hillary Clinton is, his supporters got the message and made their decision.  At this point, a Hillary endorsement from him would seem more than a little disingenuous/opportunistic.  A lot of Edwards supporters would see it as him disappointingly making a deal with the devil, especially if he were to turn up in Clinton’s cabinet next year.

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And in honor of Halperin, you know I have to give him a grade and a review.

Grade: B-

Gave too much advice that wasn’t practical, perhaps reflecting Clinton’s desperate situation or perhaps reflecting a lack of thought on Halperin’s part.  Lost his footing a bit halfway through when he suggested Clinton play the gender and race cards, but recovered late with some good fundraising advice.  Overall, an uncharacteristically mixed performance, but unlikely to change the state of The Page.