How Clinton blew it

[TechBear_Seattle]

How Clinton blew it

...

Today, Clinton has not only lost the Democratic nomination. She has humiliated herself in the process.

She has been forced to lend her campaign more than $11 million of her own money. She has cozied up to some of her former persecutors in the "vast right wing conspiracy," notably Richard Mellon Scaife, a newspaper magnate. She has engaged in phony populism, calling for a temporary break on gas taxes, praising "hard- working Americans, white Americans," vowing to "totally obliterate" Iran and waving the bloody shirt of Sept. 11.

The conservative Weekly Standard praised her as "a feminist form of George Bush." So how did one of America's most accomplished politicians turn a cakewalk into a quagmire?

...

The full essay from The Economist can be read at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/366079_hillaryblewinonline07.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. She didn't 'blow it'. She was up against a more attractive candidate. That's all. nt

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. You might want to read the whole article

I think it does a good job of analyzing what happened.

[Captain Hilts]

6. I read it in the Economist. She was a better candidate than Gore, Kerry and came close this time.

Let's give Obama credit for winning.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. I do give Obama credit for winning, that is not what I meant to imply

But his ability to win does not diminish the Clinton campaign's ability to lose.

[Captain Hilts]

8. She won every Big Blue State, except for IL and Wisc, where he outspent her 5 to 1.

She overcame some odds, too.

They both did well.

[notesdev]

2. A simple formula

Step 1: "It WILL be me." Pure unmitigated arrogance, and an affront to the voters whose right it is to make that decision.

Step 2: Playing the race card.

Step 3: Playing the assassination card.

That's pretty much the whole story here.

[ladjf]

3. I don't believe that she lost due to faulty process. I think that she

simply was not the stronger candidate and a majority knew it. However, had she voted no on IWR she
would have swept to victory before people had time to realize her weaknesses.

[Warpy]

4. These paragraphs jumped out at me:

The Clinton machine only exaggerated this problem. Clinton surrounded herself with familiar faces from her White House years -- people like Mark Penn, her chief strategist, Terry McAuliffe, her chief fund-raiser, Howard Wolfson (one of the least helpful spokesmen this newspaper has ever encountered) and, of course, her husband. But these people were all deeply enmeshed in a Washington establishment that most voters despised.

Penn, one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists, continued to lobby for a free-trade deal even as Clinton was trying to appeal to blue-collar voters by denouncing free trade. These people also summoned up uncomfortable memories from the 1990s.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/366079_hillaryblewinonline07.html

I said from the beginning that her team was sinking her.