Strategically, what was Hillary's biggest mistake?

[galaxy21]

Arguably, not beginning her negative campaign sooner.

I'll give Karl Rove credit for being right on that: if she had been doing that since October, she would have probably won. But she underestimated Obama and did in late Feburary when it was way too late.

[Shakespeare]

1. Running.

Sorry; I never liked her as a candidate. (still prefer Edwards, but that's not happening)

[SoonerPride]

2. Ceding the change meme to someone else

I voted for Hillary on Super Tuesday, but now I back Barack. OK? OK.

Now that is out of the way, I'd like to discuss what I think was Clinton's monumental oversight in this campaign.

Many people have talked about her shortsighted game plan of everything being over by Super Tuesday. Her lack of ground game, thus conceding caucuses, her funding problems, and many other problems, but I have not really seen much discussion of this: This year is about CHANGE. She conceded the the CHANGE meme to someone instead else. She didn't sense that above all else, people were SICK of George Bush and wanted CHANGE from the way things have been.

She could have emphasized her being woman as HISTORIC CHANGE, but instead she relied on her name and her history and her experience, when hardly anyone wants that. THEY WANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

She could have been different.
She could have been historic.

Instead, she was more of the same.
She panders and obfuscates, lies, blusters, and offers more of the same old inside the beltway way crap that people are sick to death of in the country.

So, she is going to lose.

Sad, really, because I had so much HOPE in her campaign last fall. I thought she was different. I thought she offered CHANGE.

Instead, she conceded that to someone else who really does offer HOPE and CHANGE: Barack Obama, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party and the next President of the United States.

[patrice]

21. Right and Going Negative is the Old Way, not Change. Also Going Negative =/= Strong.

People want someone to stand up and be strong on our behalf. Some people might mistake Going Negative for Strength, but not your Activists. They know their Strength comes from focusing on the Issues, working with our differences (just like we have to in so much of the rest of our lives) sticking together, and no personal attacks unless you get attacked, but then Obama went us one better (the Third Way) and showed us the Strength that it takes to take personal attacks and stay focused on the Issues.

[galaxy21]

29. Going negative helped her win Ohio and Texas...

Maybe Penn too.

[patrice]

38. Some people like it. Others don't, they're tired of it. nt

[lojasmo]

74. She lost Texas.

Also, ascribing positive or negative results to going negative is conjecture.

[Cha]

84. rush limpbaughs helped her too...

[CTD]

Treating the primary campaign like it was a coronation until it was too late

And all the money was spent and there was no advance groundwork done in any states after Super Tuesday.

I have to thank her profusely as without this extreme arrogance, she'd probably be the nominee.

And we now know that that really would have been a very bad thing. Of course, some of us knew it then.

[kwenu]

17. This response gets my vote!

Oh! And hiring Mark Penn.

[patrice]

33. I was for her and then surprised by the arrogance I encountered, went looking elsewhere, came back,

tried to give her another go, was listening to others by then, Edwards, tried again when he left, didn't like what Bill was doing, started actually listening to what Obama was saying.

But you're right, that initial encounter with all of these arrogant surrogates WAS a shocker. Made me revisit her IWR vote and think about that some more.

[Stagecoach]

69. Agree

She concentrated on the big states too much, mostly Super Tuesday. She then let (she didn't fight for them as much as she could've) Obama win those 11 states in a row afterwards and it seemed like from that point forward she was playing catch-up. During that period, I was wondering how bad she wanted it. And I wonder how many others felt that way as well. I always felt those 11 straight primaries may have cost her the nomination.

[Cha]

86. Yeah, I'll thank hilary the next time

I see her. I'll tell her I'm one of those New York Obama supporters who was hoping it would be anybody but her after she voted for the IWR without reading the 90 page NIE.. going against the wishes of her Democratic Voters.

I'll tell her how happy I am that her arrogance led to her downfall and actually helped the chance for our country to do a 180.

[Arrowhead2k1]

3. Telling tales

about her experiences in Bosnia.

[anigbrowl]

4. Hubris. That is all.

[flvegan]

5. Becoming a candidate.

It was going to go sour, regardless.

[DMorgan]

6. Dio your need a roadmap or a list of Youtube clips to resolve this?

There's a THOUSAND reasons, a thousand moments when she failed.

Which would you like?

[otohara]

7. Mocking Party Base

grrrrrrrrr.....I loved her until that moment!

[NashVegas]

11. White, Progressive Men?

[otohara]

23. Well I Come From Caucus State

you know, us activists.

[KingFlorez]

8. Ignoring the caucus states

She didn't really focus on them and polled very poorly in most of them.

[kennetha]

9. Not being organized for the caucuses

It's the caucuses that are the main source of OBama's lead over her. He racked up delegates in places like Idaho and Alaska that are irrelevant to the General for a democrat. But he kicked our butts there nonetheless

[Jersey Devil]

28. Agree. Clinton advisors believed their own hype that Super Tues would do it

They really had no plan at all for the caucus states.

[Pirate Smile]

10. Ceding the caucus states.

[galaxy21]

overlooking little states was why Guilini failed

and he had the nomination in the bag,as far as I'm concerned.

[tridim]

12. Pimping out Bill.

And letting him wag his finger at voters.

But honestly, I can't think of anything she did that wasn't a mistake since her IWR vote.

[ShortnFiery]

30. And run his mouth in "Southern Strategy" ... wooing rural white, potentially racist voters.

Bubba has lost MASSIVE amounts of respect. I wouldn't cross the street to shake his hand. He's VILE to me, whereas, during the 1990s, I thought they both were OUTSTANDING. They're CHANGED, and in all bad, GOP filthy ways. :thumbsdown:

[patrice]

47. They mistake "the Third Way" for prostituting yourself to the oppressors

and waiting for just exactly the right moment (which you've artifically pre-defined somehow) and then presto-chango, you suddenly change everything by doing the right thing. Problem is, you internalize the oppressor by identifying with it too much AND you skew ALL of the factors by your direction and momentum (to the Right in this case), so that IF you ever get that chance you've been waiting for to suddenly reverse course and do the right thing, all of the factors in the situation are so skewed by what you've been doing that the right thing is NOT, in fact, the right thing because its conditions are so skewed. I think this describes why and how her campaign became so petty and when she tried to correct, she had to give these huge laundry lists of promises that just didn't sound real.

[Diane R]

13. I agree. Not planning for after Feb. 5th. And, of course, "Shame on you, Barack Obama".

[Texas Hill Country]

14. the run up to super tuesday... her original campaign manager F'd her

[SteppingRazor]

15. Failure to organize in smaller caucus states, especially in February post-Super Tuesday.

That one mistake is really the only thing that cost her the election. Obama had a dedicated organization in all of these small caucus states. In many cases, Clinton did not, or at least one so small as to be insignificant. That is directly responsible for Obama's string of victories post-Super Tuesday in February, which in turn is responsible for his insurmountable pledged delegate lead.

[Bucky]

16. Tactically, yes, she should've hammered Obama with negs earlier. But strategically speaking...

... that would have been a big screw up. She needed to spend time building up her positives, which to her credit she did quite well at almost from the first debate. No, the winning strategy would have been to paint herself as the candidate of change from the beginnning. By the time she xero-, um, borrowed that message, it looked like "me-too-ism."

[theboss]

18. 1. Failing to organize for caucus states

2. Alienating African American voters early on.

If she had split the caucus states with Obama and managed just 25 percent of the AA vote, she would have been the nominee weeks ago.

[dchill]

19. "She would have probably one" what?

Testicle?
:shrug:

[Henryman]

20. Pointing in the crowd, dropping her jaw and bugging her eyes.

[newmajority]

22. Hiring Karl Rove's twin brother Mark Penn

Running a Repuke campaign pissed a lot of people off who might have otherwise considered voting for her.

[Silent Tristero]

55. Exactly

Anyone remember the story of the tar baby? The Clintons have spent so much time fighting the Republican slime machine that they can't seem to separate themselves from it. I love their toughness but despise their tactics.

[gravity]

24. Losing Iowa

It stopped the perception that she was the inevitable candidate, and the media paid more attention to the Obama story, turning him into a serious contender.

[SteppingRazor]

26. I'd say that's actually what ended the Edwards campaign. n/t

[gravity]

36. True

The media was all over Obama and Hillary afterwards, that they forgot about Edwards

[SteppingRazor]

40. He had kinda put all his eggs in the Iowa basket. But to be fair, I think that was his only option.

Edwards needed an early win to establish momentum and rise above the novelty of the candidacy of the other two. He needed Iowa in order to win in the upcoming states. The minute he came in second place there, he was done.

[ecstatic]

73. That's true too. nt

[nomorewhopper]

25. She ran a General Election strategy suited for a 1996 campaign + (lack of) charisma

* never understood the internet
* ran a general election (not a 50 state) primary campaign
* assumed she was the presumptive nominee from the get-go
* unwise use of funds, especially at the beginning (unwise ad buys, lavish hotels, etc)
* relying on party connections while ignoring the grass roots, especially at the beginning


aside from her early, horrendously run campaign, things have gotten much better for her. but it's like watching a football team try to catch up when they are 3 touchdowns behind. the normal gameplan is thrown out the window for something much more risky.

frankly, whether your name is hillary clinton, al gore, or john kerry, the democratic party has been looking for somebody with the charisma to inspire the people in a general election. obama has it. hillary doesn't.

[ShortnFiery]

27. Both her self-righteous nature and massive ego.

:thumbsdown:

[libodem]

31. Trying to project her voice

during speeches. She should have just obtained a powerful microphone and spoken in a normal voice tone. Something about her yelling has really bothered me. Yes, I know it's shallow. Her voice is not comforting, it's grating and irritating. It's unpleasant. It translates to: she is unpleasant and a bully. It maybe a sexist thing like in debate, women can not come off as sarcastic, they will loose points for being catty. It's not the same for men. They can be angry and caustic and look smart. Not fair but that is how humans interpret the data.

[DB1]

39. Occassionally yelling is OK, but last nights speech was a good example,

She started out yelling and then dropped to a softer gentler soothing tone, that was easy to listen to. As a supporter the yelling tone was probably just fine, but to someone trying to listen for reasons to give her a chance, I found it irritating.

[Stephanie]

32. Mark Penn

[nichomachus]

34. There were so many

1. She assumed it was going to be a cakewalk. She knew Gravel was a nut, that Dennis had no real base, and that the corporatocracy would marginalize Edwards. This led her to #2.

2. She completely misread Obama and assumed he would get a few votes, get some name recognition, and then go to the back of the line to wait his turn.

3. She was running in the last election -- the same as generals fail by fighting the last war. The mood of the country had changed and she didn't account for that. Nor did she know how to counter it.

4. As many people have said, she had no plan after Super Tuesday. Instead of pushing a positive message forward, she began to go negative, to mock Obama and his supporters. For me, the tide turned the day she pulled the "The skies will open and heavenly choirs will sing..." crap. That was a slap in the face to millions of people who were getting energized. Instead of trying to get those people over to her side, she belittled them and mocked them in public. Big mistake. That was the day I started leaning more to Obama. I knew then that she had nothing left.

5. She tried to appropriate the "change" meme, but turned it on its head by surrounding herself with the very people that voters wanted a change from, Penn, Carville, etc. They've been around for decades, like cockroaches in the woodwork. Signing them on didn't help.

[YDogg]

35. hiring mark penn

[rinsd]

37. She waited too long to get deeply involved in Iowa.

She ended up blowing alot of money on last minute ads and that hurt her financially going into SuperTuesday where she was not able to contest some of the smaller states.

[JVS]

41. It's almost impossible to say because her strengths and weaknesses blur

She ran as an incumbent connected to Bill's legacy, which attracted some with the appeal of continuity but repelled others with the aspect of nepotism.

Her husband said some dumb shit that got her into trouble with the base, but if it weren't for him she'd never be there.

She ran on experience, which opened the question of whose experience.

She benefitted from name recognition, but on the other hand she came in with high negatives in the first place.

As a woman, her front-runnership was historic, on the other hand being a woman might have worked against her.

I would say her biggest mistake was not to properly consider the dual nature of these advantages and work hard for the nomination. She cruised as a front-runner and should have seen the stormy seas ahead.

[cliffordu]

42. Bill.

[Growler]

43. IWR

Withouth that, Obama would likely have not entered the race. Everything else she's done wrong is just window-dressing at that point.

[DrFunkenstein]

57. I Second That Emotion

The rest is just academic. If Clinton had even offered a sense of contrition, it would have made a huge difference. But she did not, and therefore she could not.

[wildeyed]

80. Good point.

If she had offered an apology, that would have made a difference to me. I didn't want another 8 years of someone incapable of saying sorry, I made a mistake.

[elizm]

59. Absolutely. nt

[patrice]

60. She never really demonstrated her respect for our understanding of the whole IWR

situation. Had her talking points about it and NEVER engaged in a discourse on the subject of this CALCULATION and its constituency: Bill's Friends and PNAC.

Obama, on the other hand, though he wasn't there for the IWR and could legitimately avoid talking about it much, at LEAST showed us, through his strength and commitment on the issue, that his non-support for the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq was a CALCULATION made in bid for a different constituency, Us.

[SoCalDem]

44. when she conspired with Granholm, Levin & the Florida gang

to move up their primaries..

The PLAN was to get a bunch of EARLY VOTERS in CA (which she did... she would get the rest on super tuesday)

She expected to come in 2nd to Edwards in Iowa (no biggie, because she thought she'd win MI & FL and NH)

She started with 1/4 of the supers (why so low Hil?? should'a been a hint)

after racking up mega-delegates from FL, MI, CA, MORE supers would have flocked to her, and she could have easily had a HUGE lead...while there were still 6 or 7 others splitting the rest of the votes.. By the time it had winnowed to 2, she expected it to be her and Edwards..

she never thought she would NEED any states past Feb5, because she had more money than Edwards, and would be able to outraise him..

She planned for the wrong opponent, with the wrong plan

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

54. When from the beginning she tried to be the hawkiest hawk around

and hired Hugh Bris as her campaign manager, assuming it was hers for the asking.*

Also ran a general election trying once again to use the old Clinton favorite ploy of triangulation and ignoring the base from the getgo- leaving a gap as big as a Mack truck that both Edwards and Obama drove through in New Hampshire. (Obama got credit, Edwards was ignored).


(*not my original joke, but always enjoy using when appropriate)

[LucyParsons]

45. It's the war, stupid.

nt

[TragedyandHope]

46. The assumption of winning on Super Tuesday, then going negative and alienating voters

She wasn't prepared for a long-haul race and she scraped together a last-minute strategy with Mark Penn.

If she hadn't made one or both of those errors, she would have had a much better shot to win. I think it might have been possible for her to go negative in a way that didn't alienate so many voters. Civil, but negative. Agreeing to disagree, but not using distractions as a crutch.

Of course, you could also go back to her first vote on Iraq. If she had made a different choice back then, Obama would have had a difficult time getting his foot in the door.

[BattyDem]

48. Presuming she was inevitable.

Because of that she didn't take Obama seriously and she only planned on running a campaign until February 5th.

She never saw the primary process as a real battle. To her, it was a minor inconvenience she had to deal with before she was the "official" nominee. By the time she realized she was wrong, it was too late.

[Lucky 13]

49. Acting Republican.

Both tactics and hawkishness. Ugly combination.

[PoliticalAmazon]

50. WRONG. Hillary killed her own campaign by using Rove tactics....

Don't listen to Rove. He does not have a clue about how Democrats think and what is important to them.

Across the board (voters, SDs, politicians), Hillary's use of Rove/Bush tactics made them turn away from her.

[graycem]

51. Having no Plan B...

She shouldn't have taken anything for granted, and planned past Super Tuesday. They burnt up so much money unneccesarily and the hiring of Mark Penn was not a good idea. He took her money and didn't deliver anything. I think she's been at a technological disadvantage from the beginning. Everything is connected to the internet now, primarily videos on YouTube highlighting mistakes and "misspeaks" and have really hindered them. They just didn't realize how powerful it is as part of a campaign now, and I think they underestimated how many people were going to be paying attention this time because Bush has been soooo bad.

[bunnies]

52. believing she was inevitable, shitting on Obama supporters...

and genuinely thinking its "her turn".

Hey Hil... Its not a fucking deli. You didnt take a number. Youre not entitled to ANYTHING.

[karynnj]

53. Overconfidence - putting all her eggs in one basket - labelled SuperTuesday

She clearly hoped to pull over mega victories that would have given her most of the big primary state delegates. Had those states voted as they polled in mid January - she would have had it in the bag. Obama closed in all of them to a point where she got more delegates, but he got some everywhere and in many cases her edge was not that big. Because she ignored the caucuses where Obama made a huge effort, HRC didn't exceed Obama in accumulated pledged delegates at the end of SuperTuesday. Without those big shifts in the polls in Obama's favor - HRC would have won.

The problem she then had was that she had NO PLAN B. Obama's best case had been that he survived SuperTuesday - so he put resources into the rest of teh February states. I am amazed that Clinton didn't - that was like not walking a tight wire without a net.

[Cha]

56. Fuck rush the ass boil limpbaughs

and fuck dittoheads.

[sandnsea]

58. IWR, Kyl-Lieberman, war war war, lie lie lie

It's her political philosophy that is her mistake.

[dbmk]

61. Hiring an obviously shitty staff.

But ultimately I think it boils down to being the person she is. In order to have foreseen the path needed she would have had to be a different person and by extension a different candidate.

I don't think going negative earlier would have helped. Unless you mean before Obama had established himself as a contender. Because it haven't helped her as it is.

When you haven't moved your numbers since the beginning, I think the problem is with the person and not the tactics. She maxed out her credit before passing the start line. Nobody has really talked about it, but maybe there simply isn't more for her out there to scrape up?

I have a sneaking suspicion that Edwards could have done the same as Obama, given the same organisation.

[ramapo]

62. Acting like a bitch

Attacking Obama while sporting that annoying grin. Leaving an issue-oriented campaign for a personal-attack based one. She lost me a couple of months ago. It could've been much different had she not gone over to the dark side.

[davsand]

68. She went in the race with high name recognition and high negatives.

That was not an easy place to be. She might have overcome the negatives by projecting competence and thoughtfulness, however she came across as arrogant and entitled. That just reinforced the negatives she already had--rather than minimize or dispel them.

The meme on her going into the race was that she was a "bitch" and it was left over from a time when she and her husband were under a perpetual attack. She needed a campaign that could capitalize on her name recognition but not reinforce her negatives--and she chose Penn to run it. THAT may have been her fatal mistake.

Had she worked with somebody that was more image aware (like Donna Brazil) she might have done better (not that I really think too much of Brazil either-but she does have a good feel for the public attitudes about self presentation.)

Frankly she just ran the wrong campaign.


Laura

[JBoy]

63. Deciding that she needed to be someone she is not.

Examples

- Voted for the IWR in order to look "tough"
- Pretending she was intimately involved in Bill's foreign policy
- Pretending she is "working class" (beer/whisky/guns/Obama is the elitist)

Instead, she should have been herself.

[intaglio]

64. Strategically? believing her own publicity

the publicity about "inevitability" this led to the tactical mistake of not planning beyond Supertuesday and, further, thinking that Obama would fade away in those long weeks when he gathered states she did not contest.

I'm not sorry because it allowed her to be revealed as the hopeless candidate she was. She became a figure of fun for things like the 3am advert, she showed a deep lack of understanding of a 50 state strategy, an inability to research (admitting not knowing the curious complexities of the Texas primary) and above all an inability to manage either her campaign finances or her campaign staff.

/edit spelling

[Levgreee]

65. Disrespecting the black vote... largely Bill's fault, but I assume they discussed strategy

[Exilednight]

66. From the beginning......

Staff: She hired Mark Penn, who happens to work for the same firm that is working with McCain.

Message: Americans want change, Obama took the message and ran with it, he never looked back. This plays into her next mistake.

Hype: She bought into her own hype. She believed her coronation is inevitable.

Didn't take Obama serious: She didn't believe Obama had a chance. She thought he was running for the backseat of the ticket. Apparently she wasn't listening when Michelle said now or never.

Short sighted planning: She took the DLC primary strategy. Jump on an early lead and put your opponent away early. One slight problem, Obama took the pledged delegate lead in Iowa and never relinquished it. He took Dean's 50 state strategy and planned for the long haul. Hillary worried about winning vanity contests like Florida, and not primaries that counted e.g. South Carolina.

Lack of organization: The DLC strategy doesn't call for a grassroots, netroots movement. It relies on donations from bundling of big wigs. Hillary tapped out her major donors early and spent little to no time running her ground game. Obama had her beat by a two to three week lead time in every caucus state except Nevada, but that was only because of timing of the NV caucus. Obama was forward thinking when it came to the internet. Carville put it best - 1.5 million donors is not support, it's a political party. The grassroots also showed in the caucuses. Obama found a way to marry the grassroots and netroots movements.

Her management of her campaign was the biggest flaw. She touted herself on running a disciplined campaign, yet it kept unraveling at every turn and every Obama win. This was the classic "how not to run a campaign". The only reason she lasted as long as she did is because was because of her last name.

[Orsino]

67. Selling the same ol' same ol'.

Failing to offer anything progressive. She or Obama could have walked away with the nomination by breaking away from the pack, and giving America the liberalism it doesn't even know it's hungry for.

Instead, it's Dueling Corporatists.

[Guaranteed]

70. Voting for the IWR and not speaking out strongly against the war years ago.

That is what doomed her.

[Yukari Yakumo]

71. There are a few...

#1 Iowa and woefully underestimating Obama.

#2 Race baiting and getting her ass kicked in SC.

#3 "Only big states count" and the sheer arrogance of her campaign.

#4 No plans post-Super Tuesday.

[ecstatic]

72. Last year, she should have fought tooth and nail to make sure FL & MI

were included in the primary results prior to the first caucus in Iowa. I would have never accepted the DNC's ruling LAST YEAR. Once the first primaries began, it was too late to seem concerned.

[galaxy21]

77. I think Obama would have won Michigan, actually

[last1standing]

79. She shouldn't have done a deal with MI and FL to take those votes.

Especially in Michigan which moved our primary up strictly to aid Clinton. It was back room dealing at its worst and I think most people saw that. I think our local pols are going to pay big for this fiasco and rightly so. I'm having trouble justifying keeping them around, myself.

[Clear Blue Sky]

75. Already mentioned, but hubris.

She assumed the nomination would be hers. And she didn't fight for it like Obama did.

[Stagecoach]

76. While concentrating on Ohio & Texas after Super Tuesday....

she allowed Obama to win 11 straight primaries & caucuses in mid-February. Obama had a net gain of around 125 delegates from those 11 contests. What does Clinton trail by now? 150? That net gain of 125 is looking quite important right now.

[last1standing]

78. You're completely wrong on that.

I don't mean to be snide but the negative campaigning is what finally did her in. Sure she brought down Obama's approval ratings but it raised her negatives at the same time. Her problem wasn't the lack of going negative, it was the lack of something positive to say while having her underlings go negative. Hillary was painted early on in this race as the shrew. I don't mean to be sexist but I think it's important to state things clearly. People were turned off by her constant hits on Obama and that kept her from expanding her base.

To be very honest the Limbaugh effect wasn't that big of a factor in the latest few primaries but repubs crossing over to keep the race going was. Just like Democrats voted for Romney here in Michigan, repubs voted for Hillary in PA and IN - not because she was better or worse, but because she was losing.

I think the lesson learned in this campaign is that the old is new. Don't be seen to be attacking but make sure you're on the attack. My candidate, Edwards, didn't attack and lost quick. Hillary was seen attacking and fell behind. Obama played the game just right and won.

[Pisces]

81. going racist, underestimating Obama, believing her own hype, no plan after Feb. 5th.

[Occam Bandage]

82. 1. Going negative at all. She'd have had this in the bag if she had

drawn positive distinctions between herself and Obama starting in December. Her negativity scores were too high to pull off a negative campaign.

2. Not putting in a ground campaign in post-Super-Tuesday states.

3. Ignoring caucuses.

[Cha]

83. Inevitability? mark penn?

[abburdlen]

85. voting for the AUFM

That vote neutralized any claim for 'experience'

She has a good record on many fronts but no game plan could hide that blunder.