The Clinton Campaign: What Went Wrong?

[Prophet 451]

After Hillary's excellent concession speech, perhaps we can now have a reasonable discussion about what went wrong with her campaign. Hillary entered the race with considerable advantages (not least, a large war chest, a decent Senatorial record and married to a popular ex-president (although that last was something of a double-edged sword, as I'll come back to)), so what went wrong?

1) Sexism

I mention this first not because I think it was the main reason teh Clinton campaign failed but because it seems the obvious place to start. Yes, there was sexism at work in this campaign. While never as all-pervasive as some seemed to believe, it did play a part. Some parts of the United States were always going to have a problem accepting a woman as a serious candidate, some people were going to actively insult her for it (special glare at Chris Matthews) and a few people even made money off it (i.e. that disgusting "bros before hoes" shirt and the nutcrackers (although here in England, there's a long tradition of satire like that. One of the things I remember from my childhood was a pair of nutcrackers my grandparents owned which depicted Sir Winston Churchill as a bulldog)). That leads nicely into...

2) The Media

To my mind, some form of singling out for condemnation should also go to those pundits months ago who actually spent precious airtime discussing the amount of cleavage Hillary was showing. When the news effectively runs a crawl saying "SHOCK! HORROR! Hillary has tits!", you know you've reached a new low. Discussion of the fact that a female politician has girl-parts aside, there was also a more insidious form of sexism operating which used the existing stereotypes of women and applied them to Hillary Clinton, such as the endless repetition of those moments where she became emotional (which probably had as much to do with being knackered by that point), playing into the image of the hysterical woman. While it never quite got to the point of portraying her as Glenn Close in Fatal Attractions, it's fair to say that the media played a big role in the Clinton campaign. Initially, that role was largely a positive but while the mass media portrayed Clinton as the inevitible candidate for years even before the campaign started, they never liked her for it. The coverage almost always had the air of vague disapproval. Bill was savvy at minimising that, Hillary less so. And that leads me to...

3) Bill

Contrary to what the right would have you believe, the mass media never liked the Clintons all that much. Really, go back and check the daily news from his first term and you'll find that the media really didn't like either Clinton very much (although they never hated them as much as they did Al Gore). Clearly, Hillary has benefitted from her marriage to Bill, both personally (at least, one would hope so) and professionally but it has also meant that the right's overwhelming, visceral loathing of Bill has transferred over onto Hillary (and, to an extent, Chelsea) as well. Bill's sometimes bizarre statements on the campaign trail sometimes backfired as well although it would have looked very odd if he hadn't been out there stumping for his wife. The simple fact is that Hillary's run for the presidency was always going to be compared to that of her husband and while she may be his equal in brains, Hillary does not have Bill's overwhelming charisma and likeability. Campaigns in the modern age are far more about personalities than policies (and trust me, I am NOT championing that fact) and, while not dislikeable, Hillary doesn't have the almost supernatural likeability which her husband and Senator Obama have. In addition, Bill was never as universally beloved by teh left as some may have believed. He wasn't a great liberal president, he was a moderate centreist and good at being one so while the left remembers the triumphs of the Clinton presidency, that memory is also tainted by things like NAFTA, DADT and DOMA. In short, Bill was too liberal for the right while not being liberal enough for many on the left.

4) Bad Advisers

If any one factor can be singled out as most responsible for Hillary's loss, I think it was this one. From very early in the campaign, Hillary's advisers gave her bad advice and you can see that through the decisions made by the campaign. there was the initial underestimating of Senator Obama which was a mistake but not a fatal one but far more importantly, there was also a long struggle to adapt when he proved to have traction. There was no plan in place for campaigning after Super Tuesday which left the campaign with logistical, strategic and financial problems. There was the decision to embrace victimhood late in the campaign which virtually everyone could tell was going to backfire. There was the rampant co-opting of the Michigan and Florida primaries which, regardless of the merits of the arguement, looked like trying to change the rules to favour the Clinton campaign in mid-game. Some form of special hell should await Mark Penn who seemed to take sheer delight in pissing people off. Terry McAuliffe (s.p.?) came across as a foul-mouthed buffoon, not least when he introduced Senator Clinton, on the evening Obama had clinched the nomination as "the next president". I have no idea if Mr. McAuliffe is a stupid man but that certainly sounded stupid (or possibly deranged).

5) Hillary

Now, some of HRC's supporters will insist that she never put a foot wrong throughout this race but to the rest of us, some of the things Hillary said were just plain weird. The seeming view that McCain would make a better president than Senator Obama; the allusion to RFK's assassination; the repeated twisting of teh Florida and Michigan situations, all of these came across as just plain weird. Senator Clinton is an intelligent woman and capable of giving one hell of a speech as she proved in her concession speech, so why her public statements during the race so often came across as alternately meek, indecisive or vergeful is something of a mystery. Likewise, the approach to the sexism issue. It would have been in Senator Clinton's favour if she had gotten out in front of the sexism and fought it from day one, instead, she raised the issue comparatively late in the campaign and seemed to be using it not as an opportunity to grow and learn but as a weapon. The attempt to reposition herself as blue-collar friend to the working man one-of-you looked, frankly, insane given that firstly, the people who actually cared about stuff like that were likely to be voting Repub anyway and secondly, she patently wasn't one of them. Her attitude in the early days of the primaries seemed to suggest she came expecting a coronation instead of a competition. People being people, they wanted to throw a spanner in the works. It's fair to say that, without taking anything away from Senator Obama, his victory was as much a result of the missteps of the Clinton campaign as it was about his own campaign.


I've tried to be fair here. I've never hated Senator Clinton and, for much of her political life, had the utmost respect for her, respect she won back with her superb concession speech. Nor am I going to hold her accountable for what her supporters said (with the exception of the Ferraro incident and Hillary's only crime there was not dealing with it quickly enough). This primary is going to go down in history, that much is certain and when the history is written, I'm sure there will be other factors noticed that I've missed but I've tried here to make a start on offering a dispassionate (well, as dispassionate as possible anyway) view of what went wrong.

[napi21]

1. I think most of her problem was MARK PENN! If I were her, I'd tell

him where to put his bills for what she still owes him! The jerk has been in politics for YEARS, but he was too damn stupid to know that the Calif. primary wasn't winner take all????? Even I knew that it wasn't!

[Prophet 451]

3. Good point

Penn was an albatross, it must be said. He's a little like Karl Rove in that I'm baffled where his reputation as a political genius comes from.

[PoliticalAmazon]

77. It comes back to Hillary, though. She chose her campaign staff...

based primarily on their loyalty, not their skills. Remind you of anyone else? Bush Jr, for instance?

It is Hillary who kept Penn on when, to outsiders, he had proven himself a liability. His strategy for the campaign was dead-ass wrong, he didn't know that the Dems are awarded primary delegates proportionally, and his repeated "gaffes," all served to undermine her campaign. Yet she kept him on and continues to pay him a substanial amount of money for his service.

[cloudbase]

2. Obama had:

1. a better strategy
2. better advice
3. he worked harder
4. less "baggage"

Obama hasn't been around D.C. long enough to pick up too many bad habits.

[Zhade]

18. He was also honest. Something she lacked.

NT!

[MichiganVote]

4. Too much analysis.

[Prophet 451]

5. LOL, no such thing n/t

[MichiganVote]

9. Not on this board anyway.

[Cha]

10. No, it's not "too much analysis"..it's

a mere drop in the bucket of what's to come.

Thank you, Prophet, for kicking it off.

I saw a thread earlier and only read the caption that said "hilary was going to hire David Axelrod in 2000 but bill wanted mark penn". And, the rest, as they say, is history.

[sampsonblk]

40. IWR, extreme arrogance, mudslinging, Obama

My two cents.

[rhett o rick]

6. The grass roots Democrats were tired of status quo. Obama represents a change from the

old politics of the republicans and the Clintons/DLC. Grass roots supporters came out of hiding, sick of the war that Clinton supported, sick of the Patriot Act that Clinton supported, sick of the WTO and NAFTA and Columbia "free trade" that Clinton supported, must I go on. Sen Clinton represented the politics of the rich, corporatist lobbyists. I hope the next women that runs for president does so from the grass roots level and not the rich lobbyist level.

Give the grass roots Democrats credit.

[Cha]

11. Yeah, I'm thinking we are

a Force to be Reckoned With. :patriot: :bounce: :kick: :party:

[Peace Patriot]

35. I agree with you--especially from the sexim angle. Would we support Margaret Thatcher

just because she's a woman? There are a lot of similarities, as to pro-corporate, pro-war policy. So what, if she's a woman? She's WRONG! Hillary Clinton's loss of the nomination may actually be proof that sexism wasn't much of a factor. I know women who passionately wanted to vote for a woman for president, and intended to vote for Hillary, but who, the more they looked at Hillary and compared the candidates on policy, on the war, etc., changed to Obama. Perhaps many men did the same. Her being a woman had nothing to do with it. In other words, women are judged AS EQUALS and have to stand the test of policy and other vetting by the voters just like men. There's no giving them a break just because they're women. And that is a sign that our society is maturing on this issue.

I think the same could be said about Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Kenneth Blackwell. I would adamantly oppose all three, for public office, though I am passionately committed to racial equality, with a history as a civil rights worker in the South in the 1960s. Their race would mean nothing. The first two are war criminals. The third is an election fraud felon. All are Bush toadies--a word I would use to describe any number of Bushites who are white. Their failures as leaders and human beings may make me particularly sad, since I put my life on the line to secure their right to vote and to rise to prominence and wealth. But that wouldn't sway me as to how I judge them, pro or con.

That's how I feel about Hillary--how sad that the first major female candidate for president was pro-war, and an advocate for the corporate rulers! Looking at her policies, votes, donors and associations objectively, she is not good for anyone including women. I wouldn't even want her on the Supreme Court, she's so pro-corporate.

Tom Hayden had an interesting column (posted today at DU) which made me nostalgic for who Hillary used to be, and who she could have become, and pointed out that male advisers kept prodding her to "out-hawk" the men--that is, she had to act like a man (or man the aggressor) to be taken seriously as "commander-in-chief." And this started early on, with her vote for the Iraq War (when she was already running for president). And, yup, that is sad, too, if true. She felt she couldn't afford to trust her own instincts? Give me a woman who hates war, and isn't afraid to say it, instead! Hayden thinks she lost the nomination with that war vote--and I think he is exactly right. That's what it came down to, for a lot voters--including a lot of women. The war. Given the choice, we voted for the man who opposed the war, against the woman who supported it.

My judgement of Obama is equally objective. He's no great shakes as a reformer, and he speaks the "imperial speak" with the best of them. But I can be thrilled at some things--he'll "talk to 'our enemies'" before bombing them (really--it's an advance, we've sunk so low), he's more careful with the word "enemies," too (I'm glad of that), and with talk of obliterating them. He's identified one of the chief evils in that cauldron of corruption we call our nation's capital--corporate lobbyists. He's not steeped in that cauldron, so maybe he'll clean some of it up. He's vague on a lot of things, but seems to be a good listener--and given the utter DEAFNESS of our leaders (including Clinton) to the people of this country, on the war, and much else, that is wonderful quality in Obama. And it has nothing to do with his race. It's just who he is. I can be very happy that a person of mixed race won the Democratic Party nomination--it is surely a great advance for our society--but it is irrelevant on matters of policy and leadership. If where you lead us is to war (Powell, Rice) or to election fraud (Blackwell), you're a rotten leader, whatever your color (or sex).

I am also overjoyed at the citizen activists who gave Obama the nomination. Yeah, he and his team are smart. But this was the Peoples' moment, more than anything else--the Peoples' moment of rising up and demanding an end to this horrible war, and rejecting the dictates of the Terry McAuliffe's, and the slimy manipulations of the Mark Penn's, and demanding change. This is THE essential component of reforming our country--awake, alive, motivated citizens. They will change it--even if Obama doesn't (or doesn't really want to; or can't).

It is Clinton's own fault that she tied herself to warmongers and global corporate predators, LOST what may have been her true self, and took bad advice. The campaign brought those contradictions out. She seemed to be spinning in a whirl of contradictions--for the ordinary working person (her old self?), but for a country (Colombia) where they chainsaw union leaders and throw their body parts into mass graves (corporate/war profiteer influence); for everyone having health care, but protective of health care profiteers: a young war protester (old self) now for a similarly unjust, heinous war, etc.

It was good that these contradictions became visible--in her rocky and ultimately failed campaign. That's what a good political campaign should do. And one of the biggest mistakes of her campaign was its presumption that people would vote for her just because she's a woman--that we would swallow unjust war and corporatism just because she's a woman. That's McAuliffe and Penn for you--deeply cynical men.

[Prophet 451]

36. Passionatly agree about lobbyists

A while back on another board, I did a series of articles called BDFL (a kind of "if I ruled the world" flight of fancy) and one of the very first things I did was completely ban for-profit lobbying. That way, you still get concerned citizens but eliminate the profit making lobbyists which have so corrupted democracy.

[rhett o rick]

48. Agree. If we don't get the corporate influence out of politics, all else will be wasted. nm

[ShortnFiery]

91. I despised Maggie Thatcher's politics but loved her person. If she saw a nutcracker in her image ..

she'd laugh about it with her "inner circle." Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if Thatcher would have given one of these "nutcrackers" to all her political buddies at Christmas.

To get all "upset" over SILLY displays of sexism such as that nutcracker and a couple of OAFS sent by a radio station, is not only "overblown self-righteousness" but it's seen as A WEAKNESS.

When HRC saw those t-shirts she should have made "a joke" about their garish behavior ... "NO! Have your mothers iron those shirts since you still live in her basement."

LEADERS, men and women, are respected most when they TURN a NEGATIVE into a positive thus approaching the slight from a position of STRENGTH.

I was deeply disappointed by how often HRC and her surrogates *used GENDER* to play it either positive or spin it as "picking on a victim." The foregoing behaviors does NOT inspire confidence nor respect for a leader.

You respect a leader who is able to take care of those MINOR situations "on the spot" and thus dissipate any perceived resentments.

Words can not convey how saddened I am at how our first viable woman candidate BLEW IT by not being genuine with her responses ... NOT being more OPEN to reflecting her true personality and perspectives.

I know that many people close to HRC says that she's warm and caring ... I honestly did NOT EVER note a hint of that "humanity" or any insight into HRC's personality at any time throughout the campaign. That's just tragic. :(

[marions ghost]

72. Sen Clinton represented the rich corporate lobbyists.

Yes, that's what a lot of her wealthy supporters do NOT want to face, re. reasons for losing the nomination.

[PoliticalAmazon]

78. IMO, that was the #1 mistake Hillary made: totally missing the wants and needs of the voters...

She has become so ensconced in D.C. that she has lost touch with the roots of the Democratic Party. When the voters clearly were indicating they wanted change, were fed up with the status-quo politicians because voters saw the process in D.C. as broken in need of being fixed, and obviously an insider who had a lot invested in maitaining the status quo would not be able to bring in real change.

It wasn't until after Super Tuesday that what was obvious to others gained the notice by Hillary and her campaign staff. It was then that she flipped and became a born-again populist. However, the fact that she was basically slapping some populist stickers on her lobbyist/status-quo driven reality was pretty obvious to most voters.

To me, the fact that she has gotten herself so immersed in status-quo D.C. politics that she lost touch with the common people, leading to her totally misreading what the voters wanted, is the underlying cause of most of her other problems. In fact, I would guess she's far more aware of the needs of the Republican Party and her lobbyists than she is the needs of the American voter. It's just her orineation.

[Patsy Stone]

7. #4

The worst advisers ever. When Hillary was being herself, and speaking from her heart, she was the most successful in reaching the rest of us, but they all took great care to not let that happen more often than it did.

I don't know for sure, but I'll bet Hillary wrote most, if not all, of her speech today. It had a tone the rest of the campaign lacked, and that's probably because the people around her had nothing to do with it. They were all, sadly, stuck in the 90s. It worried me more to think that they would have a say in her presidency more than the prospect of Hillary's presidency ever did.

Also, you're spot on about the Clinton's relationship with the media. It was always love/hate on their side and hate/hate on the media's side. No one could blame them after the way Monicagate was played over and over ad nauseum but, to be fair, they played the media from the beginning and, to use the current lexicon, their chickens had come home to roost. Getting David Shuster suspended didn't help the situation either.

Nice post. K&R

Cheers! :toast:

[Zhade]

19. So who advised her to lie repeatedly about things that were easily proven to be untrue?

NT!

[Raineyb]

87. Probably Bill

Maybe he forgot to tell her she has a better chance of getting away with it if she waggled her finger while doing it.

Regards

[Prophet 451]

21. I suspect you're right

What I'm hearing is that Hillary's superb speech today was written almost entirely by herself. Of course, I also suspect she had her first decent night's sleep in a long time last night. The candidates have been putting themselves through unearthly stress for over a year now and, speaking from personal experiance, sleep deprivation plays absolute havoc with virtually everything about you.

[abburdlen]

8. many times it seemed

The Clinton team took the nomination as a given and was campaigning for the general election from the start.

But I'd put 80% of the blame on Mark Penn.

[Thothmes]

44. I disagree

One Hundred percent of the responsibility for the failure of the Campaign lies at Senator Clinton's feet and no one elses. She selected her campaign
staff, she selected her advisors. She listened to them, she followed their advice. The failure of the Senator's campaign is her responsiblity. It is not the fault of this staffer, that advisor, the great right wing conspiriacey, or who else. Yesterday was the anniversary of D-Day. 16,000 personnel were responsiblile for the planning of the Normandy invasion. All of them worked for Ike. He accepted the responsibility of success or failure. He was the man in charge. Success or failure at Normady rested on his shoulders alone. That is what it means to be the boss. When you are the boss, failure is your responsibility. In the case of this campaign, Senator Clinton made errors in staff selection, strategy, and execution. In the end she failed in the endevor. It was her campaign to win or loose, no one elses. JMO

[ticapnews]

12. I just hope this is the last we've seen of Terry McAuliffe

Of course, I said that after he left the DNC, as well.

"I love the NY Mets. They had a late season swoon and they didn't make the play-offs. Convince me they won the World series." -- Jon Stewart

[Prophet 451]

13. Here's hoping n/t

[janx]

14. I stayed away from the media coverage of the primaries for

well over a year, chiefly because I knew that what the media had to say had little to do with Senator Clinton herself. The media were ridiculous, and it's true that there were instances of blatant sexism involved there. I found none on the part of the DNC or other Dems, but it was present in the media, no doubt! The gossip media also milked the situation for all it was worth. Speculation, as usual, was rampant, because that leads to ratings.

Most of the problems came from bad advisers and the media, and the problems were compounded by the attempts from the right to alter her campaign. This should have been anticipated by the likes of Penn et al., but it seems there was not only no strategy to deal with such attempts, but also no real awareness at first that the attempts might indeed exist.

That should have been one of their first concerns! Who in his or her right mind wouldn't have some kind of strategy to deal with the fire breathers who were jonesing for her to run? Why wouldn't someone in her campaign point out to the media that a significant percentage of "old feminists" were right-wingers, following Rush's commands? I know that sounds simplistic, but the situation was simplistic, pathetically so. It should have been revealed, early on, for what it was.

So again, very little of this had anything to do with Senator Clinton, except that because the media and her advisers failed so drastically, she was completely exhausted near the end. Today, she rallied. Her speech was eloquent, deliberate, and inspiring. While her campaign failed, Senator Clinton didn't, and she won't. She'll be with all of us who care for a very long time. She will always have my respect.

[roseBudd]

15. It was the wrong message, this is not a year to run on experience, especially

when technically if it's McCain vs Clinton, he arguably is much more experienced.

Using first lady in AK & DC as proof of experience is smarmy.

[ryanmuegge]

16. I love how the media went from, "she's running a great campaign" to

"she's running a disorganized and disappointing campaign" in a period of a couple of days. It's funny how the narrative arbitrarily shifted in such a short period of time. It shows you how much of a joke they are.

Just like how Obama went from charismatic, likable guy to aloof, awkward elitist in a day.

Notice how McCain's narrative hasn't changed?

[Prophet 451]

22. Agreed

The media thrive on conflict so, as well as disliking the Clintons, they had a vested interest in spinning the campaign out with random shifts in their narrative. Of course, they're not going to go after McCain because firstly, he's not all that interesting and secondly, he's a Republican and the corporate media loves Republicans.

[Raineyb]

88. I noticed

I guess they were too busy ordering his favorite doughnuts.

Regards

[Zhade]

17. Her rank dishonesty - Tuzla, NAFTA, among others.

Her arrogant sense of entitlement.

Huge factors in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[backwoodsbob]

20. today showed what is RIGHT with Hillary

IF she had kicked Penn and the rest of the triangulating asses advising her 6 months ago and talked like she did today...we may VERY WELL be talking about if Hillary will accept BO as HER VP

[Prophet 451]

23. I'd broadly agree with that

Of course, we're both assuming that nothing damning would have come out of the woodwork but all other things being equal, she probably would have won if today had been an example of her whole campaign.

[AJH032]

24. I don't think much went wrong, actually

I just think that, for Obama, things were going right, more right than Hillary could keep up with. Sure, there were some flaws in her campaign, as in any campaign, but I just think this primary was more about Obama winning than Hillary losing.

[Skittles]

25. she has been hated since the early 90's

propaganda doesn't just work on freepers

[Zhade]

26. Her own lies helped destroy her. No propaganda there.

NT!

[Skittles]

28. *YAWN*

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Zhade]

32. I know, the truth can be dry and uninteresting when you're so dedicated to denying it.

Tuzla.

NAFTA.

Northern Ireland.

Her list of lies goes on, and your willful denial of the fact that they're proven lies won't change reality.

[PoliticalAmazon]

79. The Clintons had their detractors in Arkansas, before they came to D.C.....

In retrospect, they seem extremely adept at making enthusiastic long-term enemies.

Hillary may have started out with mainly just the GOP loathing her, but she worked diligently to alienate Obama supporters, including African-Americans.

I believe her problems in Arkansas are the same problems she has now: her ham-fisted approach to getting what she wants, using the power she has to try to shove her goals down the throats of others she should be trying to build a coalition with, and her (actually, both Clintons) propensity to use people when they can, but when they are no longer of any use to the Clintons, abandoning, ignoring, and sometimes even turning on seeking revenge.

For two such supposedly politically astute people, it amazes me that they continue to do this very counterproductive technique.

They never quite learned that one needs to be gracious to everyone with whom works, and avoid misusing power to get what you want, because the same people you meet going up the ladder of success you will pass again on the way down.

[Exilednight]

27. Her biggest problem: Her hybristic behavior.

[Prophet 451]

31. UM, what does "hybristic" mean? n/t

[Exilednight]

33. Oh boy. Here you go .......

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hybristic

[Prophet 451]

34. Ah, thanks n/t

[Recursion]

86. adjectival form of "hubris"

The upsilon in Greek is alternately transliterated "y" or "u" depending on the context.

[Ice-9]

29. Really excellent analysis.

I think I agreed with almost all of what you said. There were a few things that jumped out at me that I disagreed with. For example, you seem to imply that the media's fixation on the crying episode hurt Senator Clinton, but I actually thought that she benefited from that, whereas I would not expect a male candidate to benefit from breaking down in the middle of public remarks. But there's no question that this was a careful, thought-provoking analysis.

One thing I especially agreed with: how "just plain weird," as you put it, some of the things she said were. I did not find the examples you mentioned as objectionable as some did. Even "offputting" would be too strong. I really just thought that they were peculiar, surprising things to say -- either things that didn't make sense at all or that seemed strangely out of context. My guess is that her advisors urged her to say some of those things, and she improvidently trusted in them even though she suspected that what she was told to say was wrong.

[Prophet 451]

30. Thank you n/t

[Kahuna]

37. I W R made her ABC for a lot of voters, myself included. nt

[Cha]

54. Yeah, it wasn't right she

trifled with lives.

[SOS]

68. IWR (AuMF) caused the loss.

If Clinton had voted no, she would have had the nomination on 2/5/08.
Voting yes was a huge gamble which, after five disastrous years in Iraq, proved to be a loser.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H.

[Raineyb]

90. Not to mention her refusal to apologize for voting to authorize it. nt

Regards

[Arugula Latte]

38. That arrogant tone from the start -- "She'll be the nominee so shut up and get out of the way"

REALLY pissed me off and made me much more of a hard core anti-Hillary person than I probably would have been otherwise.

[AlinPA]

39. Negative campaigning and sniper story. Note she went negative just after

shaking Obama's hand in CA when Democrats first mentioned "dream ticket". She went to RI and gave the very negative "celestial" speech and it was downhill when she went full negative.

[slinkerwink]

41. Mark Penn. No doubt.

[quaker bill]

42. Five things:

1. She voted for the war.

Of those who voted for the war, she did by far the best, handliy beating all the caucasian men who did the same, but that decision alone permanently mired her in sub-majority status.

2. Iowa

She did too little, she did it too late. She was literally 3 months behind Obama in organizing in this state. To attempt to make up ground, she spent $20 million there. She left in third place and nearly broke. Had she passed on Iowa, it is likely Edwards would have beaten Obama, this would have played big later on....

3. Failure to plan for a two candidate extended race.

Because Hillary belatedly spent $20 million in Iowa which had the one measurable effect of causing Edwards to come in second and her in third, she needed a strong recovery in NH, she got it, leaving Edwards out of the mix again. In short order Obama blows folks out in SC, and Edwards suspends. This clears the field for a two candidate race. Under proportional delegate allocation with a suddenly two candidate race, the chances of scoring a knock-out blow on Feb 5 went out of reach. If Edwards and Obama were splitting the small states on Feb 5, as I believe she planned, she could have walked off with an insurmountable delegate lead, simply by winning the big states, as she planned and allocated resources to. With only one opponent and one who attended to organizing the small caucus states, she was stuck with an upside of pulling even, as it turned out, even this was not manageable. Worse yet, advertizing in the big media markets is expensive and left her flat broke.

4. Poor framing and poor selection of advisors

The message was simply wrong, as McSame is about to learn. Hillary was presented as the sum of her resume parts, "experience" and "strength" as opposed to a caring person. I have no doubt that she cares, but this was not the presentation, at least at first. Dismissing Obama as inexperienced and his supporters as delusional persuaded no one who was not already in her camp, and simply stiffened the opposition. This was a catastrophically bad choice. Hillary's performance began to improve as she became more "populist", had she started out there, we might be talking a different result today.

5. Twentieth century campaign

Top down organization, weak web presence, big money donors, insider connections, command and control structure, internal bickering, lack of focus. (Hillary 08 = Kerry 04 in this dimension) In short, instead of arriving in town with a community based oranization ready made on-line to greet her, she had to use paid staff and bring one along with her as she went from state to state. This model, while the dominant model in play up to 2004, is no longer fast enough on the ground, and far too expensive to spread widely. With this race, it has become the way the "game used to be played".

[suston96]

43. Nothing went "wrong". It was a matter of advantages and Obama had more than Hillary....

First, Obama won primary after primary mostly in states with large African American Democratic voters. In states that he "lost" he kept adding delegates in the big urban areas with large Democratic African American population.

Second, Hillary Clinton did not attract and keep enough women where she should have had a clear advantage. Too many of them went for Obama.

And finally, Obama was more attractive to more super delegates than Hillary Clinton was. It all turned on those super-delegates.

Those two demographics, African Americans and women, turned the advantage to Obama who, by the way, did not reach the number of pledged delegates and who needed the super delegates to prevail.

Delegates Obama Clinton
Total - 2191 1914.5
Super Delegates - 823 425 275
Pledged Delegates 3434 1766.5 1639.5

The rest of the so called arguments as to why Hillary Clinton lost are so much flimsy conjecture. Fact is, as Barack Obama said himself, if he had been a young, white junior senator in the first 2 years of his first term, he would not have attracted much if any attention at all.

[jonestonesusa]

52. I agree with points 2 and 3, but point 1 needs clarification

"First, Obama won primary after primary mostly in states with large African American Democratic voters. In states that he "lost" he kept adding delegates in the big urban areas with large Democratic African American population."

Obama's primary and caucus wins included a number of states without large African American voters: states with a significant majority of white voters.

Primary States:
Montana
Oregon
Vermont
Wisconsin
Utah
Connecticut
Delaware

Caucus states:
Wyoming
Washington
Nebraska
Minnesota
Alaska
Kansas
North Dakota
Colorado
Maine

and, last but not least, Iowa.

For context, here are some of the states Obama won with significant black populations, though they may or may not have a majority of black voters in the Democratic electorate:

Illinois
North Carolina
Mississippi
Louisiana
Alabama
Georgia
D.C.
Missouri
Maryland
Virginia

And, last but not least, South Carolina.

The campaign results show that Obama's coalition included voters of all ethnicities in key states.

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/candidates/#1918

[EFerrari]

59. Hillary started out with the black vote. It was hers to lose

so that argument is just fiction. She also started out with a ton of money, a brand and the Democratic establishment behind her.

She was much more "advantaged" than anyone else in the field.

So, your argument that Obama won because he is black and because black voters went for him is cr@p.

[suston96]

62. I don't have to argue any points. I am stating facts. My last post on GD: P (for now).

Hillary started out with the black vote but as soon as the right black man got into the race the African Americans did precisely what they should have done - rushed to his candidacy.

I am elated that they did. The clash of two great historical events - a woman president or a minority person of color as president - is something that people in my generation could only have wished for in our dreams.

Obama himself said what he said:

Mr. Obama has pointedly acknowledged that he benefits from his race, noting last year that a new white senator from Illinois would hardly have stirred comparable interest or intrigue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/washington/24obama.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1205900977-7qz2FINroV037CY44ibn8w

There are demographics for inspection and turnouts based on race for each state which say what I claim they say.

These other arguments are intended to trash Hillary Clinton and paint her as an inept and foolish women, incapable of achieving her goals. Sorry, but she virtually tied her opponent and neither reached the required total of pledged delegates and only the questionable politics of the super delegate scheme "clinched" the nomination for Barack Obama.

I will aggressively support Barack Obama - a tough job here in Arizona. But I will work hard for him to win John McCain's home state.

I will vote for Barack Obama because he is black, and because that is what will give me the greatest personal satisfaction. I am not black.

I supported and voted for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman because that gave me great personal satisfaction. I am not a woman.

I am just an old man who has lived through a large part of the most tumultuous centuries in history and I am thrilled beyond description to have been and to continue to be a participant in these incomparable historical events.

A toute alleur......mes amis.....

[EFerrari]

66. Here are some facts. Obama didn't get the black vote until

he looked like he could win it. The argment that Clinton is some kind of feminist leader but that Obama depends about sheeplike black voters is not only an obvious double standard but it's also not true.

By your logic, he should have lost IA. IA has < 2% black voters. He won by 8 pts over Edwards, 9 pts over Clinton. He beat them BOTH.

Obama barely lost in NH. NH has < 1% black voters. The race was so close, they had to recount it.

By your logic, he should have won NV. NV has > 6% black voters and it was a caucus, to boot.

More facts here:


Race probably not "primary" explanation for recent results

By: Ross Kaminsky
5/1/2008 - 6:13am



David Sirota is right that Hillary Clinton has beaten Barack Obama in the majority of states in which more than 6% and fewer than 17% of the residents are black. However, as was beaten into my head in statistics courses, correlation does not have to imply causation, and I believe there is something else going on here beside (or may in addition to) a race question.

As David correctly implied, Obama has, so far, won all nine states which have a black population above 17%. With North Carolina as the only state left in that category, it seems likely that Obama will have swept the states with large black populations, implying that black voters are voting for the black candidate. Not a big surprise, and to be clear, I am not offering criticism of that voting pattern...just noting it.

http://www.politicswest.com/23953/race_probably_not_primary_explanation_recent_results

[Hippo_Tron]

69. Your analsys is partly true, but here's the thing

Hillary had an advantage due to the fact that her last name was Clinton and all that was involved with that. You basically have someone with the biggest name in Democratic politics versus a guy who can get 9 out of 10 black votes and so you're destined to have a close very close primary where it will all come down to strategy. And Obama ran a better strategy.

Everybody (except Mark Penn apparently) knows that in the Democratic primary system you can gain large amounts of delegates out of states that you don't win. Obama did this in the big February 5th states, spending just enough money to make sure that he got to that 40% marker to get a good share of the delegates. Meanwhile he put resources into Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and other small states which were a fraction of the cost of ad buys in the big media markets. Hillary didn't even bother to compete in the small caucus states and that's what killed her. She could have put a small amount of resources into those states and easily gotten 40% of the vote instead of 20%.

Instead of running a strategy designed to net the most delegates, she assumed that the media would crown her the winner on Super Tuesday if she won California and all of the big northeastern states.

"I'm in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run, it will be over by February 5th."

The problem was that on February 6th she woke up and Obama was ahead in pledged delegates and rolling in cash and she was broke. So you can't honestly say that her loss wasn't partly due to poor strategy.

[beac]

80. She also had a HUGE advantage in that she could lend herself

MILLIONS of dollars when her campaign was foundering. Without that vast personal fortune, she would have been out of it in February. So, in large part, her ability to stay "in it for the long run" was due to her being extremely rich.

[suston96]

76. I repeat it is the numbers - not the logic - that bear me out.......

Once African Americans realized that Barack Obama was not just another Jesse Jackson but the real thing then they came together and supported him especially in states where they were the dominant demographic in the Democratic Party.

I did not say that they were the only demographic that Obama needed to win states. They WERE the dominant demographic Obama used to accumulate delegates. That's what happened.

With Barack Obama in the race, Hillary Clinton knew where African Americans would go, and they did. She expected more support from women but she did not get enough.

[davidpdx]

45. Good analysis

I disagree a little with parts of it. Personally I don't think sexism was as much to blame as she ran with the wrong message, the wrong tone, advisers who were arrogant, lost control of her own campaign (at least until after Feb 5th when she appeared to start to turn it around in March) and went about fund raising in the wrong way. Her vote to goto war with Iraq didn't sit will with many people and she failed to address the issue leaving many to believe she was arrogant about it. In terms of the media, I don't think she was criticized any worse then other candidate. That being said, my access to the media was limited because I've been overseas and get most of my news online (we did have CNN during through the Mar 5th contests though).

Hiring Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson turned out not to be a good move. There was a story in the news that Hillary Clinton almost hired David Axelrod in 2000, which is strange given the fact he worked for the opposition. It has been suggested that Penn and Wolfson had a adversarial relationship and that then campaign director Patti Solis Doyle sat in her office and watched soap operas.

Solis Doyle and Henry were fired after the Feb 5th primaries.

Here is a complete list from The Washington Post (as of Jan 2008) of her closest advisers:

Who's Who at Team Clinton
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign may be less than 48 hours old, but she already has a full stable of senior staffers in place. Here is a look at the people who will guide Clinton's White House bid.

Patti Solis Doyle: Unquestionably a first among equals in Clinton's inner circle, Solis Doyle will manage the campaign. She has been with Clinton since her days as the first lady of Arkansas.

Mike Henry: A newcomer to the Clinton circle, Henry will be deputy campaign manager. He made a name for himself by leading Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to victory in 2005 and then overseeing Senate Democrats' national ad campaign in 2006.

Howard Wolfson: Wolfson will oversee the communications operation for Clinton, reprising the role he played in her 2000 Senate race. Wolfson has deep roots in New York Democratic Party politics, having worked for Sen. Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Nita M. Lowey.

Evelyn S. Lieberman: Lieberman, a former undersecretary of state and senior aide in President Bill Clinton's White House, will be chief operating officer of the campaign.

Jonathan Mantz: As finance director, Mantz has the Herculean task of raising the millions Clinton will need to compete in the four early voting states and beyond. Before joining Clinton, Mantz oversaw fund raising for New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D).

Neera Tanden: Tanden served as policy adviser to President Bill Clinton and went on to work as the legislative director in Hillary Clinton's Senate office. She will be the campaign's policy director.

Kim Molstre: Fresh off a stint in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Molstre will serve as director of scheduling and long-term planning. In 2004, Molstre worked on the presidential efforts of former congressman Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

Mandy Grunwald: A veteran of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, Grunwald designed the ads for Hillary Clinton's 2000 and 2006 Senate races. She will be the lead media consultant in 2008.

Mark Penn: The pollster of choice during President Bill Clinton's second term, Penn, like Grunwald, has been with Hillary Clinton since her run in 2000.

Phil Singer: Singer, the deputy communications director, is extremely close to Schumer, for whom he worked at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 2006 election. He also has experience in past presidential politics as a member of Kerry's rapid-response operation.

Leecia Eve: Eve, a Buffalo native, will be a senior policy adviser to the campaign. She worked as counsel to Clinton in her Senate office, leaving to make an abbreviated bid for lieutenant governor in New York in 2006.

Minyon Moore: Moore served a stint as political director in the Clinton White House and will be a senior adviser in the campaign. Moore, an African American, oversaw minority outreach for Kerry's 2004 campaign.

Ann Lewis: Lewis is a longtime Clinton loyalist. She was deputy campaign manager for President Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection race and handled communications during Hillary Clinton's 2006 reelection contest. She will be a senior adviser to the '08 campaign.


http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/01/clintons_inner_circle.html

[Vattel]

46. You wouldn't know what is required to be fair

if it bit you on the ass. A good start for people like you is to stick to presenting all of the relevant facts. Clinton didn't express "the seeming view that McCain would make a better President." She repeatedly and EXPLICITLY stated the opposite, and so did Bill. She repeatedly said that her differences with Obama were minor compared to the differences between her and McCain. She also said that McCain had vastly more national security experience than Obama, which is perfectly consistent with her repeated, explicit claims that Obama would be the better president. Hitler had more national security experience than Obama has. I won't even get into the fairness of your mentioning the RFK assassination B.S. Even Chris Matthews and the NYPost ultimately realized that criticizing Clinton for that was unfair.

[Prophet 451]

50. OK, when I talk about HRC's fanatical supporters...

...I'm thinking about people like you.

[Vattel]

63. Intelligent reply. (sarcasm)

[Prophet 451]

74. Hey, you started the flaming n/t

[Rene]

47. An entire 'hating the clintons' industry is now out of work. what a shame--not.

the pundits, msm, and bloggers destroyed a fine woman's attempt to be President of the United States. Watch for Hillary in 2012 when she comes back in to fix all of obama's mistakes.

[Cha]

55. But, your stupid red herrings

live on.

[beac]

82. Though I suspect Rene will be gone after Weds noon.

:)

[RoadRage]

49. The biggest problem with Clinton's campaign: O B A M A

I don't think this can be emphasized enough. Now that it's "over", everyone is digging around trying to find out exactly when & where the Clinton campaign screwed up. There are top 10, and top 20 lists on every blog about everything that Clinton did wrong.. every stupid word she said.. every decision made poorly.

What no one fails to mention is that perhaps she really didn't do much wrong - it's just that she happened to be running against the one candidate who did almost everything right. Perfect. Different. Unpredictable... and it worked.

Obama ran a campaign so different from any text-book model that no campaign could see it coming. He was such a long shot, and had no chance - so why would anyone worry about him? He was a stealthy ninja who struck at midnight when no one was awake and looking, and when people realized it (in the Clinton campaign) it was far too late.

So as much "fun" as it seems to be to point out all of the Clinton errors - that frankly wouldn't have been errors against almost any other candidate, perhaps we should just give props to Obama for running the best come-out-of-nowhere campaign in the history of US Primary Politics. And, let's see if McCain learned anything while he sat on the sidelines for the past 3 months, and if it will even matter if he did.

[Cha]

58. It was the Perfect Storm

for Obama..with the prowess of his campaign and the hubris of clinton's("being human is overrated"..mark penn).

And, all events leading up to it including the last 8 years of bush(turns out enabling him wasn't too smart) and Dean's amazing focused work at the DNC on his 50 state strategy.

And, sorry, I think she did everything wrong.

[Tresalisa]

51. A very dear friend of mine passed away shortly after 9/11/01.

I was at her daughter's house the evening of Bush's SOTU (or whatever it was, where he was speaking to the joint session of Congress) for dinner, and it was on the TV. I wasn't watching, but apparently Senator Clinton was shown on the TV screen several times. At one of those times one of the men watching said out loud "Look at the look on the face of Senator Clinton. I think she's seeing her presidential hopes go out the window". I thought then, as now, that it was quite a bizarre comment to have made, but throughout this long campaign I have wondered. Did she have presidential aspirations then (probably) and was she thinking that she would have to vote for war in order to be elected?

(edited to fix a stoopid mistake)

[beac]

85. She definitely had presidential aspirations then.

The ONLY reason she became a senator was as a springboard to the White House.

[MethuenProgressive]

53. Obama's successful Swiftboating of the Clintons on race.

For which, when called on it, he admitted and apologized for:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MethuenProgressive/551
What can be worse for a candidate than being falsely labeled as a racist?

[jonestonesusa]

56. Wait, Methuen Progressive, don't forget to link to the memo...

The evidence often used to attribute Obama's win to "racial swiftboating," so to speak.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/read-obama-campaign-memo-_n_81220.html

My take on this? Read the evidence, folks - the famous memo from the Obama campaign. Then, decide for yourself who initiated the "racial swiftboating."

[MethuenProgressive]

57. Russert: 'do you regret pushing this story?' BO: 'not only in hindsight, but going forward.'

Obama apologized for pushing the story, and rejected his camp's tactic:
"RUSSERT: Do you believe this is a deliberate attempt to marginalize you as the black candidate?

OBAMA: No."

[jonestonesusa]

60. Fair enough...

I'm not surprised that Obama said that, though - it's politically more savvy than to say "The Clinton campaign is deliberately marginalizing me as a black candidate." Trancending race was a campaign theme, but Obama also showed restraint in not making accusations at that point, in the moments before South Carolina and the Wright affair.

[Vattel]

64. so he lied?

I doubt that he lied. He's not as dumb as many of his supporters.

[jonestonesusa]

67. What Obama said isn't lying, IMO - it's conciliatory.

That's a good quality for coalition building, to try your best to avoid creating headlines through divisive statements and gaffes. If Hillary Clinton and her campaign surrogates had done that more effectively, she would have retained more of her support among African Americans. It's complex to make the argument about race-baiting by the Clinton campaign, and to try to do that as a sound bite on the Tim Russert show would not be politically advisable.

"Dumb" is as "dumb" does - call it as you see it, I guess.

[beac]

84. Being falsely labeled a "sexist"??

:crazy:

[ShortnFiery]

93. Here's my take of the Clintons' "Spade Work" type-campaigning dating back to 1989.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRwZQLdhEw

[Cha]

61. Time already has something on "How Obama Did It"..

"Barack Obama was campaigning last October in South Carolina when he got an urgent call from Penny Pritzker, the hotel heiress who leads his campaign's finance committee. About 200 of his biggest fund raisers were meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, and among them, near panic was setting in. Pritzker's team had raised money faster than any other campaign ever had. Its candidate was drawing mega-crowds wherever he went. Yet he was still running at least 20 points behind Hillary Clinton in polls. His above-the-fray brand of politics just wasn't getting the job done, and some of his top moneymen were urging him to rethink his strategy, shake up his staff, go negative. You'd better get here, Pritzker told Obama. And fast.

Obama made an unscheduled appearance that Sunday night and called for a show of hands from his finance committee. "Can I see how many people in this room I told that this was going to be easy?" he asked. "If anybody signed up thinking it was going to be easy, then I didn't make myself clear." A win in Iowa, Obama promised, would give him the momentum he needed to win across the map — but his backers wouldn't see much evidence of progress before then. "We're up against the most formidable team in 25 years," he said. "But we've got a plan, and we've got to have faith in it."

More than seven months later, that faith has been rewarded. The 2008 presidential campaign has produced its share of surprises, but one of the most important is that a newcomer from Chicago put together by far the best political operation of either party. Obama's campaign has been that rare, frictionless machine that runs with the energy of an insurgency and the efficiency of a corporation. His team has lacked what his rivals' have specialized in: there have been no staff shake-ups, no financial crises, no change in game plan and no visible strife. Even its campaign slogan — "Change we can believe in" — has remained the same."

<much more>
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1811857-1,00.html

[MethuenProgressive]

73. "But we've got a plan, and we've got to have faith in it."

Karl Axelrod is good at what he does.

[ecstatic]

65. Campaign strategy- I would have gladly voted for her up until February 18

Plagiarism-gate pushed me over the edge. Her attacks became too much for me to bare and from there they only got worse. I remember when my primary came around I was torn about who to vote for because my community wanted Obama but I slightly preferred Clinton. Then by March / April she was painting herself and McCain as the superior choices to Obama.

And we wonder why her supporters became so rabid? It's due to the tone set by their leader!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

70. She ran as a DLC moderate instead of as a Democrat.

She tried to triangulate the mythical middle by appealing to their right wing tendencies rather than appealing to desire for real change.

[my3boyz]

71. I think they also lacked a consistent message. Every day they were saying something new. nt

[Prophet 451]

75. Not initially

At the start, the message was a fairly consistent "back to the 90s", it was only post-Super Tuesday that the Clinton campaign was struggling to adapt and resorted to the scattergun approach.

[jonestonesusa]

81. Another analysis of the primary campaign - seems sound as well.

This polling site that you've probably seen has front-page analysis of the primary race that is similar to yours in many ways. This webmaster is a libertarian, Democrat leaning, according to his own testimony. In any case, it's a similar characterization of Clinton's campaign that is even less subject to charges of Obama partisanship.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

The site Election Projection is put together by a webmaster who is a Republican, but his site shows Obama getting more electoral vote than the numbers from the libertarian gentleman.

http://www.electionprojection.com/index.shtml

[PM7nj]

94. Exactly. I couldn't keep up.

First is was "A Conversation with America," then "Experience" and "Ready on Day One," then "The Big States," followed by "Solutions."

I think I missed a few...

[Starbucks Anarchist]

83. A top-down campaign that went belly-up.

[ShortnFiery]

89. # 3, 4, and 5 were why HRC lost. The media was equally strident to Obama and Racism balanced out

Sexism.

HRC LOST because of:

Poor Planning

Poor Money Management

Poor CONTROL of Staff Members and Surrogates

& OVER-CONFIDENCE = Arrogance = HRC's defeat.

[mudesi]

92. It was her arrogance and her Iraq vote that did it (nm)

[AtomicKitten]

95. Her strategery.

She fucked up strategically by ignoring the caucus states and chose as her strategy to "fix" that as it turns fatal error reframing what a win looks like. She started denigrating the caucus states, fudging the rules, faux-championed discredited primaries for personal gain, launched Karl Rove textbook tactics (invoking racism and assassination, etc.) and imposed general chaos.

Obama did his homework, out-organized and out-strategized her, and ran a straight-up campaign based on issues.

It was no contest.