Where it all went wrong for Clinton

[DaveW]

Great article in Time. It details five reasons why the pre-primary party frontrunner has run an embarrasing second.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1738331,00.html

I think points 2 and 3 are the most valid. Penn's alleged ignorance of proportional allocation is hilarious; although he's since denied it. But even if it's not true, the campaign's continuous whining (and that of their supporters) make it plain that they thought the big states would be all that matter.

And giving Obama a free ride in the caucus states was a terrible miscalculation. Giuliani showed the folly of putting all your eggs in one basket. Clinton repeated the mistake.

 

[evo]

6. She never stood for anything anyway and would flip at a moments notice if she percieved there to be votes in it.

 

[likka]

So much for all her experience, she made some very fundamental errors. Hard to believe that her chief strategist didn't realize California's pledged delegates were proportional.

Now, of course, the question seems not whether Clinton will exit the race but when. She continues to load her schedule with campaign stops, even as calls for her to concede grow louder. But the voice she is listening to now is the one inside her head, explains a longtime aide.

Very fine line between conviction and delusion.

6. She never stood for anything anyway and would flip at a moments notice if she percieved there to be votes in it.

Yep, Romney suffered from the same affliction.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

What they all come down to is she was so confident of an easy win she didn't have a strategy to campaign. The last 4 months have all been a long 'make it up as you go along' experience for Clinton's campaign, and the lack of consistent and coherent opinions has told.

Basically, Sybil Clinton's gone from
Persona 1: 'Inevitable Candidate'
Characteristics : Professional Washington Insider, so obviously the nominee it's not worth discussing.

Last Seen: Very early in the campaign, when it became clear voters actually aren't all that into Washington Insiders. The Inevitable Candidate is now a missing persons photo on a milk carton in Iowa.

Persona 2: Soul Sister
Characteristics: Misty eyed Gilmore Gal, juggling career and personal life, trying to be a good mum to Chelsea, dealing with the anguish of Bill's infidelity, the biased media and those awful, awful caucus voters. Vote for her, if you have an ounce of humanity.

Last Seen: Super Tuesday, taking a 3am phonecall from a drunken Bill needing someone to post bail.

Persona 3: 'Battle Commander Clinton'
Characteristics: A Leader, sorry, THE leader, with the qualifications, experience and enormous sweaty cohones necessary to take phonecalls, sack latino aides, obliterate Iran, dodge sniper fire, and deal with that alien mothership over the whitehouse.

Last Seen: Texas Primaries. Shortly thereafter, Battle Commander Clinton was sent on a deep cover mission of vital importance to the nation. Now MIA in the rolling hills of Bosnia.

Persona 4: 'Rottweiller Plumber'
Characteristics: Angry attack dog with the ability to hurl entire kitchen plumbing fixtures at people encroaching on its territory. Makes an annoying barky yappy sound like 'Wrightwrightwright' for days on end. Strange predilection for mustard pantsuits.

Last Seen: Mississippi Veterinary Clinic. DNC owners were unhappy with its predilection for biting family members, and decided to take the bitch in for a checkup, despite Rottweiller's insistence it had 'already been fully vetted.'

Persona 5: 'Clint the Rivetter'
Characteristics: Straight talkin', hard drinkin', duck huntin' gal from the backwoods. Lost her steelworkin job due to them damn immygants and trade deals made by that goshdarn washington insider. (remember her?) Wants to repeal gas taxes, so she can holler round on her pickup truck shootin varmints.

Last Seen
At the indy 500, duh.

Persona 6: 'Hilly Balboa'
Characteristics: Possesses eye of tiger, thrill of fight, heart of warrror, brain of special needs child. Needs to win the fight to save the DNC from itself, and her guts, balls, sticktoitiveness and -did we mention- enormous balls means this feisty littly southpaw is going the distance in this bout. Apollo Creed, watch out.

Last Seen : Gave a great speech at the Ohio weigh ins, and surfaced for a brief training run through Philly before being supplanted by Clint the Rivetter. But like her namesake, she just won't go down, even with referees threatening to stop the fight. Is still in the ring throwing wild punches at nothing and is so concussed she hasn't realised that the crowd, officials and her opponent having called the result and headed to the next bout.

 

[likka]

Funny cos its true.

 

[moistie]

Persona 5: 'Clint the Rivetter'
Characteristics: Straight talkin', hard drinkin', duck huntin' gal from the backwoods. Lost her steelworkin job due to them damn immygants and trade deals made by that goshdarn washington insider. (remember her?)

They terk errr jerrrrrrrbs!!

 

[skipper kelly]

Once Obama got momentum she never had a chance.

 

[Ruanaidh]

What they all come down to is she was so confident of an easy win she didn't have a strategy to campaign. The last 4 months have all been a long 'make it up as you go along' experience for Clinton's campaign, and the lack of consistent and coherent opinions has told.

Basically, Sybil Clinton's gone from
Persona 1: 'Inevitable Candidate'
Characteristics : Professional Washington Insider, so obviously the nominee it's not worth discussing.

Last Seen: Very early in the campaign, when it became clear voters actually aren't all that into Washington Insiders. The Inevitable Candidate is now a missing persons photo on a milk carton in Iowa.

Persona 2: Soul Sister
Characteristics: Misty eyed Gilmore Gal, juggling career and personal life, trying to be a good mum to Chelsea, dealing with the anguish of Bill's infidelity, the biased media and those awful, awful caucus voters. Vote for her, if you have an ounce of humanity.

Last Seen: Super Tuesday, taking a 3am phonecall from a drunken Bill needing someone to post bail.

Persona 3: 'Battle Commander Clinton'
Characteristics: A Leader, sorry, THE leader, with the qualifications, experience and enormous sweaty cohones necessary to take phonecalls, sack latino aides, obliterate Iran, dodge sniper fire, and deal with that alien mothership over the whitehouse.

Last Seen: Texas Primaries. Shortly thereafter, Battle Commander Clinton was sent on a deep cover mission of vital importance to the nation. Now MIA in the rolling hills of Bosnia.

Persona 4: 'Rottweiller Plumber'
Characteristics: Angry attack dog with the ability to hurl entire kitchen plumbing fixtures at people encroaching on its territory. Makes an annoying barky yappy sound like 'Wrightwrightwright' for days on end. Strange predilection for mustard pantsuits.

Last Seen: Mississippi Veterinary Clinic. DNC owners were unhappy with its predilection for biting family members, and decided to take the bitch in for a checkup, despite Rottweiller's insistence it had 'already been fully vetted.'

Persona 5: 'Clint the Rivetter'
Characteristics: Straight talkin', hard drinkin', duck huntin' gal from the backwoods. Lost her steelworkin job due to them damn immygants and trade deals made by that goshdarn washington insider. (remember her?) Wants to repeal gas taxes, so she can holler round on her pickup truck shootin varmints.

Last Seen
At the indy 500, duh.

Persona 6: 'Hilly Balboa'
Characteristics: Possesses eye of tiger, thrill of fight, heart of warrror, brain of special needs child. Needs to win the fight to save the DNC from itself, and her guts, balls, sticktoitiveness and -did we mention- enormous balls means this feisty littly southpaw is going the distance in this bout. Apollo Creed, watch out.

Last Seen : Gave a great speech at the Ohio weigh ins, and surfaced for a brief training run through Philly before being supplanted by Clint the Rivetter. But like her namesake, she just won't go down, even with referees threatening to stop the fight. Is still in the ring throwing wild punches at nothing and is so concussed she hasn't realised that the crowd, officials and her opponent having called the result and headed to the next bout.

That is pure gold

 

[Red Karl]

6. She never stood for anything anyway and would flip at a moments notice if she percieved there to be votes in it.

You mean like a politician does?

 

[jo172]

I think she's also not that popular a politician.

People realise she's where she is not because of any inherent talent, but because she married well and stuck by him for nothing but political reasons.

She is a souless robot, and that doesn't play well in Kansas.

 

[Mr Q]

She is a souless robot, and that doesn't play well in Kansas.

Being a soulless robot would normally play better than being a Democrat in Kansas.

 

[KissStephanie]

If Clinton loses the nomination it's because...

• 1. The Reverand Jeremiah Wright. If she had raised Obama's association with this nut before the first contest in IA, or at the very latest, soon after, then there is no way that Obama would be in his current position. I knew he was a problem for Obama before the Clinton campaign did! Instead, it seems that a seriously flawed candidate may very well lead the Democratic Party into a general election where the GOP will not make the same mistake.
  
  
  [*]2. The biased pro-Obama lovin' media coverage has had as much influence on thousands and thousands of voters as anything else in this contest. There is no way known that Obama, or any politician in this country deserves 84% positive media coverage from the last week of December until the beginning of May. There is also no way that the liberal MSN should have been giving a Democratic candidate such as Clinton only 51% positive coverage in the same period of time.
  
  
  [*]3. Caucus states. There is no doubt that Obama's caucus wins enabled him to be in this position, although it won't help him in November of course. His demographic is without doubt far more likely to attend 2-3 hour caucus meetings, while her demographic of older and working Democrats are not as likely. This was proven in TX when she won the primary, while he won the caucus. Had the Clinton campaign put more effort into the caucuses, then she may have been able to limit the damage though, even if she was unable to win them.
  
  
• 4. The Clinton campaign underestimated her opponent, and were not prepared for a long fight. They relied too much on establishment funding, and there were too many problems within the campaign when things didn't start off as well as they had planned. Mark Penn should never have been hired, and things have been much better since he has gone, although it was too late for it to make enough difference so far.
  
  
• 5. Obama's supporters have been looking for change in Washington, even if it is from a candidate that is unqualified for the job, and lacks substance. He was clearly the weaker candidate regarding the issues as shown overall in his debate performances, but that doesn't matter to many Obama supporters, and the Clinton campaign did not prepare for this and felt that the stronger candidate with the deeper policy details was always going to win. Obama won't be able to make change in Washington if he wants to get anything done of course, but that is irrelevant to many of his supporters.

 

[DaveW]

In a nutshell:

If Clinton loses the nomination it's because...

• 1. [..] If she had raised Obama's association with this nut before the first contest in IA, or at the very latest, soon after, then there is no way that Obama would be in his current position. [..]
  
  
  [*]2. The biased pro-Obama lovin' media coverage [..]
  
  
  [*]3. [..] Had the Clinton campaign put more effort into the caucuses, then she may have been able to limit the damage though, even if she was unable to win them.
  
  
• 4. The Clinton campaign underestimated her opponent, and were not prepared for a long fight. [..]
  
  
• 5. [..] the Clinton campaign did not prepare for this [..]

Aside from your usual squeal about the biased media, the rest of your critique comes down to the Clinton campaign's self-inflicted wounds.

By your own analysis, Clinton's team was lazy and ill-prepared for the primary campaign.

Thank goodness she won't be able to repeat the same mistakes in the general election.

 

[KissStephanie]

Aside from your usual squeal about the biased media, the rest of your critique comes down to the Clinton campaign's self-inflicted wounds.

I believe it to be one of the single most influential aspects of the contest. With an impartial coverage, she would have won the nomination regardless of what else has occurred.

Thank goodness she won't be able to repeat the same mistakes in the general election.

I agree. If she does become the Democratic candidate for the general election, there is no doubt that her campaign will have learnt from what has occurred to date.

 

[GuruJane]

If Clinton loses the nomination it's because...

• 1. The Reverand Jeremiah Wright. If she had raised Obama's association with this nut before the first contest in IA, or at the very latest, soon after, then there is no way that Obama would be in his current position. I knew he was a problem for Obama before the Clinton campaign did! Instead, it seems that a seriously flawed candidate may very well lead the Democratic Party into a general election where the GOP will not make the same mistake.
  
  
  [*]2. The biased pro-Obama lovin' media coverage has had as much influence on thousands and thousands of voters as anything else in this contest. There is no way known that Obama, or any politician in this country deserves 84% positive media coverage from the last week of December until the beginning of May. There is also no way that the liberal MSN should have been giving a Democratic candidate such as Clinton only 51% positive coverage in the same period of time.
  
  
  [*]3. Caucus states. There is no doubt that Obama's caucus wins enabled him to be in this position, although it won't help him in November of course. His demographic is without doubt far more likely to attend 2-3 hour caucus meetings, while her demographic of older and working Democrats are not as likely. This was proven in TX when she won the primary, while he won the caucus. Had the Clinton campaign put more effort into the caucuses, then she may have been able to limit the damage though, even if she was unable to win them.
  
  
• 4. The Clinton campaign underestimated her opponent, and were not prepared for a long fight. They relied too much on establishment funding, and there were too many problems within the campaign when things didn't start off as well as they had planned. Mark Penn should never have been hired, and things have been much better since he has gone, although it was too late for it to make enough difference so far.
  
  
• 5. Obama's supporters have been looking for change in Washington, even if it is from a candidate that is unqualified for the job, and lacks substance. He was clearly the weaker candidate regarding the issues as shown overall in his debate performances, but that doesn't matter to many Obama supporters, and the Clinton campaign did not prepare for this and felt that the stronger candidate with the deeper policy details was always going to win. Obama won't be able to make change in Washington if he wants to get anything done of course, but that is irrelevant to many of his supporters.

V good analysis, Steph.

btw Mods - what's happened to the West Virgina thread?

 

[asanque]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/15/18494/3250/135/516503

The Five Stages of Grief

['
1.) Denial:
Hillary hasn't lost! She can still win. Sure, she's lost the pledged delegate count, is getting crushed in super delegates who have pledged since Super Tuesday, lags McCain in the polls, is tens of millions in debt, and has just about run out of states, but there's still a path to victory! Quick, donate more! The only math that matters is the superdelegates!
She's going to get the nomination!



2.) Anger:
What do you mean West Virginia by its lonesome self isn't enough to guarantee Clinton the nomination? That's it! I'm voting for McCain even though I disagree with everything he stands for! Losing abortion rights will show Democrats the folly of letting the primary winner get the nomination! And those poor GIs in Iraq? Who cares, since Democrats insisted on letting the rules determine the nominee! How dare the superdelegates ratify the will of the voters by siding with Obama?
If she doesn't get the nomination, we walk!



3.) Bargaining:
Hillary Clinton for VP. She's earned it! Sure, she brings nothing to the ticket geographically, and offers nothing demographically that can't be offered by anyone else, but it's her or nothing! If you do the math, adding them up together makes them an invincible "dream team", even though we believe Obama is sexist and hasn't crossed the "commander in chief threshold". The superdelegates better force this on Obama!
If she doesn't get the vice-presidential nomination, we walk!




And that's where things stand right now. We've just got to get through the depression stage before we finally get to acceptance. We're slowly getting there.']

Guess who's still caught between stage 1 and 2?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Clinton_backer_backlash.html

['An Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media.

Led by Boomer-aged women, the group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, is holding a press conference in Columbus at noon to release this statement.']

 

[Lance Uppercut]

it's all the media's fault. They have been keeping the exact same bias (84% - 51% the entire campaign - unlikely to the point of impossiblity, but there you go, which proves it MUST be a conspiracy); and the American people are too stupid to pick the right candidate; they've been hoodwinked by the media, and in any case, are mostly misogynists, because that's the only possible reason you can't see the blindingly obvious fact that Hillary Clinton is the messiah reborn

 

[Elle]

Insightful article:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=f7a4a380-c4a4-4f84-b653-f252e8569915

What Went Wrong?

The exclusive story of Hillary's fall, as told by the high-level advisors, staffers, fundraisers, and on-the-ground organizers who lived it.

Michelle Cottle, The New Republic
Published: Friday, May 16, 2008

Endings are rarely as joyous as beginnings--and in the case of a long, wearing, and ultimately disappointing campaign, they can be downright brutal. But they also have the potential to be educational, for participants and gawkers alike. So it is that we asked (begged, really) a range of Hillarylanders for their up-close and personal lists of "What Went Wrong?" Not everyone wanted to play. Many stubbornly pointed out that their candidate is not yet dead. But, on the condition of total anonymity, a fairly broad enough cross-section of her staff responded--more than a dozen members all told, from high-level advisors to grunt-level assistants, from money men to on-the-ground organizers.

Many answers fell into a handful of broad themes we've been hearing for months now. (She shouldn't have run as an incumbent. She should have paid more attention to caucus states. She should have kept Bill chained in the basement at Whitehaven with a case of cheese curls and a stack of dirty movies.) Others had a distinct score-settling flavor. One respondent sent in a list of Top 25 screw ups, the first three being:

1. Patti
2. Solis
3. Doyle

While from another corner came another list, reading:

1. Mark Penn
2. Mark Penn
3. Mark Penn

But whether personal or clinical, new or familiar, the critiques are all the more striking for having come directly from those neck-deep in the action. So, here it is, an elegy for Hillary '08, written by some of those who have worked tirelessly to keep it alive.


PROBLEMS AT THE OUTSET

"Bottom line: I just don't think she was hungry enough for it in the beginning. It wasn't really until the ten-in-a-row loss that she started doing stuff like Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart. In the beginning, it was hard to get her to do those things. Early in the campaign, she spent much more time in the Senate than the campaign would have liked. It took the threat of a real loss to get her hungry enough for it. But time was lost. If you ask the Iowa folks, I'm sure they would tell you she wasn't there enough."

"Clearly [Obama] was a phenomenon. He was tapping something really different than anyone had ever seen before. ... Months and months before Iowa, he was getting record crowds. I just think they should have really gone after him back in the summer and in the fall. I know it would have been a difficult decision to make back then. She's the leader of the party, the standard bearer, the big dog. Everyone thinks she's gonna win and walk away with it. Why go picking on Barack Obama? But that's just something the campaign should have done sooner."

"We didn't lay a serious glove on him until the fall. We tried to a little bit, but we weren't successful. We did silly stuff, like talk about David Geffen. It wasn't the substantive contrast we needed to make."

"Devastating vulnerabilities such as Obama's associations with Wright and Ayers were not unearthed by the campaign's vaunted research team in time to be fully taken advantage of--despite being readily available in the public domain."

"Running as an incumbent, as the inevitable candidate, was probably our biggest mistake, particularly in a time when the country is really hungry for change."

"We ran a frontrunner campaign in a party that punishes frontrunners. There was no attention to history: Ed Muskie--knocked off; threat to Mondale; etc. The best thing that could have happened is falling behind in the polls to Obama and then a shake-up ala Gore 2000--maybe even a move out of D.C. like he did it."

"Not learning from the mistakes of Kerry and Gore, the campaign was based in the D.C. area, rooting its perspective in the fishbowl and echo chamber nature of the capital. And [the campaign] was overstaffed with hired guns with no real allegiance to HRC; she was the safest and easiest bet, no sacrifice necessary."

"There was not any plan in place from beginning to end on how to win the nomination. It was, 'Win Iowa.' There was not the experience level, and, frankly, the management ability, to create a whole plan to get to the magical delegate number. That to me is the number one thing. It's starting from that point that every subsequent decision resulted. The decision to spend x amount in Iowa versus be prepared for February 5 and beyond. Or how much money to spend in South Carolina--where it was highly unlikely we were going to win--versus the decision not to fund certain other states. ... It was not as simple as, 'Oh, that's a caucus state, we're not going to play there.' That suggests a more serious thought process. It suggests a meeting where we went through all that."

"Harold Ickes's encyclopedic understanding of the proportional delegate system was never operationalized into a field plan. The campaign inexplicably wrote off many states entirely, allowing Obama to create the lead of 100+ delegates that he has today. Most notably, we claimed the race would be over by February 5, but didn't devote any resources to the smaller states that day and in the weeks that followed, allowing Obama to easily run up margins and delegate counts on the cheap--the delegate margin he will win by."


PROBLEMS WITH THE PERSONNEL

"Hillary assembled a team thin on presidential campaign experience that confused discipline with insularity; they didn't know what they didn't know and were too arrogant to ask at a time early enough in the process when it could have made a difference, effectively shutting out even some long-time Hillaryland loyalists. Her innermost circle of [Patti Solis] Doyle, [Mark] Penn, [Mandy] Grunwald, [Neera] Tanden and [Howard] Wolfson formed a Board of Directors with no single Chairman or CEO; nobody was truly in charge, nobody held truly accountable."

"[Original campaign manager] Patti and [her deputy] Mike [Henry] sat up there in their offices and no one knew what they did all day. Patti's a nice person who was put in a job way over head. She was out of her element. Mike Henry was hired because he was the flavor of day, the catch everyone wanted. I'm sure he was really great, but presidential politics require a unique skill set and knowledge."

"[Policy Director] Tanden and [Communications Director] Wolfson, the HQ's most senior department heads, had no real presidential campaign experience, and no primary experience whatsoever. Notoriously bad managers, they filled key posts with newcomers loyal to them but unknown to and unfamiliar with the candidate, her style, her history, her preferences."

"Probably our second biggest mistake was much more operational: Making our chief strategist our one and only pollster. It is impossible to disagree and have a counter view on message when the person creating the message is also the person testing the message."

"We would just cringe. Ugh. Such an out-of-touch corporate run kind of campaign--exactly what you'd expect from Mark Penn. He did fine during his time in the Clinton White House. But running a campaign to capture the nomination in a change environment is something he had never done. Just look at what he did for Joe Lieberman!"

"She never embraced the mantle from the beginning of being a different kind of candidate. Why did the campaign not do that? Because Mark Penn wanted to do it a different way. Read his book. He thought that you have a list of policy prescriptions. Voters are into that, and that's how you win. This came at the expense of--and it's a decision he really pushed for--saying to folks, 'Yes, she's a pretty inspiring figure herself.' ... There's no reason why she's not a change agent also. But once the CW is set, it just doesn't change."

"There were so many consultants, instead of full-time staff who would have spent their entire time focusing on this. I love some of these people, but it just seems ridiculous. Cheryl Mills spends time doing NYU stuff. Mark Penn, Mandy Grunwald, Minyon Moore, and so on. There were too many people that had too much else going on on the side."

"[Bill's] behavior that started off in Iowa, carried on in New Hampshire, and culminated in South Carolina really was the beginning of the end. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he just kind of imploded. I think, if I had to look back on it, it became more about him than about her. It really was destructive overall."


PROBLEMS WITH EXECUTION

"There were more themes in this campaign than anything I've ever seen."

"Our message in fact was working very well through September. What we failed to do is pivot when we needed to. We stuck on the same thing. ... We didn't say, 'OK, everybody gets that she can do this job.' We never pivoted to what kind of change she could bring. We repackaged the old message and sent it back out. Instead of 'Ready on Day One,' we changed to 'Solutions.' It was a very IBM approach."

"Keeping the same team in place [after New Hampshire] meant that pre-Iowa planning and strategic errors continued nearly unabated, were not corrected. ... Too much damage had been done by the time Maggie Williams took the helm."

"There were a number of people who advised the Clinton campaign back in the spring of '07 that this could easily become a longer battle--a war of attrition. She needed to build a broad base of supporters beyond the virtually limitless number of Clinton friends and supporters who they counted on to not only max out, but to use their not inconsiderable Rolodexes to help her. That would have been fine if this thing had ended Super Tuesday. It didn't, and she ran out of money."

"There was financial mismanagement bordering on fraud. A candidate who raised more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the years had to pump in millions more of her own money to stave off bankruptcy."

"If you have no cash because you totally mismanaged the budget, you have no money to go up on TV; you're getting crushed on TV and in direct mail because Obama has so much more money--that is a huge problem. Who was looking at the money? The financial situation was a disaster. That's the reason [Howard] Paster had to come in and clean shit up."


PROBLEMS WITH THE CANDIDATE

"I don't think anybody in America doesn't think she can do the job. What they're dying for is to know a little bit more about her. And we were unable to present that side of her."

"If you look at this campaign as a 15- or 16-month gambit, the public turning point was the Philadelphia debate. Her non-answer on the driver's license issue. Again, it spoke to the character issue: The sense that she will say anything and do anything to get elected. It drove the Obama narrative of her home."

"Her dense and wonky speaking style was compounded by her speechwriting team's reporting to Policy Director Tanden rather than Communications Director Wolfson."

"The Senator is as loyal as she is smart. And I think that removing Patti is where those two things came into conflict. She knew the right thing to do. At same time, she was very loyal to Patti, who had been very loyal to her."


PROBLEMS IN IOWA

"We placed a huge financial bet on Iowa and raised its importance by sending senior staff there. And because we didn't plan for a national campaign, we couldn't point to an operation that could withstand an Iowa blow the way Obama could after New Hampshire."

"It was obvious talking to people on the ground there that they simply did not get the Iowa caucus from a field perspective. That's where the thing was lost. They didn't have a good idea of the horse-trading that makes caucuses work for you."

"Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald dismissed the possibility of youth turning out heavily in Iowa for Obama, saying on the record after the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, 'They don't look like caucus-goers.'"

"Penn was preoccupied with the national polls. We were up in the national polls, but Iowa was always a challenging thing for us. Early, early on, our internals showed us a significant number of points behind. ... In Iowa, Penn consistently would show polls that were of the eight-way. That was basically meaningless because it wasn't going to be an eight-way race. The candidates that were the second-tier candidates were not going to reach the threshold [of 15%]. The real race was the three-way. But he always focused on the eight-way when we'd start going over the numbers in Iowa. It was frustrating to the state staff and other people as well. It just showed a lack of understanding and a disconnect."


PROBLEMS WITH THE PRESS

"The way we handled you guys was a mistake on our part. What we're hearing is that we truly treated people badly and weren't accessible enough or open enough. We had bad relationships with reporters, and it probably bit us on the ass."

"We ran a press operation that lost all credibility with the press through endless and pointless memos like, 'Where's the Bounce?' and polling memos that cherry-picked only positive polls when we were up and ignored polling when we were down."

"Even among Clinton spokespeople long known for their heavy-handed ways, Phil Singer stood out for his all-too-common and accepted profanity-laced tirades and abusive behavior--both at colleagues and the media, who were all too happy to direct his comeuppance toward Hillary at a time she needed them most."


AND, FINALLY...

"Her people spent all of 2008 making lists blaming each other (but never themselves) rather than lists of solutions."

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

"Her people spent all of 2008 making lists blaming each other (but never themselves) rather than lists of solutions."

Given the fact that even the most avid Clinton supporter would admit her campaign was badly mismanaged, strategically, economically and politically i think one of the most compelling points for a superdelegate is this -

If Clinton doesn't have the leadership, judgment and organisational skills necessary to run a successful campaign, how on earth does she think she's got the ability to run a country?

Blaming it on dud advisors, or writing it off as a learning experience simply won't cut it- she's supposed to be vastly more experienced than Obama, and 'ready from day one'. She's the candidate, she makes the final calls, even if ultimately she just listened to bad advice, how does that make the idea of her being president any more reassuring- is she going to stop listening to bad advice if by some crazy fluke she got the Whitehouse?

 

[KissStephanie]

V good analysis, Steph.

Thanks Jane, and I tried to be as impartial as I could be coming from the alternate view of the norm on here. I truly believe that each one of those reasons has both put Clinton in her current position, and Obama in his current position. Some of the choices that the Clinton campaign had made have definitely been frustrating. Many of the things that have been out of her control, such as the biased media coverage, has also been frustrating.

 

[Palmer Stoat]

If Clinton loses the nomination it's because...

• 1. The Reverand Jeremiah Wright. If she had raised Obama's association with this nut before the first contest in IA, or at the very latest, soon after, then there is no way that Obama would be in his current position. I knew he was a problem for Obama before the Clinton campaign did! Instead, it seems that a seriously flawed candidate may very well lead the Democratic Party into a general election where the GOP will not make the same mistake.

Yes, he's so flawed that he's currently beating Clinton on every measure. What's more, even post-Wright he won resoundingly in North Carolina and among superdelegates.

• 2. The biased pro-Obama lovin' media coverage has had as much influence on thousands and thousands of voters as anything else in this contest. There is no way known that Obama, or any politician in this country deserves 84% positive media coverage from the last week of December until the beginning of May. There is also no way that the liberal MSN should have been giving a Democratic candidate such as Clinton only 51% positive coverage in the same period of time.

If Clinton is as despised by the media as you suggest, why would the Democrats want to run her in the general election? Part of being a politician is being able to use the media to your advantage. Your much-loved stat suggests that Clinton has been unable to do so, and yet you treat that as an argument... in her favour?

• 3. Caucus states. There is no doubt that Obama's caucus wins enabled him to be in this position, although it won't help him in November of course. His demographic is without doubt far more likely to attend 2-3 hour caucus meetings, while her demographic of older and working Democrats are not as likely. This was proven in TX when she won the primary, while he won the caucus. Had the Clinton campaign put more effort into the caucuses, then she may have been able to limit the damage though, even if she was unable to win them.

What is without doubt is that Obama ran a smart campaign. Unlike Clinton he didn't pour a disproportionate amount of resources into a few big states, thinking that this would win if for him. Instead he deployed just enough resources to minimise his losses in the big states, and meanwhile racked up huge margins in one neglected small state after another, many of which were caucus states. That is simply sound strategy. Unlike the staggeringly incompetent Clinton campaign, Obama's campaign amassed maximum delegate wins for dollars spent. As for caucuses, well, you must campaign within the system that exists, not the system you want.

Had Clinton run a smarter campaign, she wouldn't have lost. Frankly, given her performance in the primaries, the Democratic Party is probably relieved that she's not gonna be contesting the general -- if she ____s that up, McCain will be in the White House, and who'd want that?

• 4. The Clinton campaign underestimated her opponent, and were not prepared for a long fight. They relied too much on establishment funding, and there were too many problems within the campaign when things didn't start off as well as they had planned. Mark Penn should never have been hired, and things have been much better since he has gone, although it was too late for it to make enough difference so far.

Ah, finally, you admit how poorly Hillary has campaigned. I note that you make Penn the scapegoat, but you know, the skipper goes down with the ship. She was the one who made him and Patti Solis Doyle the lynchpins of her campaign... Didn't show much judgement there, did she? I wonder what other horrible mistakes she would have made in November?

Luckily we won't find out.

5. Obama's supporters have been looking for change in Washington, even if it is from a candidate that is unqualified for the job, and lacks substance. He was clearly the weaker candidate regarding the issues as shown overall in his debate performances, but that doesn't matter to many Obama supporters, and the Clinton campaign did not prepare for this and felt that the stronger candidate with the deeper policy details was always going to win. Obama won't be able to make change in Washington if he wants to get anything done of course, but that is irrelevant to many of his supporters.

And Hillary's qualifications are what? First Lady? FMD, it's not at all clear to me that Hillary is more qualified than Obama. Her resume isn't exactly over-brimming, you know.

What's more, if you're gonna make qualifications the be all and end all, why support Clinton? Other candidates such as Bill Richardson are eminently more qualified than Hillary or Obama. So what gives?

BTW, isn't it time you started supporting McCain, Stephanie?

 

[Chicago1]

Hillary Clinton has been rejected by a majority of the members of the Democratic Party, of which I am a registered, paid up member. My fellow Democrats(who can actually vote) have rejected the idea of a Clinton/Bush dynasty. Mrs Clinton will never be the Presidential nominee(that's the correct term, not the nomination) of the Democratic Party, ever.

Why?

1. No one should presume that he/she is entitled to the nomination. Mrs Clinton assumed an air of inevitability prior to the first primaries/caucuses. This did not sit well with many, many voters, especially those in Iowa.

2. Mrs Clinton stirs up too much negativity based on her past peccadillos. Her Health Plan fiasco of the 90s is still remembered vividly. She is seen as strident by many, not especially a caring, warm individual. She has not been seen to be honest, even though most of us cynics don't believe politicians are exclusively honest to begin with.

3. Mrs Clinton's husband was seen to play "the race card" at a crucial time in the primary cycle. Even if it wasn't meant to be as such, that's what it was seen as.

4. The Clinton candidacy did not use the world of the Internet to its greatest advantage, especially through fund raising. Her team tended to rely on donations from those who could afford the maximum amount under Federal law. The Obama campaign has relied on ordinary Americans like myself to contribute smaller amounts, but have a far wider base of donations.

5. I guess partially because of Point #1, states were not as well organised by her campaign, especially the caucus states.

6. She voted for the war.

Of course, in the next months her campaign's political obituary will be written, edited, scrutinized and turned inside out to try and figure out how the inevitable became nothing.

Many Democrats now believe that she refuses to end her doomed campaign because she is anticipating (hoping for?) a Republican victory in November so that she can have another try in 2012. I don't know if I believe that, but even the idea that she just might have that on her mind is worrying. And I'm just one of millions of members of the Democratic Party that will be pondering that idea in the next few weeks.

And, yes, if Senator Clinton would have been the nominee of the Democratic Party for President in 2008, I would have voted for her. The alternative would have been just too depressing.

 

[JW Frogen]

Where did it all go wrong for Clinton?

Bush.

He was inarticulate and blunt, he was true and had conviction.

And he beat two Dem “intellectuals”.

He did things no “intellectual” ever would, such as creating democracy in a tyranny that has never know freedom, Iraq; or telling the world Kyoto is a con job, you can not sign your way out of an economic-climatic conflict, you have to find a technological solution, he talked to America and the world straight.

But right now both America and the world can not drink straight, they want it mixed with comforting, easy to digest, fizzy drinks.

Obama is a great bartender, he can mix metaphors with the best, and Clinton cannot.

She is more...well, reality oriented.

And so it goes.

"____ing Woo."

 

[JW Frogen]

Where did it all go wrong for Clinton?

Bush.

He was an inarticulate, blunt, common man.

He beat two Dem “intellectuals”.

He did things no “intellectual” ever would, such as creating democracy in a tyranny that has never know it, Iraq, or telling the world Kyoto is the typical internalionalist con job, (too many people in a meeting never produce anything, anyone who has worked for any organisation knows that),you can not sign your way out of an economic-climatic conflict, you have to find a technological solution, he talked to America and the world straight.

But, America is tired, some want mixed fizzy drinks.

They want easy.

Who can blame them, lifting the heavy load for so long? While Europe has been sipping cocktails paid on the American tab?

Who can blame America?

I can.

As an American I expect God damed more.

I demand God damed more from the country of my birth.

Obama is a great bartender, he can mix metaphors with the best, and Clinton cannot.

Hilary is more, reality oriented.

So America is tired, or at least American Democrats are tired, and wish to talk, conjure with magical rhetoric, their way out of the reality of the world.

McCain wants America to face reality, and change it.

And so it goes.

In the words of the great Al Swearagan.... "fu____king Woo."

 

[Bombermania]

6. She never stood for anything anyway and would flip at a moments notice if she percieved there to be votes in it.

The best comments are clear and concise and that holds true for this post

What they all come down to is she was so confident of an easy win she didn't have a strategy to campaign. The last 4 months have all been a long 'make it up as you go along' experience for Clinton's campaign, and the lack of consistent and coherent opinions has told.

Basically, Sybil Clinton's gone from
Persona 1: 'Inevitable Candidate'
Characteristics : Professional Washington Insider, so obviously the nominee it's not worth discussing.

Last Seen: Very early in the campaign, when it became clear voters actually aren't all that into Washington Insiders. The Inevitable Candidate is now a missing persons photo on a milk carton in Iowa.

Persona 2: Soul Sister
Characteristics: Misty eyed Gilmore Gal, juggling career and personal life, trying to be a good mum to Chelsea, dealing with the anguish of Bill's infidelity, the biased media and those awful, awful caucus voters. Vote for her, if you have an ounce of humanity.

Last Seen: Super Tuesday, taking a 3am phonecall from a drunken Bill needing someone to post bail.

Persona 3: 'Battle Commander Clinton'
Characteristics: A Leader, sorry, THE leader, with the qualifications, experience and enormous sweaty cohones necessary to take phonecalls, sack latino aides, obliterate Iran, dodge sniper fire, and deal with that alien mothership over the whitehouse.

Last Seen: Texas Primaries. Shortly thereafter, Battle Commander Clinton was sent on a deep cover mission of vital importance to the nation. Now MIA in the rolling hills of Bosnia.

Persona 4: 'Rottweiller Plumber'
Characteristics: Angry attack dog with the ability to hurl entire kitchen plumbing fixtures at people encroaching on its territory. Makes an annoying barky yappy sound like 'Wrightwrightwright' for days on end. Strange predilection for mustard pantsuits.

Last Seen: Mississippi Veterinary Clinic. DNC owners were unhappy with its predilection for biting family members, and decided to take the bitch in for a checkup, despite Rottweiller's insistence it had 'already been fully vetted.'

Persona 5: 'Clint the Rivetter'
Characteristics: Straight talkin', hard drinkin', duck huntin' gal from the backwoods. Lost her steelworkin job due to them damn immygants and trade deals made by that goshdarn washington insider. (remember her?) Wants to repeal gas taxes, so she can holler round on her pickup truck shootin varmints.

Last Seen
At the indy 500, duh.

Persona 6: 'Hilly Balboa'
Characteristics: Possesses eye of tiger, thrill of fight, heart of warrror, brain of special needs child. Needs to win the fight to save the DNC from itself, and her guts, balls, sticktoitiveness and -did we mention- enormous balls means this feisty littly southpaw is going the distance in this bout. Apollo Creed, watch out.

Last Seen : Gave a great speech at the Ohio weigh ins, and surfaced for a brief training run through Philly before being supplanted by Clint the Rivetter. But like her namesake, she just won't go down, even with referees threatening to stop the fight. Is still in the ring throwing wild punches at nothing and is so concussed she hasn't realised that the crowd, officials and her opponent having called the result and headed to the next bout.

Hiliary has seemed to change position with each wind change, and by trying to be something to everyone, she has finished up being a nobody to everybody

If Clinton loses the nomination it's because...

• 1. The Reverand Jeremiah Wright. If she had raised Obama's association with this nut before the first contest in IA, or at the very latest, soon after, then there is no way that Obama would be in his current position. I knew he was a problem for Obama before the Clinton campaign did! Instead, it seems that a seriously flawed candidate may very well lead the Democratic Party into a general election where the GOP will not make the same mistake.
  
  
  [*]2. The biased pro-Obama lovin' media coverage has had as much influence on thousands and thousands of voters as anything else in this contest. There is no way known that Obama, or any politician in this country deserves 84% positive media coverage from the last week of December until the beginning of May. There is also no way that the liberal MSN should have been giving a Democratic candidate such as Clinton only 51% positive coverage in the same period of time.
  
  
  [*]3. Caucus states. There is no doubt that Obama's caucus wins enabled him to be in this position, although it won't help him in November of course. His demographic is without doubt far more likely to attend 2-3 hour caucus meetings, while her demographic of older and working Democrats are not as likely. This was proven in TX when she won the primary, while he won the caucus. Had the Clinton campaign put more effort into the caucuses, then she may have been able to limit the damage though, even if she was unable to win them.
  
  
• 4. The Clinton campaign underestimated her opponent, and were not prepared for a long fight. They relied too much on establishment funding, and there were too many problems within the campaign when things didn't start off as well as they had planned. Mark Penn should never have been hired, and things have been much better since he has gone, although it was too late for it to make enough difference so far.
  
  
• 5. Obama's supporters have been looking for change in Washington, even if it is from a candidate that is unqualified for the job, and lacks substance. He was clearly the weaker candidate regarding the issues as shown overall in his debate performances, but that doesn't matter to many Obama supporters, and the Clinton campaign did not prepare for this and felt that the stronger candidate with the deeper policy details was always going to win. Obama won't be able to make change in Washington if he wants to get anything done of course, but that is irrelevant to many of his supporters.

Nice colourful post Steph , I agree with the Blue, Green, Pink and Brown, the media may have been better for Obama but that has more to do with him remaining onj message while Hillary has been all over the shop, at times her behaviour has been very negative and would be a turn off to many potential swing voters.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/15/18494/3250/135/516503

The Five Stages of Grief

['
1.) Denial:
Hillary hasn't lost! She can still win. Sure, she's lost the pledged delegate count, is getting crushed in super delegates who have pledged since Super Tuesday, lags McCain in the polls, is tens of millions in debt, and has just about run out of states, but there's still a path to victory! Quick, donate more! The only math that matters is the superdelegates!
She's going to get the nomination!



2.) Anger:
What do you mean West Virginia by its lonesome self isn't enough to guarantee Clinton the nomination? That's it! I'm voting for McCain even though I disagree with everything he stands for! Losing abortion rights will show Democrats the folly of letting the primary winner get the nomination! And those poor GIs in Iraq? Who cares, since Democrats insisted on letting the rules determine the nominee! How dare the superdelegates ratify the will of the voters by siding with Obama?
If she doesn't get the nomination, we walk!



3.) Bargaining:
Hillary Clinton for VP. She's earned it! Sure, she brings nothing to the ticket geographically, and offers nothing demographically that can't be offered by anyone else, but it's her or nothing! If you do the math, adding them up together makes them an invincible "dream team", even though we believe Obama is sexist and hasn't crossed the "commander in chief threshold". The superdelegates better force this on Obama!
If she doesn't get the vice-presidential nomination, we walk!




And that's where things stand right now. We've just got to get through the depression stage before we finally get to acceptance. We're slowly getting there.']

Guess who's still caught between stage 1 and 2?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Clinton_backer_backlash.html

['An Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media.

Led by Boomer-aged women, the group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, is holding a press conference in Columbus at noon to release this statement.']

Very cruel, but this sums Hillary up