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Added 615 days ago on June 4th, 2008
Back when Sen. Hillary Clinton was just starting her campaign, top aides and advisers had a ready answer when asked if she could win the presidency."She's already winning," came the response, as repeated by chief strategist Mark Penn, campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe and other top aides and advisers, in memos, press releases and interviews as the campaign began more than a year ago.It was a rejoinder that fit the "inevitable" candidate - and for a long while, the response fit the facts.Clinton, D-N.Y., occupied the race's top perch virtually until the voting started, with a campaign that was designed to hover above the opposition and break through with dramatic early victories that would end the campaign cleanly and quickly.But her campaign, it would turn out, was based on a series of fundamental miscalculations - about the mood of the electorate, the threat posed by Sen. Barack Obama and even the basic rules of the Democratic primary process.In retrospect, the mistakes started with a faulty assumption: That inevitability itself could underpin the rationale for a presidential candidacy, even in the face of a deep Democratic desire for change and the wide enthusiasm that greeted a first-term senator from Illinois.
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One big problem for her was that she had to carry the whole campaign alone, because Edwards and the other girlie men dropped out minutes before the polls opened on Super Tuesday. With Edwards in the mix, we would have seen lots of results where Clinton wins 45-55% and Obama and Edwards split the reminder 35-20 or 30-15. In some states Edwards would have taken from Clinton, but to my mind, he would have harmed Obama more, because they ran on a similar platform.
So, with Clinton winning 50% of the delegates from the big states and Obama at 30-35% she would have gained a lead that would have helped her to decide the primaries on that day. With her alone against Obama, it was like Stud poker hi/lo: You have a great hand and you go all in. You win the high pot, but lose the low.
The media bias hurt her lots, sexism, race baiting, negative campaigning from both sides hurt her. If she used dirty tactics, everybody blamed her for that, if she suffered from it, everybody was eager to rub some salt into the wounds.
Obama's slogan of Change was better than her "Expericence counts". She did not emphasize on the subject of Change, because she felt that it was obvious that a female President would mean change, that anybody replacing Bush would mean change. Obama's advisors correctly saw that people are thirsty for change and that they found out that you do not even have to give them your details, your vision of change. In fact, it is more effective to keep that issue blurred and undefined, because people do paint the rough sketches into pictures for themselves.
Problem is that nobody will get the change that he/she imagined, so all of us will be disappointed, if Obama is elected. All, except Obama, that is...
Of course she made a number of mistakes, errors, gaffes. She is only human. In Obama's case, people accept and forgive that, in her case, they jump all over her. Obama was able to lie about Wright for weeks and nobody cared. Bittergate? Rural voters in West Virginia and Kentucky and in polls cared, but since the party is on Obama hype, nobody really cared. That will change during the GE, because the Republicans will not treat him with kid gloves and because they can call a spade a spade without a backlash of political incorrectness.
I don't know about the relationship between Clinton and the DNC. I guess that they hate her guts and that they believe that Obama is easier to handle, easier to manipulate. I do have the feeling that, blinded by his youth movement, they decided that the young voters are more important than the old traditional Democrats. This could end in a rude awakening on Election Day. just take Obama Girl as an example. She is the ultimate Obama supporter, but nevertheless, she did not vote for Obama... She was too ill to go to the polls in New Jersey, but well enough to attend the election party in New York...
Money surely was an issue. Blinded by the Obama juggernaut, we often forget that the internet as a donation tool was not invented by Obama, but by Dean and McCain in 2000. We, too, forget that Obama did not use this mode of fundraising, because it is cooler, more democratic or more effective. He did it, because it was cheap and he did not have the clout to bring 500 people to pay $1.000 for a dinner with Obama. The internet fundraising was his only chance to collect the nickels and dimes he needed. That worked okay, but only the defeat in New Hampshire turned it into the monster that it is today, because his supporters felt that he needed help.
Remember that he strongly demanded that all candidates should join him in accepting public funding. Now he flipflops on this issue, claiming that his donation juggernaut is just like public funding...
Clinton did great in the fundraising sector. Her problem was that, just like in the story of the hare and the turtle, the turtle was always already there when the hare arrived. Her fundraising was massive, but his was even better. Yes, I know that she is in debt. She made some mistakes on the spending side, but she always had to spend more than she could afford to stay compatitive. It is like in poker where you have a really good hand, but the other guy keeps raising you, trying to buy the pot. Frustrating.
Most important of all, he was supported by political correctness, and she was fair game for sexism. Imagine him white and tell me if you think that he would have done as well as he did? With Edwards as his grinning twin around? Without the advantage of the color of his skin, an advantage that only works in the Democratic party? Look at who had the black superdelegates, save for Jackson, Sharpton and Obama himself.
As you can see, it is not as simple as four different answers to pick from.
1st, she should have gotten rid of Bill as Obama should have left his church.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I don't think small town rural people are bitter.
But you must say, the the uneducated voters that hang at hillary's coat tail are ignorant.
If they really want Mcain to win, how selfish to the future generation, ask yourself one question................Has a republican ever cared about a Real DEMOCRAT.
School or no school, blue collar worker, seniors, afro-americans, spanish and any other groups of people, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO ANSER THIS AND THE ANSWER IS NO.
WE CAN'T LET MCSHAME AND MCSAME TAKE THE WHITE HOUSE, SO INSPITE OF ALL THE IGNORANCE, AND HURT.
DON'T DO IT.
Last, was the entire country ready for another Clinton in the WHite House??
The fact that she has served 1.5 (effectively 1) terms as Senator of New York, a state she never lived in prior to running for the office, has more to do with her husband Bill than it has to do with her. Sure, she's incredibly gifted and capable, but she's come as far as she has because of Bill, and Bill could easily become her undoing.
dgarrand and I are testimony, incidentally, to my earlier comment about how this poll breaks neatly along candidate - not yet party - lines.
Remember: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, and Powell bought huge amounts of "experience" to the table, to no avail. And McCain is the candidate with the strongest "experience" argument, if that's really what you're after.
Too many voters do not think for themselves and make non issues the real issue. Those in power who wish to remain in power dangle a carrot before the voters and we follow the carrot blindly down a path in which we have no idea how to detour or return. Look at the current administration: we were lead down a path that placed us in war without all the information. Politicians play strongly on peoples emotions. One does not have to do anything, just get people excited or upset enough and they will think you are leading and doing something (which you are even if it is the wrong thing to do).
Hillary was winning the race but because the press decided to undermine the efforts of the Democrats they chose to make the issue one of race. Yes even in 2008 this issue is one that evokes such emotion the proverbial carrot has chosen an activist turned politician; a first term Senator to snatch defeat out of the hands of victory and insure continued Republican domination to continue a senseless war, break the backs of the middle class in this country and accomplish everything predicted by Kruschev but imposed on Americans by Americans.
Could Hillary solve all the nations problems? No! The press however has made sure the status quo with government for the few imposed on the many will continue and be the end result and the vanishing of a nation who chooses to tell the world how to live and turns its back on its on people because after all if you are not in power you are expendible! Congratuations meadia moguls. You have once again proven the phrase "Let them eat cake" is still alive and shoved down the throats of the Democrats!!!!