Errors haunting Clinton's campaign

[Adelante]

The Errors Haunting Clinton
By E. J. Dionne

WASHINGTON -- The most striking critiques of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign have come not from her opponents or her enemies, but from her most loyal friends.

Since December, I have been hearing a steady stream of worries from Clinton partisans who took Barack Obama's challenge seriously from the start. These loyalists felt her campaign was misreading the nature of the political year, the state of the Democratic Party, the organizational requirements of a long struggle for the nomination, and the complexity of the party's attitudes toward both the candidate herself and former President Clinton.

-snip

And Penn committed another sin that, in truth, affected the entire Clinton apparatus: believing that Obama would be trumped by Hillary Clinton's "inevitability" and that media messaging could overpower organization. This meant that the Clinton campaign was, to be charitable, underorganized. During a visit to Little Rock, Ark., a few days ago, I heard tales of woe from people who truly love Hillary and Bill Clinton but were astonished at her campaign's internal shortcomings.

Obama's team is well-known for its use of new technologies to raise money, engage volunteers and spread his gospel in unorthodox ways. Yet equally important has been Obama's own old-fashioned version of micro-politics.

He built local organizations all over the country, especially in the overlapping groups of smaller states and those holding caucuses. He won most of the small states that voted on Feb. 5, the Super Tuesday primaries that the Clinton camp thought would secure her the nomination, and he swept the states that voted in the weeks immediately after. Much of Obama's current lead was amassed in that period.

Not all of these problems can be laid at Penn's feet. But he did come to symbolize a campaign that was much given to infighting and failed to understand the new energies unleashed in the Democratic Party by the reaction against George W. Bush. It did not grasp early enough how much politics has changed since the Clinton '90s. The post-Penn Clinton campaign has only a little time and a narrow window to make up for these mistakes.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/penn_the_symbol_of_clintons_pr.html

[Onlooker]

1. Their amazing greed cost them

The Clinton's obscenely devoted much of the last 7 years to using their positions to rake in millions of dollars. No one has used the presidency for personal gain as much as the Clintons did. In the course of doing so, they lost touch with the Amerian people. They believed in the power in money, which they had early on, and probably believed it was inevitable that such wealthy, high-placed people would be able to beat someone like Obama. In the 1990s, we knew the Clintons. Through their avarice, they became strangers.

[KittyWampus]

2. EJ, I love you but we both know Penn didn't leave the Clinton campaign and there is NO WINDOW LEFT

for Clinton's comeback.

[dkf]

3. Obama's organizational skills are a huge asset we will need for the General.

It also shows he has better leadership skills than does Hillary.

[BeyondGeography]

4. "Her campaign seemed to have only two speeds: overconfidence and panic."

That's a great line, befitting of a campaign that never really knew how to win this thing.

Penn takes a lot of hits, and rightfully so. But it's Hillary's campaign at the end of the day and it has been a bad one. Someone who has been in public life for the better part of four decades should have had a better read on the country, should have known that "inevitability," and "media messaging" were not going to be enough for the majority of primary voters and caucus goers.

That she so fundamentally misread the mood of what is supposed to be her audience after all these years shows that she not only deserves to lose, but that her presidency would have been a reactive, awful struggle, currying favor with narrow "microtrend" sub-groups and never coming close to connecting with the American people.

[Adelante]

5. Yep, they just didn't get it nt

[City Lights]

6. That line says it all. eom

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. I LOVE what you wrote, but one term makes me nauseous:

"microtrend" sub groups.

gag me with a piss filled, rusty bucket

[tinrobot]

7. It's not her errors, it's just her.

Hillary is a great person, but she also has a lot of history and people have already formed opinions about her, some good, some not so good. I don't think any amount of organization or media blitz could have changed that. This is a year where people wanted something different than what Hillary is selling.

Whenever a candidate starts losing, people look to find mistakes, but sometimes, the timing is just not right. I think that's the case here -- it's just not her year.

[Adelante]

8. I think the timing is not right, as well

But if anyone had told me last year the mighty Clinton machine would fumble this primary season so badly, I would have said, Yeah, right :eyes: