Top 10 Reasons Obama Defeated Clinton for the Democratic Nomination

[Leo 9]

Robert Creamer

Top 10 Reasons Obama Defeated Clinton for the Democratic Nomination
Posted May 12, 2008 | 10:18 AM (EST)

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Now that the outcome of the battle for the Democratic nomination has been settled beyond a reasonable doubt, it's worth looking systematically at the major factors that gave victory to Obama. After all, fifteen months ago, conventional wisdom viewed Obama as an audacious long shot. The very idea of a first-term African American senator with a name like Barack Obama defeating the vaunted Clinton machine seemed preposterous.

Here are my Top Ten reasons why lightning struck in the contest for the 2008 Democratic nomination (apologies to David Letterman ):

#10. Great Team. Obama assembled a great team that could work together. He stayed away from lobbyist insiders like Clinton's Mark Penn or McCain's Charlie Black, and choose political professionals who are committed to progressive values like David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes. From the first he insisted on one key rule: no drama. There was little of the infighting and division in the Obama operation that ate away at the Clinton campaign. Clinton had many capable staffers and consultants, but Penn's divisive leadership style and failures as a strategist doomed the campaign organization to dysfunction. When the brilliant Geoff Garin was tapped to succeed Penn as Chief Strategist in April, it was simply too late.

#9. All-State Strategy. Mark Penn was convinced that Clinton could sew up the nomination by Super Tuesday focusing only on the big states. In fact, some have reported that he mistakenly believed that California had a "winner take all" primary. Obama's team hunted for delegates in every nook and cranny of America - especially in the caucus states that Clinton really didn't contest. Obama ran an active, on-the-ground campaign in every contest, from California to Guam. As a consequence, as one anonymous Clinton insider reports, Clinton lost the nomination in February after Obama ran the table in 11 straight states.

#8. No Plan B. The Clinton campaign had no fall-back plan when it failed to capture the nomination on February 5. There was no money, no organization and no plan to contest the states that lie in the land beyond Super Tuesday.

snip

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/top-10-reasons-obama-defe_b_101307.html

[Tellurian]

1. When did the defeat happen? We all must have missed it...or you're dreamin!

[scheming daemons]

2. LOL.... shouldn't you be changing your site to McCainIs44.org or HillaryIs45.org?

[DevonRex]

4. Heh heh heh. nt

[redqueen]

6. That's not the site where there's a fund raiser for McCain,

is it?

[Tellurian]

9. No, I'm not changing anything...and certainly not to "zerois 44"

[donheld]

37. Why not change it from "Hillaryis44" to "Hillaryis0?"

[Arugula Latte]

"HillaryIs45.org" --- bwaaa!

:spray:

[Doityourself]

40. Ha Ha...lmao..or something like Hillaryis00

[Occam Bandage]

7. Hillary's finished. You may have missed it, but most of us didn't.

[Tellurian]

10. You did...O supporters speak here from an echo chamber..

Theres been no official declaration Obama is the nominee..

Unless you have a link from the DNC..

[Occam Bandage]

13. Where is the official declaration for McCain?

[Tellurian]

29. There isn't anyone else running in the GOP..duh!

Romney and Huck dropped out..(except for Ron Paul)

most of all, no one is disputing he is the nominee.

Too bad, you can't say the same!

[Occam Bandage]

35. Ron Paul is. Ron Paul also plans on attempting to win it at the convention.

And many of Ron Paul's remaining rabid fans do dispute that John McCain is the nominee.

[Leo 9]

8. It's over.

[nichomachus]

11. As the man said, February

she lost the thread when she didn't win the shlok and awe of Super Tuesday. She had no Plan B. Then, she began flailing.

The next nail in the coffin was she she mocked Obama and the millions of people who voted for him with the "The skies will open" snark.

Lending yourself money is the key signal that you're done for. On one hand, it means the donations just aren't coming and on the other hand, it signals to the big money donors that you're losing. They like to ride a winner and so they stop donating. Then, you lend yourself more money and it's all downhill from there.

The die-hard Hillary fans are the only ones who don't realize it's over. Even she knows it's over. She just wants to make sure she gets some of her own money back.

[SoCalDem]

19. and yet our lame-o media propped her up since feb and caused Obama

to waste millions of dollars and an opportunity to rest up and prepare for the general election.. Even republicans had enough respect for the process, to allow a front runner to emerge early enough for some planning time..

Our Hucka-shee morphed from possible contender to stalker..:(

[nichomachus]

26. I don't think she should have bagged it in February

I think that was the death knell for the campaign, but political campaigns have risen from the ashes before. If she had been able to adapt to the disaster of Super Tuesday -- or if Obama had screwed up big time -- she might be riding high right now.

However, Super Tuesday was the mortal wound, and as things got worse and worse, she should have defined a point at which she knew it was a lost cause. But, like so many other mistakes in the campaign, they didn't do that either.

Then, she became like the gambler who gets in so deep he has to keep playing in the ever-decreasing hope he can get some of his money back. Perhaps the saddest things I've seen are ATMs in casinos. However, Hillary was using her personal money in much the same way.

[SoCalDem]

28. Had she dropped out then, many of the harmful things that happened afterwards

would not have happened, and if she had suspended her campaign, she could have held her delegates..and since she had a fair amount, she would have always been the "go-to" person, should something happened.

Things since then have hurt HER (and Bills) reputation more than anything else...and the rifts may be irreparable..

[nichomachus]

34. Agreed -- but

had she run a better campaign after ST, she might have been able to recover. As I said in another post, what did the damage was her inability or unwillingness to adapt and overcome. She kept going back to a bag of tricks that wasn't working.

It's like the guy who came to install a new countertop in my kitchen. When he showed up, it was too short. He ended up sawing it three times, and finally I had to tell him that no matter how many times he sawed it, it would still be too short.

The "harmful things" that you talk about didn't need to happen. She could have run a different campaign after ST, but she didn't.

[NJmaverick]

15. It was pretty much official last Tuesday

[gmudem]

27. More like since Wisconsin

But I guess nobody wants to talk about how Clinton has been spending months campaigning when she already knew she would lose.

It must suck if you gave money to her anytime in the last 3 months knowing full well she had no chance of winning.

[Tesha]

17. Hillary was defeated back in 2002 on the day she voted for the Iraq War Resolution.

It just took until a little while ago to absolutely
prove it (to everyone but Hillary and her adherents).

Tesha

[underpants]

22. Defeat? What defeat? There is no defeat! it is all lies LIES I tell you!!!

[Leo 9]

39. Hillary is a Huge Hedgehog.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/dr07.htm

[DevonRex]

3. Great article. Thanks for the link. I had intended to read this

but got sidetracked, what with all the weird posts to read this morning. K&R

[EFerrari]

5. Why does Penn get work?

:shrug:

[localroger]

12. Because it worked in 1996

And I guess some people have longer memories for success than failure?

[EFerrari]

18. That's a good point. But didn't he realize he was running someone else

this time? He hasn't served this Clinton very well.

[kay1864]

38. Actually he was part of her Senate campaign too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn

[uponit7771]

25. because he was using the reThug primary system to count delegates & DLCers liked that

[LongTomH]

14. Number 4 is especially interesting to me as a former Edwards supporter!

#4. Hope and Inspiration trumped Fear and Anger. A core element of that Obama message has always been hope and inspiration. Early on, John Edwards hit an important cord of populist anger that is critical to any successful Democratic campaign. Right now especially, people want their leaders to be populist outsiders not "competent" insiders. But Edwards was unable to resolve that anger into hope. Obama touched the anger but also held out possibility.

I have to admit he's right. John tapped the core of anger out there, but never successfully made the flip to convert anger into hope.

[nichomachus]

16. Good summary, but he left one out

Maybe it was wrapped in there somewhere, but I think a big factor was the campaign's and the candidate's inability to adapt to a changing situation on the ground.

Hillary had a playbook, carefully crafted from the Rove, Gingrich, and Delay successes of the last 15 years. What they failed to realize is that these may work in a GE, but they're not going to work in a primary on Dems, who are sick of them and turned off by them.

She was running her GE campaign in the primary. Big mistake.

Even so, when it became apparent it wasn't working, instead of figuring out what the voters wanted and adapting to that, the campaign just reached deeper into the Rove, Gingrigh, Delay bag and dragged out more of the same stuff that wasn't working. And, miscalculation quickly became disaster.

[Peregrine Took]

20. No. 11. The path was groomed for him by Chicago politicians. He just had

to show up with a suit and tie on and off he went to Springfield and DC. Whoosh!!!

[NatBurner]

24. lol

[Sinistrous]

31. Ding! Ding! Ding! And you win the prize for

the most insipid attempt at snark I've read all week.

Congratulations.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. We need to use the all state strategy in the GE

for that is the way to win. It will not only get us the White House, but will also garner us larger majorities in the House and Senate.

[underpants]

23. As dead on accurate as it is obvious.

Obama has not gone negative no matter what the DC MSM says

[Leo 9]

30. I hope it makes greatest page.

Thanks for your recommendation. :)

[Tresalisa]

32. She ran her campaign like it was 1992 all over again,

apparently not realizing that we are now in the next century. :shrug:

[gateley]

33. What an interesting article!

I think it was an objective assessment of where the campaigns went right and wrong.

At the end, the author says "people vote for people". I find that true in myself.

[hogwyld]

36. One the best quotes out of the entirely true article

is this little gem near the end:

While the Clintons represented the Bridge to the 21st Century, Obama is the 21st century.