I hate to start this before its over because I don't want to jinx Obama but wanted to start this while its fresh on the mind. Reading a thread on politico.com I think the most pertinent problem for Hillary is that she felt a since of entitlement to the White House. Hillary was villified for a lot of things that were unfair and down right mean during her husbands presidency but one thing I do think one thing was fair game. Her Health Care Policy. Not the actual policy, but the fact that her as a first lady was trying to set a policy that should have been handled by elected officials. She thought she had that type of authority being married to the president. Even at the time I was uncomfortable with that idea. Fast forward 14 years, she still has this since of entitlement to the White House. A year ago this shouldn't have even been a race. She was the person everyone thought would be the candidate, she's got the clinton machine, and she had the party establishment. The wheels have fallen off, as evidenced by her lack of campaign management. The thread from politico.com linked an article from The Atlantic. The strategy, was something like Rudy's, in the since that it was very arrogant. That she would not have to fight till the presidential election. That she was going to be the nominee. She seems entirely caught off guard that she's not the front runner anymore. The question I have is why does she think this way. Was she fooled by her advisors, or does she really think that she was entitled to be first lady.
Bill Bill went wrong for Hillary. (And I like Bill) Hillary panicked after Iowa and overreached with Bill. And she didn't plan for after Feb 5th. She thought it would be wrapped up by then. She just came up against a movement. bad luck But like I said in the other thread. She'll be a great Senator for New York for many years.
She was a fatally flawed candidate from the outset. She is the poster-child for partisan and polarizing politics. She was doomed to fail, and it's only by virtue of the sad sack democratic field this year, that she didn't lose by huge numbers. That Obama is only barely ahead of her is just a testament to how weak he is (no experience, far left wing policies, no economic sense, bad foreign policy instincts, horrible Commander-in-Chief, etc).
I don't think she was ever a shoo-in. People were expecting her to implode a year ago...two years ago...etc. I think many were surprised how well she did up until this summer. I remember some commentators saying "remind me why I'm not supposed to like Hillary again." I think there were a few reasons her campaign failed. And yes, I think she's done. She failed to capture a vision. She failed to win over 'new media' -- the bloggers and pundits. And even though not everyone reads them, they do, ultimately, have some pretty big influence on the traditional media. Especially since that is where Obama absolutely thrived. She also failed to react to media that is now 24/7 filled with any innuendo, where Huffington Post, O'Reilly and the like have as much influence as the networks. She never overcame the 'cold' 'impersonal' image. She can be hard to relate to. And it does seem that she's been campaigning for more then a decade now. Going negative on Obama backfired. I think it did more to cement the bad stereotypes on Hillary then have an impact on Obama. She didn't show us the 'likeable enough' side enough. Obama very effectively linked her with Bush. Read his speaches and see how often he names her and GWB in the same sentence. It was no accident. He also linked her, GWB and the Clinton presidency as one big nightmare to overcome. Kind of crazy, really, but it worked. In the end, though....perhaps she didn't fail so much as Obama succeeded. I think that against any other Dem candidate she would have done well. And I think that without the character assassinations from her own team, she would have done quite well in a national election too. But Obama's a great candidate in his own right. He not only ran a better campaign -- and timed his surge perfectly -- his strengths are real.
The odds are definately not in Hillary's favor, and I say that as a Hillary supporter. While there were certainly things that she could've done better compared to most other presidential campaigns Hillary Clinton has run a very good campaign. The only problem is that Obama is truly a once in a generation campaign in terms of charisma. Many of the problems that Hillary's campaign has faced aren't that unusual and have been dealt with by even successful campaigns, for instance look at McCain's campaign and in terms of money and organization and votes Hillary's blows his away. To give this a sports analogy this is a case where someone has set an Olympic record in the 100 meter dash only to have the guy next to him set a World record. If Hillary does end up bowing out she won't be alone in terms of running a good campaign and coming up short this year. John Edwards ran a decent campaign and even Bill Richardson had a very good organizations but to continue the analogy it wasn't enough to post personal best times in this election but to set records.
She's fake as can be and people see right thru it. Case & point: Her position on Iraq.....she yammers on about Bush's screwup in every speech and says how heartened she is to see wounded soldiers blah, blah, blah.......HELLO HARLOT!!! YOU VOTED YES ON EVERY AUTHORIZATION & SPENDING BILL FOR THAT WAR SO STFU ALREADY!!
Several things: 1. She never found a message that stuck. People already knew she was a good policy wonk. Repeating that over and over wasn't getting her new voters, though. She had to find a way to reach beyond her base and never found a way to do it. And she was terrible at going negative. Partially because of her demeanor when doing it, and partially because of the silliness of the things she went negative with. 2. Her campaign team was terrible at adjusting to new realities. They knew one strategy and if/when it didn't work, there was no plan B. They banked on inevitability and never really recovered from a rough start. 3. I think I said this at the beginning of the campaign, but ultimately it was going to come down to Hillary vs. the Anti-Hillary, whoever that would ultimately be. The longer there were multiple people in the race, the better for Hillary. The fact that Edwards dropped out before Super Tuesday ultimately really helped Obama coalesce and all the Anti-Hillary vote behind him. On a seperate note, it's been about 7 weeks since Iowa. We have another 8-9 months before the general election. This is going to take forever.
i think the overall, fundamental problem is that too many americans are just sick of the clinton/bush-style of politicking. its not working anymore.
The problem is that you are painting her candidacy as an absolute disaster when historically it has been anything but. The fact that she is still here competing and not hanging out with Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and John Edwards shows her campaign has been effective. The problem with all of these negative analysis is again that someone has been better but compared to practically every other presidential primary campaign Hillary has shattered records for money and votes.
I disagree - I agree she shattered records, but that's in part because she had so many advantages. Competent wife of an extremely popular president. Pissed off, united Democratic Party. Independents flocking to the Dem side. Obama, as great as his campaign has been, still is 50/50 at best if she runs her campaign right. If Bill doesn't go nuts before South Carolina, she doesn't lose by nearly the same margin. And if she spends money organizing ground roots efforts in the Idaho's of the world, Obama doesn't come out of Super Tuesday anywhere near even (Do you realize Idaho and New Jersey were equal in terms of net delegates because of the margin he won by? That was because she had no caucus infrastructure in place). In that scenario, he still wins much of February, but not by the margins or consistency he did. And today, he's likely behind in delegates and still the underdog going into TX/OH. She made multiple, fundamental mistakes in the campaign - and they were the direct result of an arrogance of her top campaign staff. She and Obama raised equal amounts of money through about mid-January. But her campaign spent it on consultants, expensive parties, and expensive hotels. His spent it on building groundroots organizations in every state. As great a campaign as Obama run, Hillary came into it with overwhelming advantages in terms of financing, infrastructure, party connections, and party loyalty. The fact that she's still in the race while Biden and company aren't is a testament to that - not to how she's run the campaign. He certainly could have won it without implosions on her side, but it wouldn't be over on March 5th without that help.
