What Went Wrong... [View All]

The most common post mortem for the Clinton Campaign centers on the advice that she's received from our campaign strategists. The simple fact is that her advisors believed the nomination would be sewn up by Super Tuesday and that the didn't need a fifty-state organization. Mark Penn, et. al. simply didn't plan on a Freshman Senator, who nobody had ever heard of prior to the 2004 convention, being a serious contender in this election cycle.

While their strategy was wrong, it wasn't totally wrong-headed. In most recent primary seasons, the Democratic nomination has been sewn up by Super Tuesday or shortly thereafter. I think one could cut Hillary's Brain Trust a little slack assuming that the primary season would run its normal course. With the exception of John Edwards, there wasn't much else out there in terms of contenders who could go the distance. She had the early money and she had the name recognition -- nine elections out of ten you have the nomination.

So what went wrong? I think for starters you can point to a failure of the Clinton's legendary ability to focus on a simple message. The War in Iraq was the wrong message for Hillary for two reasons -- the first of which is that it could never be simple. She had her own "I was for the war before I was against it" muddle that hamstrung John Kerry in 2004. Any position too complex to put on a bumper sticker is usually bad politics.

She could have avoided this problem, at least a little bit, by forcefully stating that her vote on IWR was a terrible lapse in judgment and one that she won't make again. But for some reason, she was unwilling or unable to confess to voters that she is capable of making an error. And that inability to admit a mistake would be one of the more irritating and frightening characteristics or the current administration.

The second reason that Iraq was a poor choice for Hillary is that, as the economy continued to sour, people started to be more concerned about keeping a roof over their heads than they were about the war or terrorism. Unless that 3:00 a.m. phone call was coming from a bill collector, people were somewhat less than electrified by her experience.

And speaking of the economy, stupid, Hillary has a similarly mixed message about some of the red meat issues that concern liberal and progressive voters. Did Hillary favor NAFTA back in 1995 or didn't she? More to the point, does she favor NAFTA now or doesn't she? During the last two months, Hillary has adopted a much more populist tone in her stump speeches -- but by that time, Obama already owned that issue.

Note to the Obama Campaign: Populism Works! Mike Dukakis made a similar late run at George H. W. Bush in 1988 by rolling up his shirt sleeves and talking to real Americans about real issues.

And one last thing. Remember in 1992, how Bill Clinton's promise of "Change" trumped the Elder Bush's guarantee of "Experience?"

The times, they are a'changing.