Clinton Campaign Post Mortem
I hope the election gods don;t strike me down, but here I go.
- Didn’t say she was wrong about Iraq until last night,
- No “plan B” after the inevitability strategy failed,
- No ground game,
- Courted big donors, ignored small,
- Narrow “50% plus 1” delegate strategy,
- “Going negative” played into voters perceptions,
And perhaps the biggest problem…
- No easy to comprehend campaign theme.
Look at it this way, if candidates are “marketers” and voters are “customers” what was Clinton trying to “sell?”
What was her “idea” as Seth Godin puts it?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBIVlM435Zg[/youtube]
“Ideas that spread win!”
So true. Also, if you can’t run your campaign and switch tact when necessary, how ready are you really on day one?
Plus her campaign was just as much about fear as any Republican’s. Instead of “Fear the Terrorists! Only I can protect you!” her message was “Fear the Republicans! Only I can protect you!” The American public’s fear button has simply worn out from overuse.
Al’s right – also many of us want to move on from the previous century and what she (intentionally or not) represents….
This is counting chickens……but I am jumping in anyway.
Related to the inevitability item, Clinton sought to run a General election-tilted campaign, largely expecting to be able to capture so much media attention to launch right past having to speak to mostly to Democratic primary voters or to her opposition.
Her problem was badly assessing the current mood of the Democratic party base and of independent voters who are remarkably motivated to get past the BushCo era in a pretty decisive manner. Once she got to Super Tuesday it became clear that she was in catchup mode to the base she tried pretty hard to ignore….
Her campaign was perfectly suited to win under any circumstances other than what hit her this year. Obama is the biggest political phenomenon I can recall, and his campaign was brilliant, especially the grassroots/internet nature of it. If Dean’s campaign was the prototype (we all now see that Dean was not nearly the messenger that Obama is), then this was ‘Dean on Steroids’.
I’ve always been a big believer in grassroots campaigns as opposed to top-down, endorsement-driven campaigns, but I never could have envisioned the sophisticated heights the Obama campaign has reached. I don’t think they’ve missed a trick.
And the grassroots/internet nature of the campaign, plus the fact that it was a lengthy campaign, bodes well for November in that battle-tested organizations have been built in virtually every state.
This does feel like the consumation of something Dean started.
I’m glad the 1990’s DLC style “ignore the base” mindset has been pretty much demolished.
Al – as for the fear button. Yes it was worn out BUT hearing the “I can beat the Republican” message from Clinton made me think “So what?” given her voting record.
That is probably why she was hitting “health care” so much down the stretch. It was the only issue that she could talk about and sound like a Democrat.
I don’t think I have any special knowledge of people, but the one thin I knew to be a fact was that HRC would never win a general election. She could have beeen running against Satan himself in November and she would have lost. There is no one (Bill to a lesser extent) that can get the Republican party motivated more than HRC.
I believe Bill’s gaffe in South Carolina awakaned this nagging thought that was deep down inside the collective subconscious of the Democrats. Super Tuesday was just our way of saying, “No, we won’t lose in November.”
I must also add that for Clinton to say she will be ready to run the country on Day One is preposterous. How can you expect to run the country, when you cannot run a campaign.
People wonder how anyone can have the experience to be president, well winning a difficult primary and general election is experience enough. Hats off to GWB, though I may disagree with with many of his ideals and principles, the man knew how to run a campaign.
Bush / Clinton / Bush / STOP THE INSANITY!
I am very grateful that the Democratic base did not hitch it’s wagon to this nag. .Org or no, it is time to move on.
My belief that she played to whatever direction the wind was blowing that morning was proved by her Sybil-like change of multiple personalities during the campaign. You never knew what she was going to be that day, and it makes many of us nervous to have that kind of psychosis in the Presidency. Hell, look how badly we got screwed with just sant-but-dumb.
Far be it from me to defend Hillary, but her political clunkiness strikes me as being closer to Al Gore than Sybil.
Like Gore, people talk about how engaging she is when not delivering a stump speech. Unfortunately for her, her wooden delivery makes the term ‘stump speech’ seem redundant.
Oh, and she was up against Obama, who made her look like even a weaker speaker than she probably was.
And, the Clinton’s never understood that the brand had been damaged by Bill’s shenanigans. It wasn’t so much what he did but that he was dumb enough to do it. He gave the Republicans an excuse to impeach him for pete’s sakes and a lot of Democrats were in the mood to switch brands if something better came along. Thank goodness something did because HRC would have lost in November.
I don’t agree that Hillary would have guaranteed a loss against McCain, but I’ll agree it would have been pretty damn close.
I received a call today from a friend who writes for Kiplinger. He calls me for an outside the beltway perspective. The first words out his mouth were, “I know you’re for Obama, now I want to know why?”
Am I really that predictable?
I thought about the question, well, because this guy is pretty deep, and knew what he was really asking. How does a mouthy, often misunderstood (ha!) woman not vote for another mouthy, misunderstood woman?
Answer: When the mouthy, misunderstood woman running for president transcends gender. HILLARY is running for president. The brand name trumped her sex.
Funnily enough, the same can be said for Obama. His race has become an afterthought.
(Not in the hills of Tenn., but you get my point)
Just thought I’d share my thoughts. My head hurts now.
Touch Down
I think there is a lot of validity to what everybody has said, but I’d add an epilogue.
I have always thought that Bill Clinton understood media better than any other politician in the 20th Century. Unfortunately, 8 years later the media landscape (blogs, You-Tube) has so changed that Bill no longer understood it.
I think Hillary therefore planned a 1990s campaign for 2008. On the other hand, Obama’s initial campaign for Senate occurred in very much a similar media milieu as now.
Sort of like generals planning for the last war….
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, John Lewis of Georgia has leapt from the sinking ship that is the Clinton campaign to endorse Obama. (Lewis was one of those pesky superdelegates who was expected to buck his district’s vote count and pledge for Hillary)
I’m glad the 1990’s DLC style “ignore the base” mindset has been pretty much demolished
maybe that message will be given to Tom Carper