Did Hillary Clinton's Media Missteps Help Doom Her Campaign?
It's tough to look at the cavalcade of sexist comments assembled by the Women's Media Center of pundits mouthing off during the Democratic primary race, and not conclude that media-fed sexism played some role in Hillary Clinton's electoral troubles.
That said, this media critic doesn't think sexism was her biggest problem there. Instead, I offer this humble list of the many ways Hillary Clinton blew it when it came to dealing with media during her campaign.
Underestimating the YouTube factor -- It wasn't just that she talked about dodging sniper fire when reporters who had been on the trip had video proof that she didn't. Or that her husband said something on a radio show and then tried to tell reporters that he didn't say it. It was that those about-faces and many more were immortalized on the Internet, allowing foes to pass them around like baseball cards -- endlessly reliving the worst hits of the campaign.
The Clintons, Bill in particular, seemed unprepared for the instant fact-checking and worldwide distribution that the smallest lies get online. It defused one of his biggest weapons, the ability to make any statement sound like the God's truth with his combination of personal charm and ex-Presidential authority. It also made him look whiny and evasive when complaining about press coverage that exposed his obfuscations.
Needless withholding of information that isn't damaging -- The Clintons gave Barack Obama weeks of free milage on criticism that they refused to release their tax records until close to this year's filing deadline. I knew the Clintons were too smart to have anything really damaging in the material -- beyond the fact that they've made a lot of money outside the White House. But this dynamic is something Carl Bernstein dissects in his book about Hillary, A Woman in Charge. In the book, he describes how Hillary Clinton fed some of the trumped-up scandals which bedeviled their presidency, simply by her lawyer-like refusal to release documents which might have proven their innocence. If she becomes a VP nominee, expect a struggle with Obama's camp over Bill releasing the name of donors to his presidential library.
Reliving the Whitewater/Lewinsky press dynamic -- I get that the Clintons feel persecuted by the press because of all the Mickey Mouse crap that went down during the Whitewater/Lewinsky/Impeachment debacle. But when the dust cleared, the president had lied to just about everyone, and the lot of a politician is to endure constant vetting. Acting like a victim every time the press wrote a tough story on them, the Clintons just encouraged irritated journalists to nail them even harder. Isn't it better to pull a McCain and charm them into submission?
It remains an enduring legacy of the conservative media machine -- and their own past mistakes -- that a couple so admired by the public has such awful relations with the Fourth Estate.
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I think that the Press fell in love with the idea of Obama, not necessarily Obama's ideas. Hillary was thus an "obstacle" to the attainment of this "idea". She was vilified like no other politician in recent history by her own party. She made a number of tactical mistakes but nothing can really account for the unreedeming hostility of the activists and top brass of the party.
The remarkable current that flows through all of the items you pointed out is that, in classic fatal-flaw form, the Clintons' making was also their undoing.
None of this would have been nearly as possible if their standard mode of operation (and previous formula for success) didn't involve constant triangulation - reinventing and pandering to best serve any given moment without their seeming to be a thread of real, identifiable "Clinton."
At the beginning of this campaign I was a Hillary Clinton supporter, but by the end, I was supporting Barack Obama and one of the reasons is because he NEVER complains. Even when the media was raking him over the coals about Rev. Wright, he NEVER complained!!! It was like, I(Obama) understand your outrage...
"(T)he Clintons just encouraged irritated journalists to nail them even harder". Is that less than an indictment of so-called journalists perfidy as regards their profession?
Meanwhile ... while we're here talking about Hillary - there's a real deal going on outside.
McCain people are trying to get every free media channel working for them - there is just no more time to talk about Hillary. Right now she is irrelevant.
She should have been in the center of every newspaper in the country congratulating Obama - instead she's dragging out this drama so her peeps can have some leverage to negotiate. She wouldn't have to do that if she would have just embraced Obama with dignity - the Obama supporters would have embraced her too.
Sorry - done with Hillary - she's a distraction. She should be blasting McCain !!
YOU should have had the opportunity (me too) to write an article about how Cool Hillary is - coming out fighting for the Party seconds after her gracious concession speech and endorsement of the Party's pick. Instead she has power drunk Pow Wows with McAuliffe and her Lobbyist roadies ??
No Town Halls with McCain - and 3 Reasons why they shouldn't happen
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HRC's campaign 'died of thousand cuts'. Her very public missteps, misstatements and well, lies were a number of those 'cuts'. Many, including myself, distrusted HRC and her lies and misstatements enforced that belief. It also showed her excessive agressiveness in wanting to win, her frustration that her campaign wasn't the cake walk she expected and having to face a very attractive canidate in Obama. The media part in all this is for good like when they note the lies and innacuracies, but bad when they block out other useful info about a canidate or overplay the canidates mistakes.
Hey, Mr. Deggans -- ENOUGH ALREADY! Why don't you focus on something about Sen. McCain, you know the guy you're going to have to beat in the REAL election? Hillary is over, move on, there's nothing to see her, folks. Get on with the prize you've fought so hard to win, the nomination of the Democratic Party. If you can't do that, well then, there will be an awful lot of people that will have their worst thoughts concerned about their candidate and how badly she has been treated and you will have only to look in the mirror to wonder who is responsible for the continuing divide in the party.
It is not possible to move on until Hillary Clinton concedes defeat and whole heartedly endorses Barack Obama.
The person who is continuing to divide the party is Hillary Clinton. It was a really nasty trick for her to steal Obama's thunder on his day of victory by staging her fake concession speech.
Until Clinton gets in line and endorses the Democratic nominee, she is going to be ridiculed. And rightly so.
Bitjam, you do not require Hillary to do anything or say anything to begin right now, this minute focusing all of the vitriol and angst that you've directed towards Sen. Clinton for these last several months on Sen. McCain. Maybe you need to take a few days off so you can refocus as has Sen. Clinton, because continuing to stew in the juices is not going to do you or the cause any good.
"The person who is continuing to divide the party is Hillary Clinton. It was a really nasty trick for her to steal Obama's thunder on his day of victory by staging her fake concession speech."
Indeed it was a nasty trick. In addition to being wreckless, arrogant, having no class or decency or any regards for the future of the country and the Democratic party. The sooner the citizens of New York vote HRC, the carpet bagger, out of office, the better off they will be.
Her desperation was very disturbing. Her constant self referencing was very disturbing. She did not connect with a lot of people because of this. Her base was a group of very bitter older women who identified with victimhood, and those to whom a racial subtext in her message invoked fear. She definitely did not take the hight road.
Media missteps? You mean all of the lying, pandering and cheating?
Everyone in the US understands why this campaign failed. Everyone except Bill and Hillary...
Good article. I do not think we will ever hear Clinton admit the mistakes she; and him, made during th primary. They constantly changed the bar, and the media went right along with them. I do not think she was the victim of sexism, no more than I think Obama was the victim of racsm. She is a sore loser who really exposed herself, on Tuesday night, when she did not even congratulate him for winning!
When this primary started off, I was in her corner. I feel kind of guilty that I ever supported her.
"a couple so admired by the public..."
What public? I don't think I know anyone who admires the Clintons for anything other than their insatiable, single-minded narcissism.
Well, I certainly admired Bill when he was the only thing standing between America and a 30-year Republican stranglehold on the White House. For all his faults and moral bankruptcy, he was the only Democrat of his time who was able to beat the GOP at its own ruthless game. I shudder to think of where we'd be right now if Clinton wasn't around to check Gingrich and his goons for 8 years. He was a winner when his party desperately needed a winner. He won ugly, but he won. Twice.
You write that if she becomes a VP nominee there will be a struggle to release Bill's donors.
I doubt that she would be in the running to become the VP nominee unless those records have already been released.
That's a joke, right?
Yes, the instant fact check was a good reason for Hillary's failure to capture peoples votes and maybe she would have gotten closer in the "old days" before the internet. But as those of us who actually watched as she led the charge of the "radical right" who was againest them until she went to bed with the very same people she blamed for their mess Bill made. It makes me sad that the women who followed Hillary and will take their last breath believing Hillary was wronged all based on the ability of the clinton's to sell theirversions of reality to those willing to buy it. Too many women have lived with mothers or themselves being the wrongd woman and Hillary sold that well and how she survived that to become a senator. I have watched and have seen that no matter how and what is done to show the truth of the clinton machine these women will never "get it" that it was all about Hillar and never them.
What a letdown for many of us who were actually rooting for Hillary at the beginning. It's absolutely unbelievable that it all went right through her hands, right through her fingers, like sand.
It's such an important lesson to learn, and that's why it hits home so strongly..
What was all this about? The more a person would dare try to contrive, or make it about them, the more it all turns to sand. It cannot, this time, or anymore, be about a cnadidate.
It's about the American people.
The big take away from all this- Hillary was advised, or put it on herself SO MISERABLY BAD.
Politicians have so stupidly closed their eyes to how the web has explosively boosted the intelligence of the masses and helped us realize we don't have to take this dumbing-down, these lies, this shameful sorry excuse for leadership ANYMORE!!!
If she'd have been a regular on DemocracyNow!, a regular on this blog,, Grassroots-humble, from the bottom -up, she'd be the nominee, right now.
Per a post above, Hillary wasn't wronged. She was wrong. She has a future to make it better.
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