Memo to Hillary: How to Be the Comeback Kid

To: Hillary Clinton
Fr: An Uncommitted Democrat
RE: What to say tonight when you lose New Hampshire

Anyone who said you have to win New Hampshire tonight is an amateur. These have been tough losses, and South Carolina isn't looking good, but your campaign can still recover. It's just a matter of math.

Your advisers made a big mistake after you finished third in Iowa to even frame you as competitive in New Hampshire (or any of these early small states). As likeable as you can be in person, there isn't enough time now for you to beat Obama in a retail war of political personalities in small states.

His campaign and the upcoming primary schedule are starting to resemble a basketball game with one hot team on a fast break. It looks like it is getting out of hand, but there is time to regroup. You have to change strategy, but you also have to call time out. You have to stop the momentum.

Your Waterloo isn't New Hampshire. Or South Carolina. Or Nevada. It's California.

California is where you can change the momentum of this campaign. On Super Tuesday, you'll win New York, and he'll win Illinois. California is up for grabs. It's the richest state in terms of delegates, and it's the cornerstone of any viable Democrat's general election strategy.

So, tonight, when you lose New Hampshire, call time out. Launch the California campaign. You can steal the spotlight from Obama and effectively negate the impact of further losses in South Carolina and Nevada if you publicly change strategy. (You'll get the coverage, because the press will eat that up.)

But the announcement has to be bold. So, here is my suggestion. Tell voters four specific things you will change in America during the first 100 days of your presidency. Then challenge Obama to do the same.

You aren't going to regain the momentum by waiting for him to make some patronizing gaffe like saying, "You're likable enough Hillary." You won't regain the momentum because Drudge and the Huffington Post report your eyes got misty. You won't regain the momentum because the former president takes a call from you in the middle of a speech and ends the conversation with "I love you."

The momentum is going to change when you take the offensive and change your message. The issues don't have to change, just the frame.

First and foremost STOP TALKING ABOUT THE PAST 35 YEARS, because nobody believes there has been a lot of change during that time. The past 35 years have been Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. Tell yourself that your whole campaign depends on you never ever mentioning the number 35 again.

Instead, make your magic numbers 4 and 100. It's even fine to come out and say that.

Pick four specific things you are going to do for Americans during your first 100 days if they elect you, and hammer those promises home on television and in every personal appearance you make. Don't talk about anything else.

I don't know what they are. I don't have the research. But you know that people are starting to prepare their income tax returns. So, you might consider piggybacking on that.

Here are some ideas:

• Make 100 percent of health care expenses deductible for the next three years or until Congress passed health care reform that you could sign.
• Seal the interest rates on federally insured college loans at 3 percent for the next six years.
• Direct Gen. Petraeus to present you with a specific plan that would begin the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and that you would tell Americans as much as you can about that plan without jeopardizing the safety of any of our armed forces.
• Then, challenge Obama to tell Americans his four things. Get him off the platitudes and vague notion of this "change" that he is going implement by inviting everyone to come together. Make him offer four concrete things he will do in his first 100 days.

Then, you two square off in debates and with television ads on what is realistic and on who is promising something he/she can't deliver. We want to hear that, and you have a chance at winning that dialogue. That is where your 35 years in government is your strength. He is going to make a mistake, because you do know the process better.

But you need to stop talking about the past and start talking about the future. Remember the math. Go to California, ditch the number 35 and build your strategy around the numbers 4 and 100.

And tell us that tonight when you lose in New Hampshire. That is how you will turn this campaign around. That is what the country wants to hear.

Comments

[nellie]

07:45 PM on 01/08/2008

She's ahead right now.

[starboymikey]

07:37 PM on 01/08/2008

You know, the bottom line on Clinton/Obama is really pretty simple. Clinton is old news, Obama is fresh.

I think Americans are just worn out by the past two decades of poor to mediocre leadership and just want a breath of fresh air Right now, Obama's got a lot of mojo in the fresh air dept. Huckabee has some of the same "right stuff", but his appeal is mostly to a limited audience that wants to shut everyone else up. Edwards, MCain, Romney, Giuliani ... they are just more old news written in a slightly different font style.

All this stuff about "substance" is really just more of the same horseshit, formulaic rhetoric we've all heard before, put forth by the media and desperate candidates who really have no new ideas to offer, but would like you to think they do.

I would maintain that style is actually more important than "substance," but only if that style inspires hope that a better day is coming. I know it's been said a million times, but Obama really does have a charismatic style we haven't seen since the Kennedys.

Right now, at this point in history, we need inspiration and hope more than a list of programs and promises which people know will never come to pass anyway.

Give us an inspiring leader who we can believe in, who truly wants to bring people together and improve our lives. Give us that and we can believe that the right programs will come in due course.

Obama's big plus is that he has the power to inspire. Clinton unfortunately does not, and no amount of "experience" or list of programs she hopes to enact can make up for that.

[MarkieBee001]

07:30 PM on 01/08/2008

That's OK Hillary bring it to California. Our strong grassroots campaign for Obama is waiting for you. Thousands strong and about to be even more flush with cash. That huge lead you once enjoyed in the Field Polls out here have evaporated. Our phone banking and canvassing revealed huge amounts of undecideds and few Hillary fans. In fact, we found just as many Obama fans as Hillary with the vast majority not even engaged yet in the primary process of selecting their candidate. This, of course, was well before Iowa and no the thumping Hillary will take in New Hampshire. California primary used to be in June, so we're used to jumping on bandwagons. Since the primary is Feb. 5, it's about time California has a chance to effect the nomination... and that vote will go to Obama.

[FadeIn]

07:24 PM on 01/08/2008

Excellent ideas. I hope she reads them and takes your advice. This country could use a strong woman at the helm. I've met Hillary and she's the one for the job. And as a man, I'm proud to back her.

[nypoet22]

06:05 PM on 01/08/2008

i have read a lot of "advice" for how hillary can win, and in my opinion all the advice i've seen is picking at nits; none of it strikes at the heart of her electoral difficulty among democrats. right or wrong, i think the biggest problem hillary has is that she's perceived as cut-throat, selfish, egocentric, calculating, dishonest, not a team player. this perception, however entrenched, is reversible.

although i support obama, he's still far from unbeatable. but obama's popularity is very much a wave, and you don't beat a wave by slapping the surface of the water, nor by trying to surf above it. the only way to really beat a wave is with an ocean.

if hillary really wants to turn things around and blow obama out of the water, she'll admit a few of her failings and re-frame the entire primary. after all, it's not really a contest between opposing candidates and views, but a collaboration among those with similar views to choose the best direction for the country. if her unique experience would serve us best as president, hillary needs to do what her husband has historically been best at, effectively present the moment as not only bigger than obama, but more importantly, bigger than herself.

[Overd0g]

04:56 PM on 01/08/2008

Hopefully she'll "come back" to Arkansas.

[voice08]

04:48 PM on 01/08/2008

I agree. Basic lesson; She should not be reactive. Instead she should proactively argue her case for presidency. Iowa and New Hampshire are just the first steps. It is good that she gets to learn fast with these defeats. One thing I am seeing though is a trend of "American Idol" kind of politics; we see this with 'Fahrenheit 9/11"; we saw this will Al Gore's "An Inconvenient truth". Hope is great o have but not enough in itself.

[hrayovac]

04:27 PM on 01/08/2008

Joe,

Strategically yes, California is what you would do if you didn't care about the dignity of the person running. "Do the math" only works on a daily basis in campaigns as things change rapidly: those Hillary committed super d's will get Obama committed overnight.

The "four things" box is your best suggestion. This will only work if voters feels positive that Hillary can be trusted to be consistent once she got in office. Remember that her platitudes about "fighting for us" started back in her Senatorial run, and preceeded her vote to authorize war in Iraq.

[Hematite]

04:14 PM on 01/08/2008

"STOP TALKING ABOUT THE PAST 35 YEARS"

What else is she supposed to talk about?

Why anyone would be rooting for Hillary at this point is beyond me. If you don't like Obama, Edwards is the obvious alternative. Hillary adds nothing to the race now. Hillary minus inevitability equals zero.

[Thabit]

04:14 PM on 01/08/2008

The 4- 10 plan wont work any better than her previous plans. I said in another post and i will repeat it here, it's the basic campaign structure where she falls down. Hilliarys campaign is about what "I" will do when "I" am president. Barak tells his people , "If you want change , WE can do it. " I just went back and listened to his speaches and in every one he gives an example of how he listened to YOU about an issue or a problem. I don't have a crystal ball so i have no idea if he is going to DO anything about what he's hearing, but he at least gives the apearence of listening to us, and no one else has done that in more than 7 years. After 7 years of fear , Hope is a strong message as well, and like him and trust him or not, he does know how to inspire hope. With him in the "Bully Pulpit" he might be able to publicly shame congress and the senate into doing the right thing for a change.

[satyriasis]

04:11 PM on 01/08/2008

Hillary needs to emphasize the fact the right wing hates her guts. That means she must be doing a lot right.

[KSH]

03:44 PM on 01/08/2008

Note to Cutbirth:

Sir you are not an uncommitted Democrat.

By laying out a plan for Clinton I am guessing you want her to be President. I don't see a plan for Obama, Edwards, or Richardson.

So I digress...

[Samson1]

03:41 PM on 01/08/2008

And Please, Hillary, change the music in your commercials! It sounds like elevator music in a nursing home. You need to be more energetic, more alive, younger. And don't even think about Celine Dion!

[junetalks]

03:30 PM on 01/08/2008

Hillary is losing now because she is Hillary. It's ugly to see the Clintons go negative.

[Nonamnesiac]

03:29 PM on 01/08/2008

Although your advice is probably sound, I honestly believe her message -- that she is by far the most qualified and intelligent candidate for President -- so contradicts her votes for killing and maiming young Americans and Iraqis, the Patriot Act, Kyl-Lieberman and refusing to commit to a date when they'll be out if she is elected and her double-talking rationales for her votes and actions on those issues -- that any objective observer (most of the Democratic electorate as opposed to the corporate controlled media who largely joined her in lying us into the war and continued to push to keep us in the war by pushing the line that a calamity of biblical proportions would occur if we leave and now simply don't report on the war) sees her for what she is -- a limited world view neo-Con light candidate. Additionally her comments about Hugo Chavez, a twice elected leader in internationally monitored and approved elections whether you like him or not, were outright stupid and contributed to her being perceived as a neoCon. She appears to be willing to sacrifice lives and limbs against US interests in order to appear like a warmongering woman solely because she believes that the U.S. would elect a warmongering woman. Although she may be brilliant in an academic sense, she comes off as someone with incredibly poor judgment who will simply say anything in order to justify that poor judgment. She comes off completely untrustworthy.

And I don't believe she can run away from that whether she runs in SC and Nevada to Hollywood or not.