A Different Look at Hillary Clinton's Campaign
The notion that Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign in 2008 has become accepted wisdom among the punditry and in the blogosphere. Criticizing her campaign for not having a post-Super Tuesday strategy, losing key Democratic constituencies, raising expectations in key states and all her other campaign shortfalls, is an appealing narrative to many people including supporters of both Clinton and Barack Obama, but it is driven as much by tautology, Clinton lost therefore she ran a bad campaign, as by thoughtful analysis.
While Clinton's campaign made some very public mistakes and instead of winning the nomination devolved into increasingly far-fetched rationales for explaining why Obama's lead was not legitimate, in many respects her campaign was quite extraordinary. The candidate and her team did an excellent job positioning her, bouncing back from defeats, reinventing the candidate and broadening her base.
Ultimately, of course, the campaign, came up short, but dismissing her campaign as simply poorly run oversimplifies what actually happened. As soon as John Kerry lost in 2004, Clinton began to be viewed as the inevitable nominee for 2008. It is now forgotten that while her nomination was viewed as inevitable, many Democrats worried that she was unelectable. Conversations about the presidential campaign during the 2005-2007 period did not revolve around the question of who the nominee would be, but rather of whether or not Clinton could win the general election. Concerns about Clinton's electability derived from the strong and irrational negative views which many voters had of her as well as her profile as coming from the far left of the Democratic Party.
From the time she got to the senate, Clinton worked to recast herself as a hard-working centrist senator, rather than a liberal ideologue. Politically, this made sense at the time because polls consistently showed that Clinton was strong with her party's liberal base. However, this approach created a small opening for being defeated from the left, one through which, Barack Obama's campaign laterdrove a truck.
Before that happened, however, Clinton had been more vulnerable from the right. That is why moderate Democrats such as, then Virginia governor and current US Senate candidate, Mark Warner explored presidential bids. Warner's was not the only campaign which did not get off the ground. Powerful, experienced and highly qualified candidates such as Joseph Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson were reduced to being essentially fringe candidates. Even John Edwards, the party's 2004 candidate for vice-president and somebody whose profile screamed electability was barely able to run a serious campaign. The failure of any of these bids to get any traction was in no small part due to the effectiveness of Clinton's political operation.
It was not just political positioning that Clinton's campaign did well. Her comeback in New Hampshire, after a very harmful loss in Iowa, could not have happened without the organization, strategic thinking and hard work of a very good campaign. Hers was a true comeback, as polls had showed Obama with an 8-10 point lead and indicated that Edwards was closing in on Clinton for second place. Her New Hampshire comeback was far more impressive than her husband's in 1992 when he finished a strong, but not unexpected, second place in New Hampshire.
The Clinton campaign also displayed an impressive flexibility which made it possible for her to remain competitive after suffering a big loss in South Carolina as well as after her string of defeats eleven straight following Super Tuesday when her campaign looked to be all but over. Her experience and readiness message, which was never altogether convincing, was not competing with Obama's disciplined message of change and consistent record on key issues such as the war in Iraq. Clinton needed to make a change to keep her campaign alive, but making major changes in the middle of a presidential campaign is very difficult.
In this context, Clinton reinvented herself as the electable candidate who could speak to lower income white voters. Although, both of these claims were more spin than substance, this was an enormous and unprecedented political accomplishment. The Clinton campaign successfully managed to repackage the liberal senator from New York, who had been the a flashpoint for criticisms from social conservatives for almost two decades and who had been dogged by doubts about her electability for years, into the voice of the Reagan Democrats and the only person standing between the country and four more of years Bush-McCain.
To many people this transition seemed distasteful. Clinton seemed just a little too pleased with herself as she promoted gimmicky economic solutions, spoke of "hard working Americans, white Americans", stressed that Obama could not win in November, and attacked him as elitist and for saying things at "a closed door fundraiser in San Francisco", while not mentioning that she had raised more than $3 million in that great city. Nonetheless, the political skill it took to affect this transformation and to frame the election for the political and media elite was truly extraordinary. Dysfunctional or badly run campaigns are not able to do things like that.
While Clinton and her team ran a better campaign than that for which they will probably get credit, she still squandered a huge lead in the polls, an initial lead in fundraising as well as much broader political support. After eight years of being part of an administration that never really embraced progressive ideas, and more than a term as a senator trying to move to the center, Clinton had become somewhat unmoored by the time the primaries started. While she likely still believed in the same things in which she has believed since converting from a conservative Republican at Wellesley 40 years ago, ties to her liberal base had begun to weaken. This was particularly true among younger voters who did not remember the Hillary Clinton from 1991-3 or earlier, but had become more accustomed to the moderate senator who in their eyes had voted the wrong way on the most important decision of the 21st century.
It is impossible for anybody other than Clinton or those extremely close to her to know why she cast this vote. Perhaps she did it because President Bush managed to convince her that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, but there may well have been a political consideration to this as well. Clinton may have felt that to stand out and oppose this war, something numerous other liberal senators, including John Kerry and John Edwards, did not do, would have confirmed views of her as too left wing and would have made her genuinely unelectable. Ironically, Clinton, probably unwittingly, put the political cart before the horse, because the same vote that she thought would preserve her electability, ended up helping her lose the nomination.
Clinton probably still would have won if not for two developments that were largely out of her control. The first is that her strongest political asset, President Bill Clinton, turned out to be something of a mixed blessing. At times he campaigned tirelessly and effectively, particularly in states like Texas, and with less success, North Carolina. However, Bill Clinton clearly has lost some of his touch since leaving the White House almost eight years ago, and has been given to angry outbursts and poorly chosen sound bites throughout the campaign, which at times have been quite damaging to his wife's campaign.
The second development was more decisive. Had Obama failed to raise more money than Hillary Clinton, not won in Iowa, not surprised many by consolidating African American support early in the campaign, not proven to be the most exciting Democratic candidate in at least a generation, encountered a major crisis earlier, or not responded to the first major crisis faced by his campaign with an extraordinary speech, Clinton would have likely won the nomination. Clinton's campaign was prepared for everything; everything except Barack Obama and a campaign that exploited her least defended vulnerabilities, while engaging and mobilizing primary voters beyond what anybody expected.
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Senator Clinton, the ‘celebrity’ candidate owing to her high profile as an Ex-First lady, has used the method and styles of a campaign from the past. It has failed her. Senator Obama has wisely sought expert advice and harnessed the technology of today to reach a broader, wider public. Hence the phenomenal success of his fundraising from so many millions of ordinary Americans giving them a direct sense of participation.
It is interesting to look back and notice the difference in style. Clinton, an Ex-First Lady, is used to staged entrances/exits; faking looks for the cameras (i.e. ‘surprised’ looks at a camera when reporters have recorded no-one there ); planted questions; everything very much as it was when she was First Lady.
Obama has often looks like the unpretentious and in many ways unassuming man that he is. One senses very little of the fakery of a staged event. Clinton seldom stops ‘playing’ to the crowds from the second she appears at the top of an aircraft steps, or steps out of a car. It often seems contrived and, as has been reported, often was contrived, particularly in recent weeks. Obama has an aura of a far more natural and genuine person without any need for histrionics, grimaces or faked emotions.
Awful though it must be for the Clintons to accept, at the end of the day the more effective, consistent and better run campaign, combined with a truly extraordinary candidate, has been the winner.
This post puts a very good face on the facts surrounding the Clinton campaign. However, hidden in those facts are the following:
1. Hillary Clinton was a liberal but then "positioned" herself an a moderate. In other words, she operated not on core principles but rather took stands based on what she deemed would make her electable.
2. Hillary Clinton misread the takeaway for many Democrats from the 2004 elections. We had lined up behind the "electable" Democrat rather than Dean who was closer to us on the war only to watch Kerry get swiftboated anyway. That left us feeling disgusted with ourselves in addition to having to sustain an electoral defeat. When Hillary refused to admit her error in voting for the war, it just felt lke she was asking us to go down that path again.
3. Why couldn't Hillary control Bill? And if she couldn't control him, why didn't she sit him down on the sidelines?
4. Running as the candidate of hardworking whites wasn't a strategy that reflected a brilliant campaign team. Appealing to racial prejudices is something any white candidate can do; many have and it always works with some portion of the electorate. No points for morals and zero points for originality there.
I disagree with your original premise. Senator Clinton did run a bad primary campaign. However, as your article points out, she ran a bad pre-campaign. What do I mean by this?
You wrote, "From the time she got to the Senate, Clinton worked to recast herself as a hard-working centrist senator, rather than a liberal ideologue. Politically, this made sense at the time because polls consistently showed that Clinton was strong with her party's liberal base. "
She has always worked on positioning herself, recasting herself, and didn't spend enough time BEING herself. She reacted in ways that, as you say made "political sense."
This is not to say that other politicians don't do the same, but she took it to such a degree that people interpreted her every move as strategic and not genuine.
Finally, your post did not point out that she has, througout her campaign, shown an inability to take responsibility for her own words and actions (three examples - the tortured explanations of her war vote, blaming Bosnia gate on sleep deprevation et al, and her unapologetic apology about her RFK comment).
First: Excellent post: sober, honest, thoughtful.
However:
"As soon as John Kerry lost in 2004, Clinton began to be viewed as the inevitable nominee for 2008." The passive voice here obscures who viewed her that way. Because the Republican Right had demonized her for decades, many never saw her as electable, and expected another sitting Senator or Governor--or John Edwards--to be nominated.
It was Sen. Clinton's campaign tactics against Sen. Obama (when I was a neutral Edwards supporter) that turned me against her. Based on the caucus, primary and fund-raising results, there seem to be millions like me.
Had her every speech not centered on herself (with excessive use of "I", "me", "my") and had she not misrepresented Sen. Obama's position on the war (and her own), exaggerated the depth and substance of her experience (and denigrated Sen. Obama's), and invented her "majority of the popular vote" (in defiance of fact), a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket, and early start to the general election, might have been possible.
Most Democrats who oppose Mrs. Clinton aren't against her current policy positions, laugh or gender, but dislike her (gender neutral) extreme self-absorption and the unprincipled campaign tactics she seems to so enjoy. Absent that context, we might well have swiftly excused "Bosnia" and even her husband's remarks in South Carolina as mere fatigue.
The best-crafted campaign narrative possible couldn't have overcome the primary flaw in Sen. Clinton's campaign: what Sen. Clinton revealed about herself.
I think another mistake she made was when she offered Obama the VP spot when he was winning.
You bet.
That's really an excellent example of her underlying self-absorption, of her denigration of his experience and even of how illogical many of her arguments became: He supposedly lacked the credentials to be President one day, but was somehow qualified to be Vice President, the next!
You are only as strong as your weakest link.
Lincoln, this is a very good article, and the most accurate assessment of the campaign I have read to date. What depresses me (though doesn't surprise me) is that, despite your article pulling no punches in its criticism of Hillary, the Clinton haters response to this is as if you had planted a big wet one on her behind. If you don't launch into a Hillary-bashing diatribe, start to finish, you're not doing your job, as far as these guys are concerned. Amazing.
Anyway, one point you make which I differ with is your assessment of Clinton's Iraq votes. While I'm sure the political calculus you suggest was in her mind as well, I think what really tipped the scale for her was her experience in the Oval Office. After 8 years there at Bill's political confidant and policy driver, she was very sympathetic to a president's desire for utmost flexibility and control of foreign policy issues. To her, the Iraq war vote gave Bush a tool for strong-arming Saddam. She may or may not have had the same reservations about Bush and the intelligence he was selling, as most of the rest of us on the left had, but her allegiance to the office may have trumped those fears. I think that's why she has been so reluctant to express regret for that vote. She CAN'T tie the president's hands at such a critical juncture.
"Had Obama FAILED to raise more money than Hillary Clinton, NOT won in Iowa, NOT surprised many by consolidating African American support early in the campaign, NOT proven to be the most exciting Democratic candidate in at least a generation, encountered a major CRISIS earlier, or NOT responded to the first major crisis faced by his campaign with an extraordinary speech."
That is a hell of a lot of NOTs.
"her strongest political asset, President Bill Clinton"
In fact, we would never even be talking about Hillary if it weren't for Bill. So don't blame him for her loss.
I can see how Hillary won with the team she assembled around her - Mark Penn, Terry McAuliffe and Harold Ickes (The Three Stooges). They're arrogant in their thinking that this election was hers before it began. They thought after Super Tuesday it would be over. Poor planning on their part. Hillary was a good candidate but I also think people are just ready for change, major change. Her slinging back whiskey and beer didn't get her anywhere either. I'm sure this was planned by the Three Stooges as well. We have that now in Bush. I don't want the guy next door to be president. I want someone smarter than me and I definitely want someone smarter than the current empty suit in the WH. So will the democrats unite around the nominee or will they support McCain out of anger? The world is watching.
Oops - I can see how Hillary didn't win.
"Her comeback in New Hampshire, after a very harmful loss in Iowa, could not have happened without the organization, strategic thinking and hard work of a very good campaign." ???
Au contraire, her comeback in New Hampshire was a result of sending out mailers saying that Obama did NOT support a woman's right to choose, a LIE!
"The failure of any of these bids to get any traction was in no small part due to the effectiveness of Clinton's political operation.
RIDICULOUS! It was because we had Obama to vote for.
"Clinton worked to recast herself as a hard-working centrist senator, rather than a liberal ideologue.
Hillary NEVER was a liberal. She is Republican Lite, a BLUE DOG Democrat, pro war, pro corporation, status quo, more of the same. The term "centrist" is similar to the "fair & balanced" approach, that every issue has two sides. Arianna has pointed this fallacy out in her book "Right is Wrong".
"driven as much by tautology, Clinton lost THEREFORE she ran a bad campaign, as by thoughtful analysis." ???
A tautology does not include the word "therefore". "A rose is a rose" is a tautology.
In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary (and usually unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different words that effectively say the same thing.
She ran a bad campaign because she used Rovian tactics. She lied. She said McCane was better than Obama. And she voted for war, which all the campaigning in the world can't change.
I'm glad someone finally mentioned her pro-war vote. It cost her my vote.
hillary clinton is a cancer for liberal causes and the democratic party
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