How Obama Won and Clinton Lost
A year ago, Hillary Clinton was 30-points ahead over any rival in the Democratic primary. She had outraised everyone at that point by more than a two to one margin. She had the backing of the majority of the Democratic establishment. She had the backing of a popular former president who happened to be her husband. And she lost.
So what happened?
Like any story, the reasons and causes aren't easily reduced to a one paragraph explanation and there were multiple causes for why Clinton lost. I will reflect on just on a few from my perspective.
This is a race that Clinton could have won and should have won, and came very close. And her gender ultimately didn't have much to do with the loss.
The following is my attempt at explaining what happened:
1. She ran for months and months as the candidate of experience and the electorate overwhelmingly wanted change. She wasted many resources and much time arguing and building a case based on experience, and two-thirds of Democratic voters wanted change. She tried turning this around late in the game and Obama owned it at that point.
2. The political environment of this race was much different than 2004 or 2000. In those elections, strength was the key attribute the country was looking for. The country desired more of a father figure. Today, the country is looking for more a a healing presence, someone more nurturing and demonstrating an ability to bring the American family together -- more of a mothering persona. The country wanted a Mom, and Hillary gave them a Dad. She tried to hard to demonstrate her toughness and strength and voters wanted more caretaking and sensitivity.
3. Presidential campaigns are always about understanding voters fears, but then asking them to vote their hopes. Clinton did an unbelievable job speaking to voters fears but she never crossed the bridge to speak to voters hopes. She got stuck in the fear equation and voters needed her to move to hope at some point.
4. The Clinton campaign based their tactical strategy on the idea that this would be a short race and big state victories early would decide it quickly. This primary became a long race and every single caucus or primary mattered. Clinton scrambled to retool the campaign based on a longer effort, in the midst of a heated primary.
5. Hillary Clinton never separated herself enough from Bill in the course of this race. Voters wanted to see her stand on her own two feet, and understand that on her own she could do the job and it would be her presidency. Every time Bill showed up on the radar it reminded voters that she wasn't on her own. And couple this with fact that Bill Clinton, while having a great political ear and voice advocating on behalf of himself, seems to not be as adept at advocating on behalf of someone else.
6. The country is looking for something new and hip and next generational, and this is especially true for voters under 30 (the 9/11 generation). Barack Obama gave voters this, and Hillary didn't. Obama was the Ipod of this election, while Clinton was the Walkman. The Walkman is reliable and easy to use and works great, it just doesn't have the hip factor that an Ipod does.
Obviously, this is only a short list of causes from my own perspective, and equally as important was Obama's candidacy, his message, and his campaign's tactical successes.
But in the end, this race was in Hillary Clinton's hands and it is a race she should have won, no matter her opponent.
And dealing with a loss where you didn't have to lose, but for your own actions, is heartwrenching. I do feel for the process she must be going through and will go through. Peace to her.
Originally published on ABC News.
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Mr Dowd and many of the commenters give good reasons for Hillary's loss (or Barack's win). Here's one I haven't seen mentioned: Hillary surrounded herself with the wrong people (expensive, out-of-touch, infighting, multiple-agenda) and let herself be guided by their bad advice, while Barack put together a smoothly working, competent team which stuck to the course he determined.
hey guys, turn the page. this "article" has everything 10,000 other articles have had since january, with no new, witty or amusing insight.
she didn't die tuesday night, unlike american soldiers she voted to send to Iraq "with conviction" but without even doing their departed souls the decency of ACTUALLY READING the National Intelligence Estimate.
again, i implore you, Turn the Page.
I believe you are tone-deaf to the yearning for transformation of the dysfunctional political system.
HRC has, up to and including the death-throes of her vainglorious campaign tonight, amply demonstrated her lack of fitness to satisfy the aspirations of the electorate. She has served up a predictable and cringe-inducing stream of transparently false metrics (e.g. popular vote counts using methods that would have made Stalin proud), inflammatory and inappropriate references to civil rights and suffragettes, specious and historically ignorant arguments about electability, to say nothing about the self-pitying complaints about the media. Her entire political discourse demonstrates contempt for the intelligence of the electorate. It is clear that Hillary Clinton offers no reprieve from the mendacious ways of the Clinton and Bush 2 White Houses. For that reason alone, she has rightfully been rejected.
And your big mistake is you have completely avoided the pink elephant in the room. Hillary SCREWED UP on Iraq. She waited until everyone and their grandmother knew it was a bad idea to come out and denounce it (did she ever really denounce it?!). This election has had a lot of twists and turns, but Iraq and its aftermath are not forgotten. Obama's stark contrast to Clinton was that he was free to talk against the war from the beginning because he never voted for it. Clinton can never say she made a mistake, and she defended this war until it was rediculous to do so, and that's her biggest mistake.
She deserved what she got.
Hillary lost because she's Hillary. Self-absorbed and only talking about herself. Her outright lies, and subtle "lose with the facts" increased people's distrust of her and only reminded us of how loose her husband was with the truth. And reminded us of his lack of integrity as well as his other bad policies -- NAFTA, repeal of Glass-Steagel, media consolidation, etc. Any attempt by Hillary to address the real country's needs was, when even addressed, met with disbelief from the "educated" because her voting record in the Senate showed so clearly she didn't care about the poor, the children, the disenfranchised, the middle class. And she wasn't "dad," she was "angry mommy" which is really not what anyone wants.
"Obviously, this is only a short list of causes from my own perspective, and equally as important was Obama's candidacy, his message, and his campaign's tactical successes.
But in the end, this race was in Hillary Clinton's hands and it is a race she should have won, no matter her opponent."
"Equally as important?" Sorry-- FAR more important. Hillary Clinton started the campaign with name recognition, an experienced campaign team, and an established fundraising network. But Obama's parallels to Kennedy in 1960 aren't just his charisma and message of change. He galvanized a new generation of activists, and managed to fuse internet fundraising and grassroots volunteers to a degree never seen before. How was the race in Clinton's hands? She raised less money, had an inferior organization (relative to Obama's) and was a far less charismatic presence. The race was in Clinton's hands the same way it was in Dean's hands in 2004 before the voting started.
Your deep-thinking may resonate with your usual clients, but you are tone-deaf and out of touch.
Until the death-throes of her campaign, Clinton has repeatedly demonstrated her lack of fitness to lead the nation. The predictable and numbing stream of cringe-inducing propaganda drawing on transparently false metrics (e.g. popular vote*), specious arguments equating primary voting to electoral college votes, and inappropriately inflammatory references to civil rights, voters' rights and suffragettes in the self-serving about-face on MI and FL demonstrate that HRC as unlikely to speak the simple truth as is the reviled G"W"B. The unhip thing about her resoundingly
PS: Walkmans are great for playing those cassette tapes.
Hillary lost because of her vote to go to war with Iraq and her endless lies concerning her experience and policy positions.
It is much more simple than any of this. Barack Obama is a naturally gifted politician. And Hillary Clinton is, maybe, a naturally gifted lawyer. Actually, I am not even sure about that. One thing I am sure about: she is not a gifted politician because I have seen a bunch of those and they are nothing like her.
Well you have your fantasyland version. Here's the real story.
First, where we are right now is that Obama won more pledged delegates, but not enough to clinch the nomination. In addition, he has gotten 300+ super-delegates to say they will vote for him at the convention. If they do, he will win. But they may not. Here's why.
Anyone who analyzes the map and voting patterns will soon see that Obama's coalition consists of:
- wealthy (rich) liberals (picked off some traditional dem states: Wash, Ore, Vt, Conn, MD, etc)
- African-Americans (won him his southern states)
- cross-over Republicans (won him the western caucuses)
In addition, he was aided by the Dem leadership who has betrayed their working class base.
Throw in Tim Russert and the MSNBC crew leading the MSM charge and you have pretty much the complete picture.
But will it hold? The answer may be no. As the results are analyzed and the above becomes obvious to everyone, the Dem base is going to ask why their elected SuperDelegates are voting for Obama.
That's where the race could eventually turn. The WC-Dems need to wake up and tell their elected reps that betrayal is not what they expect of their leaders.
You forget that if there were no superdelegates, Obama would have won too. They're not giving him the nomination, they're confirming his majority of pledged delegates. He won by the rules that Hillary's people helped craft. "Betrayal" would be to deny that.
She lost because 1) She voted for the Iraq War and 2) She voted for Kyl-Lieberman, which gives Bush a blank check to attack Iran. SHe can spin all she wants, but that doesn't excuse her ability to make the same mistake twice.
From the beginning, I was uneasy about Hillary being the front runner. I wanted the first female president to make it on her own--not be a former first lady. I had achieved a successful career on my own and always resented women who became successful because of their husbands. So, I was looking for an alternative right from the beginning.
Mr. Dowd, who has worked for so many Republicans shades Senator Obama's victory as Senator Clinton's defeat. What I hope is that the Bush administration is the last petard of the so-called Reagan revolution. The Reagan era of resurgent 'conservatism' - read centralized corporate power - has ended in corruption exemplified by the thug Abramoff, absolutism and secrecy represented by the patriot act, fisa suspension and invocations of executive privilege, and public corporate subsidy embodied in the Fed's guarantee of JPMorgan Chase's Bear Stearns bailout, stringent bankruptcy laws and lax environmental regulation. The falsely named Reagan revolution has been in fact support of the corporate status quo. One, but not all of the selling points to Americans for this phony revolution was the culture wars engendered by reaction "excesses" of the sixties. Why doesn't Mr. Dowd admit that the Reagan revolution has been a destructive sham and that the "excesses" of the sixties are here to stay. Yeah, rock and roll. Most women use birth control, Most political candidates today have grown up with or used a mind-altering drug. Robert Mapplethorpe's photos's could now never shock. Barak Obama's running for President. And technological innovation continually forces us to examine our humanity. The simple truths craved by simpleton George Bush are not simple. Going to war on one's gut feeling is jejeune? it borders on criminal negligence. Something's happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr JONES. Wanna know? The democrats are expanding the franchise.....again.
On Hare's psychopathy scale, Hillary is right up there. She has what it takes, viz., superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, lies, manipulative, lack of remorse, shallow affect, lack of empathy, and a failure to accept responsibility for her actions.
I’ve noticed older voters can’t hear or see the actual Obama.
It’s either the hip black guy or “an inadequate black male”
In truth Obama campaigning to the right side of the bell curve.
He actually has positions like the gas tax the Iraq war etc.
So far substance is beating style.
Clinton was beaten the instant she adopted the word "inevitable" as her campaign slogan.
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