A year ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the expected, anointed, inevitable democratic nominee for President of the United States of America. It's not looking so great for her right now. So, what went wrong? A lot of things.
Hillary's most glaring error is that she did not seize on the truth that by the very nature that she was as well-positioned as she was politically; the fact that she had amassed a good chunk of change toward her run; and even though she has been in and around Washington, DC for more than 35 years she could present herself as different or an agent of change because of her gender. Yes, folks...Hillary Clinton is a woman! If only she had remembered this and put it forward. She could have presented herself as a woman without playing Helen Reddy's "I am woman" at every stop. She should have just behaved a woman. Psst, Hillary - Barack Obama did not have to declare himself Black, we see that. In that same fashion, you could have declared yourself a woman.
This country has been run by men since its inception. I am not going to weigh in on whether that is good or bad since "it is what it is." Hillary has run a man's campaign. When did she begin to believe that she was not good enough? She has run a textbook man's campaign - right down to the pantsuits, albeit minus the tie and lapel flag pin. There have been so many world examples of women elected to office that she could have and probably should have considered (at least in part) modeling her campaign after. Women like Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino. Some more modern heads of state include Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the President of Argentia and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia. I predict that Hillary's stumbles won't cast a pall on women running for President of the United States in the future, but man, did she ever blow it!
The very first mistake however was that the Clinton campaign believed the hype. They were so certain that they had the nomination sewn up that they did not cross any of their "t's," and focused purely on the "i." Remember Hillary Clinton in that now very famous interview with Katie Couric? Answering Katie's question about what would happen if Hillary did not win, she answered, "Oh, but I will."
The next mistake, building on the first mistake was that there was no vision of a campaign beyond Super Tuesday. They so arrogantly expected to walk away with the nomination that they have had to scramble to keep their campaign going ever since, including Hillary lending her campaign in excess of $11 million dollars to date. According to the Federal Election Commission, Hillary's campaign has money, BUT that money can only be used for the general election in November. Talk about keeping your eyes on the prize! They should have done this the 12-step way "one day at a time."
While the Clinton campaign has lambasted the Obama campaign for not aggressively competing in West Virginia and Kentucky, the Clinton campaign early on ignored small contests in favor of going after what they considered bigger fish.
But wait, there is more...If only the Clinton campaign was more contemporary. What do I mean? The plans for this candidacy were on the shelf for many years. All that they did was take it off the shelf, dust it off and put it to work. The problem was that no one reviewed the plan to consider its efficacy. We are living in a world that is quickly changing. After Beta max was ousted by the VCR, who would have thought that the VCR would be out of date so soon? DVD move over, now there is Blu-Ray! As usual, I digress! So, that was the 20th century campaign vs. the 21st century campaign.
And what about not confirming the true demographics of the democratic electorate? It is my fervent belief that the Clinton campaign as well as a good number of the political pundits are way off the mark about who today's democrats really are. With all of the talk about the working class, undereducated, poor white people that Barack Obama seemingly does not connect with, I think that there are those who have no idea what democrats look like. It has been reported that the Obama Campaign has registered a slew of new voters. Given this alone, it is more challenging to really characterize the democratic demographic.
This is much like the Jackson campaign in 1988. (I promise this will be my only reference to Jesse Jackson, unless I get to ranting about how Bill threw Jesse under the bus with his South Carolina comment, even after Jesse and a lot of other clergy had Bill's back in the wake of Monica Lewinsky, and they had that prayer breakfast - digressing again!) In 1988, the Jackson campaign did a lot of grass roots organizing, and registered many folks who were otherwise disenfranchised - mainly the poor folks in Appalachia!
Hillary's most glaring error is that she did not seize on the truth that by the very nature that she was as well-positioned as she was politically; the fact that she had amassed a good chunk of change toward her run; and even though she has been in and around Washington, DC for more than 35 years she could present herself as different or an agent of change because of her gender. Yes, folks...Hillary Clinton is a woman! If only she had remembered this and put it forward. She could have presented herself as a woman without playing Helen Reddy's "I am woman" at every stop. She should have just behaved a woman. Psst, Hillary - Barack Obama did not have to declare himself Black, we see that. In that same fashion, you could have declared yourself a woman.
This country has been run by men since its inception. I am not going to weigh in on whether that is good or bad since "it is what it is." Hillary has run a man's campaign. When did she begin to believe that she was not good enough? She has run a textbook man's campaign - right down to the pantsuits, albeit minus the tie and lapel flag pin. There have been so many world examples of women elected to office that she could have and probably should have considered (at least in part) modeling her campaign after. Women like Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino. Some more modern heads of state include Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the President of Argentia and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia. I predict that Hillary's stumbles won't cast a pall on women running for President of the United States in the future, but man, did she ever blow it!
The very first mistake however was that the Clinton campaign believed the hype. They were so certain that they had the nomination sewn up that they did not cross any of their "t's," and focused purely on the "i." Remember Hillary Clinton in that now very famous interview with Katie Couric? Answering Katie's question about what would happen if Hillary did not win, she answered, "Oh, but I will."
The next mistake, building on the first mistake was that there was no vision of a campaign beyond Super Tuesday. They so arrogantly expected to walk away with the nomination that they have had to scramble to keep their campaign going ever since, including Hillary lending her campaign in excess of $11 million dollars to date. According to the Federal Election Commission, Hillary's campaign has money, BUT that money can only be used for the general election in November. Talk about keeping your eyes on the prize! They should have done this the 12-step way "one day at a time."
While the Clinton campaign has lambasted the Obama campaign for not aggressively competing in West Virginia and Kentucky, the Clinton campaign early on ignored small contests in favor of going after what they considered bigger fish.
But wait, there is more...If only the Clinton campaign was more contemporary. What do I mean? The plans for this candidacy were on the shelf for many years. All that they did was take it off the shelf, dust it off and put it to work. The problem was that no one reviewed the plan to consider its efficacy. We are living in a world that is quickly changing. After Beta max was ousted by the VCR, who would have thought that the VCR would be out of date so soon? DVD move over, now there is Blu-Ray! As usual, I digress! So, that was the 20th century campaign vs. the 21st century campaign.
And what about not confirming the true demographics of the democratic electorate? It is my fervent belief that the Clinton campaign as well as a good number of the political pundits are way off the mark about who today's democrats really are. With all of the talk about the working class, undereducated, poor white people that Barack Obama seemingly does not connect with, I think that there are those who have no idea what democrats look like. It has been reported that the Obama Campaign has registered a slew of new voters. Given this alone, it is more challenging to really characterize the democratic demographic.
This is much like the Jackson campaign in 1988. (I promise this will be my only reference to Jesse Jackson, unless I get to ranting about how Bill threw Jesse under the bus with his South Carolina comment, even after Jesse and a lot of other clergy had Bill's back in the wake of Monica Lewinsky, and they had that prayer breakfast - digressing again!) In 1988, the Jackson campaign did a lot of grass roots organizing, and registered many folks who were otherwise disenfranchised - mainly the poor folks in Appalachia!
I served on the "Labor for Jackson" Committee in 1988
There are schools of thought that Hillary's campaign was hurt by her overzealous husband, fears that should Hillary win the Presidency that Bill Clinton would be the real Vice-President and that Bill played the race card in South Carolina, among other things. I have found her lack of grace to be a particularly bitter pill to swallow. I mean with eleven Obama primary wins in a row, Hillary never congratulated him for his wins!
For everyone reading this, please feel free to weigh in on what you believe went wrong with Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for the Presidency 2008!
2 comments:
I am so glad you are a blogger...your commentary (robbservations), writing style and use of photos make for a such a fantastically entertaining read. CLEVER GIRL!
A great article. As timely then as now; unfortunately. Hopefully we learn for the future. I doubt it
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