As Hillary Clinton wraps up a 17-month, historic, nearly-successful presidential campaign, the inevitable “what went wrong?” question is still very much on the minds of the political world. I’ve seen more than a few lists, detailing various mistakes and misjudgments, but surprisingly enough, they’re all pretty similar, and point to a near-consensus about missteps that led the one-time frontrunner to come this close to winning, before coming up short.
In the Wall Street Journal this week, Jackie Calmes had a piece that was arguably the best of the lot.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, once positioned to be Democrats’ “inevitable nominee,” won’t be. On Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama won enough delegates to claim the party’s presidential nomination.
Inside the Clinton campaign and out, the finger-pointing has begun. The bottom line is this: She called the biggest plays, and she got them wrong.
Conversations over months with dozens of Clinton staffers, advisers and supporters suggest that over her 17-month campaign, the second-term New York senator and former first lady was smart, substantive and tireless. The surprise was how good a campaigner she grew to be.
Still, these people say, Sen. Clinton is responsible for what one confidant called “grievous mistakes.” Those help explain why Sen. Clinton — the best brand name in Democratic politics, and an early favorite to be the first female nominee in U.S. history — lost to a relative newcomer who would be the first African-American major-party nominee.
Following up on an item from the other day, it’s foolish to look for the one event or error that doomed the campaign. It’s rarely just one thing, which if avoided, would have meant certain success.
But when pulling a list together, a surprisingly straightforward picture emerges.
Jackie Calmes’ list:
* Mismanagement — “Insiders say control over the campaign resided with a small clique of loyalists close to Sen. Clinton but at odds with each other. Ultimately, however, she relied on an inner circle of two — her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their longtime pollster, Mark Penn — whose instincts often clashed with those of the campaign veterans around them.”
* Flawed Message — “She emphasized her Washington experience when voters wanted change.”
* Failure to Mobilize — “Many supporters blamed Ms. Solis Doyle and her deputies. But the failures started at the top with the Clintons’ bias against caucuses and an ignorance of key party rules. Early on, the campaign figured she would lock up the nomination with Feb. 5’s Super Tuesday primaries. Caucus states wouldn’t matter.”
* Clinton ‘Craziness’ — “[T]he campaign failed to acknowledge the ‘Clinton fatigue’ felt by many Democrats. Mr. Clinton’s controversies on the stump only fanned it.”
* She misjudged the mood — “In a cycle that has been all about change, Clinton chose an incumbent’s strategy, running on experience, preparedness, inevitability — and the power of the strongest brand name in Democratic politics. It made sense, given who she is and the additional doubts that some voters might have about making a woman Commander in Chief. But in putting her focus on positioning herself to win the general election in November, Clinton completely misread the mood of Democratic-primary voters, who were desperate to turn the page.”
* She didn’t master the rules — “Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game.”
* She underestimated the caucus states — “While Clinton based her strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that ‘caucus states were not really their thing.'”
* She relied on old money — “Though Clinton’s totals from working the shrimp-cocktail circuit remained impressive by every historic measure, her donors were typically big-check writers. And once they had ponied up the $2,300 allowed by law, they were forbidden to give more. The once bottomless Clinton well was drying up.”
* She never counted on a long haul — “Clinton’s strategy had been premised on delivering a knockout blow early. If she could win Iowa, she believed, the race would be over. Clinton spent lavishly there yet finished a disappointing third. What surprised the Obama forces was how long it took her campaign to retool.”
* Hubris — “Hillary didn’t just sell the press and the public on her inevitability as the general election candidate; she sold herself the same bill of goods, telling George Stephanopoulos before the Iowa caucus that ‘I’m in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run. It will be over by February 5.’ Hubris was the campaign’s fatal flaw, from which the others, both strategic and tactical, derived.”
* Iraq — “The 2002 vote authorizing military intervention in Iraq has haunted Clinton since, and opened up a space for an anti-war candidate in this year’s primary. While John Edwards, who cast the same vote, later claimed to have made a mistake in doing so, Clinton — looking ahead to a general electorate disappointed with the war in Iraq but still hoping for some sort of victory there (and perhaps also back to the 1990s image of the Clintons as serial parsers) — continued to defend her vote even as she criticized the war.”
* Iowa — “Clinton spent more than $20 million and finished third and short on cash. A great unnoticed irony is that had Clinton mostly skipped Iowa, Edwards would likely have won, and become Clinton’s presumptive rival, leaving Obama out in the cold.”
* Caucuses — “Clinton shrugged off the effect of a potential loss in Iowa, saying ‘I don’t think it’s a question of recovery. I have a campaign that is poised and ready for the long term. We are competing everywhere through February 5. We have staff in many states. We have built organizations in many states.’ But ‘many states’ turned out to mean organization myopically focused on big state and Super Tuesday primaries. ‘Keep everything else the same and add that she competed in the caucus states, she would have won,’ Trippi said. ‘It’s actually fairly amazing.'”
* Old-Fashioned — “Fundraising online might have been more difficult for Clinton, considering how much of her support came from the establishment. Trippi, though, disputes that assertion, pointing out that in February, when Clinton’s campaign adjusted to new-fashioned fundraising and she began mentioning her Web site frequently in her speeches, about half of the contributions she received were for less than $200 — while only about a fifth of her contributions had been in that range in the last quarter of 2007.”
Is it me, or is the common thread to most of this Mark Penn?
Presidential campaigns, especially primary fights that span nearly 17 months, are complex systems, and there were surely other factors that contributed to her second-place showing. She went positive when voters were less engaged, and negative when voters were more engaged, which became a drag on her favorability numbers. The media that was too quick to call her the presumptive nominee became something of a foil. The “sniper” controversy and the “gas-tax holiday” idea raised serious doubts about her credibility. And, of course, there can be no doubt that sexism, fueled by pundits like Chris Matthews, undermined the campaign’s efforts and message.
But having said all of that, Clinton fought as well and as hard as any candidate, ever. She got some bad advice, but Clinton leaves the stage with her head held high.