I’ve seen a few “where did she go wrong” pieces about the Clinton campaign this week, with various observers, who are convinced that the race for the Democratic nomination is over, hoping to identify the Big Mistake.<\/p>\n
I still think this is premature. But if we assume the worst about Clinton’s chances, it’s probably fair to say some of the campaign’s spending decisions<\/a> look questionable in retrospect.<\/p>\n “We didn’t raise all of this money to keep paying consultants who have pursued basically the wrong strategy for a year now,” said a prominent New York donor. “So much about her campaign needs to change \u2014 but it may be too late.”<\/p>\n The high-priced senior consultants to Mrs. Clinton, of New York, have emerged as particular targets of complaints, given that they conceived and executed a political strategy that has thus far proved unsuccessful.<\/p>\n The firm that includes Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, and his team collected $3.8 million for fees and expenses in January; in total, including what the campaign still owes, the firm has billed more than $10 million for consulting, direct mail and other services, an amount other Democratic strategists who are not affiliated with either campaign called stunning.<\/p>\n Howard Wolfson, the communications director and a senior member of the advertising team, earned nearly $267,000 in January. His total, including the campaign’s debt to him, tops $730,000.<\/p>\n The advertising firm owned by Mandy Grunwald, the longtime media strategist for both Mrs. Clinton and Bill Clinton, the former president, has collected $2.3 million in fees and expenses, and is still owed another $240,000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Consider this tidbit<\/a>: Clinton paid “her communications director twice as much in one month as Obama paid his communications director in a year.” For a campaign that’s experienced financial trouble, and whose message has struggled to connect of late, that’s rather astounding. Hillary Rodham Clinton started the year flush with cash, but by the beginning of this month, she’d blazed through most of it \u2014 spending $11 million on ads, $3.8 million on messaging guru Mark Penn and $1,300 at Dunkin’ Donuts, to name just a few expenditures \u2014 leaving her campaign woefully unprepared for an extended battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. <\/p>\n About $15 million \u2014 or more than half of the New York senator\u2019s January spending \u2014 went to a cadre of high-priced consultants. Though much of the cash went through the campaign media buyer for ad time, the considerable payments to outside consultants mark an increase in a pattern that has irked campaign insiders. From the beginning of the race through the end of last month, Clinton paid the consultants $33 million \u2014 nearly one-third of the $105 million spent by the campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let’s also not lose sight of the practical effect of these expenditures. Clinton effectively ceded the 10 contests following Super Tuesday — all of which she lost by wide margins — in large part because she couldn’t afford to compete in them, and have resources left for Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
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\nKenneth P. Vogel presented the numbers this way<\/a>:<\/p>\n