{"id":14679,"date":"2008-02-24T11:30:15","date_gmt":"2008-02-24T16:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14679.html"},"modified":"2008-02-24T11:30:15","modified_gmt":"2008-02-24T16:30:15","slug":"the-clinton-campaigns-morale-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-clinton-campaigns-morale-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clinton campaign’s morale problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

As yesterday’s spirited offensive<\/a> should have made clear, Hillary Clinton is not about to fade away. The race for the Democratic nomination clearly isn’t going her way right now, and her overall chances may be slipping, but there’s no way in the world the senator is going to just fade away.<\/p>\n

The NYT notes today<\/a>, however, that Clinton is soldiering on amidst weakened morale and dashed hopes. She no longer uses phrases like “when I’m president,” and she’s “begun thanking some of her major supporters for helping her run for the Democratic presidential nomination,” which sounds a bit like someone who doesn’t plan on running for much longer.<\/p>\n

Over take-out meals and late-night drinks, some regrets and recriminations have set in, and top aides have begun to face up to the campaign’s possible end after the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4…. There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers, though, that a comeback this time may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary \u2014 a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.<\/p>\n

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early \u2014 9 p.m. \u2014 turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.<\/p>\n

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do \u2014 you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.<\/p>\n

Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time. Some have grown depressed, be it over Mr. Obama’s momentum, the attacks on the campaign’s management from outside critics or their view that the news media has been much rougher on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.<\/p>\n

And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as “donors,” to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal to the Clintons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oddly enough, a story like this one about weak morale tends to contribute to even lower morale.
\n
\nThis paragraph also stood out for me:<\/p>\n

In interviews with 15 aides and advisers to Mrs. Clinton, not a single one expressed any regrets that they were not working for Mr. Obama. Indeed, some aides said they were baffled that a candidate who had been in the United States Senate for only three years and was a state lawmaker in Illinois before that was now outpacing a seasoned figure like Mrs. Clinton.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It doesn’t surprise me at all that Clinton aides don’t regret joining Clinton’s team over Obama’s — campaigns are like that. I suspect if you’d asked 15 aides and advisers to Chris Dodd in early January, not a single one would express any regrets that they were not working for another candidate either.<\/p>\n

But I’m not entirely sure why Clinton aides are “baffled” by Obama succeeding despite his relative inexperience. Matt Yglesias’ take<\/a> was uncharitable, but accurate: “Whether or not you think the more ‘seasoned’ candidate ought<\/i> to win presidential elections, it seems to me that any campaign staffer who could be genuinely ‘baffled’ by experience not proving to be a winning issue is demonstrating a scary ignorance of how things work. Is her staff baffled that Joe Biden didn’t win the nomination?”<\/p>\n

It does also speaks to what I think has been apparent for quite some time — Clinton and her team not only underestimated Obama, they dismissed him as someone who shouldn’t have even run in the first place. Perhaps that’s<\/i> why they’re baffled — they’re losing to someone whose very campaign they consider presumptuous.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, they probably should have taken him more seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As yesterday’s spirited offensive should have made clear, Hillary Clinton is not about to fade away. The race for the Democratic nomination clearly isn’t going her way right now, and her overall chances may be slipping, but there’s no way in the world the senator is going to just fade away. The NYT notes today, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}