Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine has an excellent piece surmising what went wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign.
This article relates to exactly what I was looking for in the next Democratic Nominee.
I did not want an insider of Washington. After Katrina, I believe anyone reading this will concur; Washington works for itself not the people of this country.
I did not want the same old politician. I can get that locally from my state representative that lives down a few blocks from me. The same old speech, the same old pitch, the same old request for a check.
I wanted a politician who will tell the truth, whether I agreed or disagreed, I wanted to hear it straight, no crap.
That is why Hillary Clinton was disqualified for me.
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This article hits many nails on the head. For example:
That was probably her biggest blunder. 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.
This is the main problem that the Clinton Campaign did not get. But I did. All you have to do is speak to your neighbors, your mechanic, your salesperson, etc. No matter what party affiliation, people are tired of what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to this country. Period. They made the rich, richer and made the poor, poorer by their policies. They bankrupted this country by their selfish, alpha male ego antics by invading Iraq, an illegal war. In doing so, everything else, meaning the citizens of this country suffered either directly or indirectly.
People want a change. No one can argue this point.
Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates.
The Clinton Campaign did not master the rules, and remember rules that they put their people in place at the DNC to write and implement. When things exposed itself after Super Tuesday, people really saw a campaign riddle with incompetence of management and a candidate that put those persons in their jobs to do such.
I don't care what anyone writes, or says from here on out, for the Clinton Campaign to not actively organize, participate in all of the states on the Super Tuesday calendar and all of February was just shocking. Yes, she won big states but allowed the Obama Campaign to run up the score in the "little, insignificant" caucus and primary states to draw a dead heat after Super Tuesday. This strategy will be one that many books will be written about, and how the grassroots and netroots got people, ordinary people and inactive people off their couches and out of their homes to back Barack Obama. I am waiting to read ALL of these books.
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."
As I wrote above, that mentality came back to bite the Clinton Campaign in their asses. Nuff said on that one.
For a decade or more, the Clintons set the standard for political fund-raising in the Democratic Party, and nearly all Bill's old donors had re-upped for Hillary's bid. Her 2006 Senate campaign had raised an astonishing $51.6 million against token opposition, in what everyone assumed was merely a dry run for a far bigger contest. But something had happened to fund-raising that Team Clinton didn't fully grasp: the Internet.
Money. This campaign relied on heavy, old school money. I truly believe, until she was in financial strife, that they did not use the internet and raising funds as they could have.
We saw Obama outreach to not just ask for a small donation but to make its patrons feel as if they were part of the process of the campaign, as if we were decision makers and the Obama Campaign listens.
Many books will be also written about Barack Obama's ability to raise money and create a movement, simultaneously. The Clinton Campaign did not do this. They relied on heavy consultants and ran an old fashioned, machine style, top down campaign. Not enticing, educating, or involving its members, unless they gave $2300.00 on up. Then you got some attention. Sad, but true.
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.
Iowa was a game changer for Clinton and Obama. For Obama, he knew he could win. For Clinton, scared shitless coming in third and the wild horse has raced out of the barn. Thus her whole campaign changed to the attack mode on Barack Obama, at no costs or care.
And she did not have a plan post Super Tuesday. We all witnessed it as Barack Obama won 12 straight. We then witnessed a broken, back biting campaign, and one with lack of funds.
All the above is true. And guess what, it is still going on.
For all that is written, Barack Obama has rewritten the book and the rules his way but following them, something the Clinton Campaign has not mastered to do.
This will all be over with soon. Many are weary and just tired of it all. I believe we can come together, and we must to win in November.
There are going to be some great days ahead and some very hard ones. The McCain Campaign and the "I don't condone 527s" are going to go after Michelle Obama, Barack's patriotism, and use outright racial slanders to secure the White House, again for the Republicans.
I am going to write this. And remember it. The Republican Party's leader is the one currently occupying the White House, George W. Bush.
The way things are going right now in this country, it does not take a rocket scientist to know that people don't like him, don't trust him, or the Republican brand. They lost all of that, and just read this to understand what I am saying.
I know Hillary Clinton thinks, believes that she is the only qualified candidate currently. But she failed to do all the above to follow the mood of the country, to listen to the citizens of the party, and to adjust accordingly. The last thing you want to run as is an "incumbent" and that is what her campaign has been about.
It is just that vision that Americans are rejecting. We want change, a new face, new ideas and a new leader.
That will be Barack Obama.
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