This is probably not the kind of press a winning campaign gets in the Sunday New York Times:
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 — 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.
Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.
Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues.
I know the feeling. The thought of a Clinton nomination has weighed on my chest for a year…like a gorilla. The sense of imminent relief I feel just knowing that a concession speech is coming sometime soon must be matched by a similar feeling of dread in those that supported and believed in the Clintons.
“A lot of her friends are just feeling, ‘How could this be happening to her?’ ” said James Carville, a friend of the Clintons and a former strategist to Mr. Clinton. “It’s just hard to understand. She is a very sympathetic person. I hope it turns around for her.”
It’s precisely these expressions of bewilderment by mortal enemies of the progressive movement that give the demise of the Clinton campaign its delightful scent. And they are bewildered…befuddled…whatever you want to call it.
Engaging in hindsight, several advisers have now concluded that they were not smart to use former President Bill Clinton as much as they did, that “his presence, aura and legacy caused national fatigue with the Clintons,” in the words of one senior adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the campaign candidly.
I think the truly amazing part is that the Clintonistas looked at some superficial polling and thought that the Clintons were actually overwhelmingly popular with Democrats. They weren’t. First, liberal activists felt very badly treated by the Clintons. Second, while loyal Democrats were incensed by Kenneth Starr and impeachment, they were even more exhausted by it. Third, hindsight doesn’t make the Clintons look better, but worse. The Clintons gave us NAFTA. The Clintons set the predicates for the Iraq War (Iraq Liberation Act, anti-Iraq propaganda/bogus intel, and the non-U.N. approved intervention in Kosovo). It was Bill Clinton that said the war in Iraq was a good idea and Hillary Clinton that voted for it. It was Bill Clinton who spent the Bush II years globetrotting with Poppy instead of standing up for the Constitution, the rule of law, and global peace.
The Clintons should have taken it as a sign when Connecticut Democrats kicked our 2000 vice-presidential nominee clear out of the party. The new progressive era doesn’t have much nostalgia for the leaders of yesteryear. For the activists, we want them out of positions of power and influence within the party and, if possible, the nation.
Once the post-mortems are over with, it’s going to be lonely.
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.
Before long, everyone will be claiming they were an Obama supporter all along. It’s human nature. I hope, however, that Obama remembers who fought against him, and who fought dirty. He will do us all a real service by looking for new talent from a new generation of Democrats…from people that don’t define themselves by the stunning failures and scandals of the 1990’s. There’s a reason MoveOn.org has the name that it has.
Hillary Clinton ran a very good campaign in many respects. She was excellent in all but one of nineteen debates. She was solid in town hall meetings. She was conversant on the facts. I’ve told friends it was like watching Magic Johnson go up against Michael Jordan. You can’t say Magic was bad. He was one of the greatest players ever. Watching Hillary in these primaries, I often marveled at what a high level she was performing at. She didn’t lose because she isn’t a good politician. She lost because the party wants something else…the country wants something else.
She also lost because Bill Clinton simply isn’t very popular when it comes right down to it. Every time he showed up in this campaign Hillary suffered. There was almost no nostalgia for Bill and very few people were comforted by the prospect of the Big Dog, as Mitt Romney put it, “running around the West Wing with nothing to do.”
Yes, she also lost because Obama’s campaign outsmarted her campaign and ran a 50-state ground strategy. He was like Muhammed Ali to Clinton’s George Foreman. Where did all the money go?
Regardless, I can’t wait for it to be over. I can wait to start a totally new and fresh era.
