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.
Now with Clinton just about dispatched can we get back to criticizing Obama and especially his inadequate health care approach.
I have jokingly said that the only way Clinton would accept the V.P. spot would be if she could have as much power as Cheney.
I suppose that it is too much to hope that Clinton sincerely wants the best universal health at the best price and that now that she doesn’t need the health-lobbyist money to become president she can actually begin to push single-payer either as vp or senate majority leader.
In any case Obama is going to need a lot of pushing by folks like us.
what he is going to need is 60 something senators and 250-290 representatives. If he gets that, single payer will be on the table. Otherwise, it will be faux-universal health care which, in the long run, may be worse than nothing at all.
You are so right. Everyone seems to forget that Congress enacts healthcare reform, not the President. Same error the Clintons make the first time around.
I have said all along that whoever the candidate at the top of the ticket in January ’09 the other will be in the Senate. How good any healthcare legislation is will ultimately depend on how many Dems get elected to the House and Senate, and I suspect that neither Obama nor Clinton would take a position like “my way or no way” when it comes to this.
If opening up Medicare to everyone is an alternative in the eventual legislation then this legislation could underprice all private health insurance companies and drive them out in half a decade. I suspect.
Remember this quote for later:
I read that article earlier today and I’m still sort of stunned. It was an inside-the-head piece. The authors offered up nothing by way of why the campaign looks doomed. Bill Clinton isn’t the only thing, he was the tip of the iceberg, that has the media-created “inevitability” stench right at the bottom.
I learned something else today while reading Jack and Jill Politics. At Tavis Smiley’s
egofestState of the Black Union (GRRRR) Stephanie Tubbs-Jones said that she was a support of the Clinton’s 3rd term before Sen. Clinton announced. When I read it this morning, I shook my head and went on about my day. Then I read this NYT article and immediately thought of Tubbs-Jones. These people really were convinced that the Democratic party would line up behind Clinton despite the other 7 people running. They couldn’t conceive of the US not wanting the Clinton’s back. Their frame of reference is the last 8 years. Yeah, the 90s were good, but any administration was better than this one.I keep saying how the Clinton’s are stuck in the 90s. They’re like the Al Bundy’s of politics. They even ran their campaign like a 90s campaign. Obama has some major missteps in his campaign, but in this era of social-networking, twitter and YouTube, his campaign rose up to the challenge. If there had been no race-baiting or, gag me, Bill Clinton I think that I’d be on the fence right now between these two. My only indicator would be how the campaigns have run. Just on that alone, I’d be much more comfortable with Obama in the WH.
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Most important is the WH staff, his advisors and the people on the Hill, Congress to unite on legislation. The inspiration comes with Obama’s extraordinary talent to unite people in a cause. Just like JFK chose LBJ do get things done in Congress.
Supposedly lefties are more creative thinkers …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
I hope there’s a boatload of staff getting ready for Ari Fleischer’s bunch-o-liars.
That’s going to be a big campaign test.
I’ve been thinking for a month that the Romney comment crystallized what bothered a lot of Democrats about Bill’s interference in the campaign. But now, I see a woman who was not as strong in politican maneuvering than she was in policy (where she’s really, really strong) being jostled by advisors. That’s not good.
Will she go to defeat gracefully or scream her way down like a Banshee? Perhaps Tuesday will tell.
If Hillary loses, it’s largely Bill’s fault. Anything Hillary did as President would be shadowed by the possibility that either the decision wasn’t hers or wasn’t entirely hers. This has always nagged at me. Along with the distastefulness of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.
But the biggest reason, by far, is the war. She refused to stand up and be counted when standing up was needed.
I’m not, however, sold on Obama.
Mrs. Clinton’s performance in the debates was made to look better than it was by his mediocre performance.
He’s got to show me that he’s more than buzzwords. “Hope” and “Change” are meaningless if he turns out to be an empty suit.
You will have a choice
You may vote for Ralph Nader who Bushwacked Gore
If the Al Gore of today had run in 2000 Ralph Nader’s candidacy would not have mattered. Gore “bushwhacked” Gore.
This is America. If you want to run for President you have every right. The same goes for Nader.
you overlooked the blatant theft of Florida.
you mean the Pat Buchanan “votes” or the Supreme Court shenanigans, these had nothing to do with Nader.
So far, there’s no evidence he’s an empty suit. Look at the execution of the campaign as exhibit one of his ability to organize and execute.
Much of what he does or doesn’t do will depend on the composition of Congress (hence Booman’s recent diaries on the subject), foreign events, and the economy.
And we all need to keep his feet to the fire and make him accountable.
Has anyone read Frank Rich’s column in Sunday’s NYT? It summarizes the entire campaign with emphasis on the arrogance and poor organization of the Clintons and their staff. Really strong stuff.
Really rips the arrogance that Clinton’s people took into the campaign and their cluelessness when Super Tuesday didn’t finish off the competition.
I read the NY times piece, and the Frank Rich column, with interest. And it made me wonder: so, who are the folks in the Obama camp who have run such a “brilliant” campaign? (Besides Luam, that is.)
We hear much about Mark Penn, but who are the smart guys/gals on the other side?
isn’t that just another part of the brilliance of this campaign? There are no rock stars except the candidate himself and his countless unnamed advocates.
This
Is exactly how everyone felt when Bill Clinton won.
If Obama continues with this (very successful)strategy of being all things to all people, he will let you down. There’s no way he can’t.
Every Everyman disappoints. You have to make the decision whether he disappoints or betrays.
As a lifelong blue-collar worker (but we never used lunch buckets) I knew what NAFTA was going to be before it hit, and I knew that Gore was full of shit when he debated Perot. So I wasn’t disappointed when I knew that Clinton was going to betray us. At that point it was just that Bush was going to be worse. The Republicans always are.
I agree with this. Every word.
Tonight I watched the clip of Hillary trying to ridicule Obama — “the heavens will open” routine. It wasn’t as excruciatingly embarrassing as I expected it to be, but what it did unmistakably demonstrate — along with many other signs — is that Hillary and her crew do not fathom what the electorate is seeing in Obama. They really are bewildered.
Basically her message is, “come to your senses, America. There is no ‘hope’. The fix is in. The only way to achieve anything is by having wonks like myself tinker at the edges.”
I think Obama understands that you get people behind you, THEN you negotiate policy. He is mobilizing the tremendous discontent that exists in America. And he even understands that this profound unease is not a left-wing or a right-wing phenomenon, it is across the board. He knows that people hunger for a politics that is about something more than bullshit issues, political correctness and “gotcha!”
He’s connecting people to a politics of reality, and — as Booman himself notes in one of the comments — if elected he’ll be able to do what we the people support him to do, by the very fact that he has that support. And he also needs to get it from a strongly Democratic congress. That is how he will deal with the “special interests,” as Hillary calls them. Not by treating the electorate like idiots, which has been the norm for decades. This is not starry-eyed idealism, it’s American Politics 101, which Hillary, her advisors, and the punditocracy all flunk.