I got two emails from Team Hillary yesterday. The first:
You've probably heard by now, but let me say it again… WE WON THE IOWA CAUCUS!
Now take that enthusiasm and channel it, because we've got our work cut out for us: Bernie's supporters chipped in $3 million within 24 hours of the caucus. That’s an incredible show of support, and we need to make sure we’re fighting just as hard for Hillary.
Bernie says we're not as energetic or enthusiastic as his supporters. It's true that more of his supporters have stepped up to fund his campaign, but I think he's dead wrong (and more than a little insulting) about the strength and character of Team Hillary.
Not insulting if it’s true …
The other email, just a few hours later:
For the first time this campaign, we're being outraised by our opponent. Bernie raised more than $20 million in January (and another $3 million so far this month) -- we fell short at only $15 million for Hillary for America [...]
There's no cavalry coming -- it's just people like you who are going to decide whether or not to step up to elect the first woman president our country has ever had.
I love how mystified the campaign seems that wow, you inspire and excite people, they’ll pull through for you! They’re mystified that hiding Clinton for the last six months as she did the hedge-fund-manager fundraising circuit and weekend debates is now failing to connect with the party grassroots.
My biggest fuckup this cycle is thinking that by hiring Robbie Mook—the architect of Terry McAuliffe’s off-year gubernatorial victory in Virginia in 2013, running an explicitly liberal and base-pleasing campaign—meant that she had learned the hard lessons of her 2008 campaign. But it’s pretty clear that Mook is not the guy in charge. Probably the same old cabal of Clinton hanger-ons that advised her to keep her mouth shut on TPP and KXL until well after the damage was done to her campaign.
Now, we get fundraising emails that are downright comical. I literally LOLd when I read each one of those.
I still think Clinton will ultimately ride her strong support among our base groups of color and women to victory.
Iowa and New Hampshire are among the least representative states possible, and their first-in-nation status is wholly undeserved and counterproductive. Imagine if Sanders had spent a year campaigning in South Carolina and Nevada instead of Iowa and NH. He would’ve learned how to emotionally connect with Latinos and African Americans—something that parachuting into South Carolina and hanging out with black preachers for a day or three will never accomplish (and god knows neither Vermont, Iowa, nor New Hampshire have properly prepared him for that). He’d be far better equipped today to deal with a party that looks nothing like him or his state, without compromising the online appeal that has raised his tens of millions. But alas, that would be the primary system we’d love, rather than the one we’re still inexplicably stuck with.
But in any case, he’s been blessed with an incompetent Clinton campaign that doesn’t realize that the Democratic base is hungry to be inspired, and one that hides her despite the fact that rank-and-file Democrats respond well when they see her closely (like the Benghazi hearing and the first debate). So they protect her from having to take any stands and hide her from the public, and then scratch their heads at why Sanders has so effectively taken advantage of that void.
Then they send panicked emails pleading for their supporters to step up. It’s the Democratic version of Jeb Bush’s pathetic “please clap.” Like I said, that’s hilarious! As an outsider, my immediate thought is “why don’t you ask your hedge fund friends for help?” She’s obviously had more face time with that crowd over the last year. Let them bail her out.
It’s one of the benefits of watching this race unfold without a favorite—I can appreciate the absurdities wherever they may arise!
Now, I sit back and see if her grassroots supporters (they exist!) will actually step up as her big donor network dries up (the problem with maxing out a small number of rich people). But it’ll require Clinton to actually start treating her base supporters as real partners in this endeavor. And if she’s wondering what that looks like, all she needs to do is look over to her opponent to get a hint.