It's now Friday, almost Saturday where I am on the East Coast. I've watched and waited for several days since the Super Tuesday deadlock to see what would happen, how the campaigns would respond, how the polls would move, if at all.
So, I'm left with this conclusion. The first phase of the primary voting (Iowa through this past Tuesday) has left a result on the Democratic side inconclusive, a result on the Republican side that was somewhat unexpected (and yes that does matter), and a Clinton campaign that - while clearly not out of the race by a long shot - has been left reeling from the impact of a story far different than the one they had plan to write this year.
Insurgent candidates rarely triumph over the party regulars (on both sides), but this year seems - so far - to be the perfect storm that may well lead to just that happening. And Hillary Clinton's campaign has been doing just about everything to help that scenario take shape.
Follow me below the fold and I'll explain...
First, this is analysis. I really haven't decided who my choice is yet, and I don't have to vote until March. But, I see what I see, and I'm sorry if the Clinton supporters who read this don't like my conclusions (but I welcome your disagreement - convince me I'm wrong).
Hillary Clinton has had some things against her from the start. I've diaried about them before.
- It really doesn't help when your biggest surrogate is the former President. None of them can be handled when they campaign - ever, and while they don't normally campaign during a primary, there's plenty of evidence from general election campaigning that that's the case. Even before the difficulties in South Carolina, Bill Clinton was on the stump making controversial statements and talking more about himself and his record than he was about Hillary. It didn't help, and it's not going to.
- Hillary Clinton may be a rock star in the Democratic Party, but she is not the most charismatic figure. We can talk about how it sounds when she raises the pitch of her voice during a speech, or that she doesn't have the emotionalism of most of the other candidates that started in the race with her. This doesn't mean that she can't engender support - of course she can. The problem is, she doesn't move most people the way that other candidates - particularly Barack Obama can.
- Political strategists go to school to learn to do what they do. There are formulas that have worked for years in most settings. Changes in events require specific responses. Attacks from candidates require counter-punches. But this year is different, and voters are hyper-aware of the strategy. Especially Democrats, who have been on the receiving end of this Machiavellian stuff for years now, and they've had enough. It is no surprise that the only thing they like less than a Republican playing that game is a Democrat who has been victimized by it. Voters want authenticity, and to them this means less strategy. Especially strategies where you change your message, adjust your tone, go negative, etc. The Clinton campaign has been traditional from the get-go, and that makes it the antithesis to authentic.
- I have a great deal of respect for President and Senator Clinton, but one thing that has been said of them is absolutely true. They have been planning this since Hillary Clinton ran for the Senate in 2000. They feel entitled to it, and their campaign has operated under the assumption that voters don't care about that attitude. Sometimes they don't, but this year they clearly do.
- Iraq. Slice it, dice it, carve it up anyway you want, but Hillary voted to authorize the war in Iraq. It doesn't matter what her response is to it now, it was a fatal chink in her armor. And it still matters, even though it is not the #1 issue anymore - if for no other reason than that it plays into her reputation for putting politics above principle.
Still, even with these five issues, Hillary Clinton started the campaign season as the presumptive front runner. The plan was to win early and run away with the nomination. How? Because she was going to grab such a strong block of support by being the first woman candidate who could seriously win the nomination and the White House, it would marginalize her strongest competitor (who everybody assumed would be John Edwards - and he was polling that way).
Then Barack Obama came on to challenge in Iowa. The best public speaker the Democrats have had running in a primary in my generation (easily), with authenticity of background and character (at least up to now), the moral authority to speak out on the Iraq war (because he publicly opposed it at its beginning), and another potential historic first for President in a serious way, and we were off to the races.
It was clearly going to be a contest between the two of them from Iowa forward, and from Iowa until now, the Clinton campaign has classicly followed the traditional campaign strategy rules.
- Make yourself more experienced and necessary than your opponent (that didn't work).
- Make yourself more humanized than your opponent (that worked for 2 minutes - but they didn't stick to it).
- Make your opponent so unacceptable that you are the only acceptable choice (that backfired in South Carolina).
And so the Clinton campaign has been, ultimately and too much, careening from message to message, vearing wildly from one strategy to the other (last week a Presidential front-runner demanding that the party seat the discredited Florida delegation, this week declaring that they were the insurgency because Obama had more money).
Super-Tuesday demonstrated true long-term viability for the Obama campaign. They have outfundraised Hillary Clinton (of course, poor-mouthing can help for a little while, and thus yet another political headgame). They fought to a tie - really, in both delegates and vote totals. And all along, little by little, Barack Obama has increased the size of his coalition and incroached upon hers.
The media isn't in love with Obama, it's just that he's new, so they have some catching up to do. And he really is something different. Crowds that exceed 20,000, supporters pouring out to see him in red states like Kansas, Idaho and Nebraska. Stories about his strategy now are broad ones. How can he win? How will he perform in the next set of primaries? That's the storyline for him right now. It leaves Hillary Clinton gasping for airtime by seizing on juicy tidbits like David Shuster's on-air characterization of Chelsea Clinton. Not exactly the stuff of a future nominee.
But that's just the backgound reasoning to this moment. Now. Post-Super Tuesday. You could see it in their body language late Tuesday Night. Hillary Clinton gave her speech in clipped tones, leaning on the podium, no energy in it. The words were good, and speech itself was strong, but the body language said, "This is not the way tonight was supposed to go." It was as if it was a metaphor for the entire campaign.
By contrast Barack Obama was, well, Barack Obama. Uplifting metaphors, soaring rhetoric, emotional calls for change, and a declaration of victory without a declaration of victory. He won more states (a few from her core area of strength), he won more delegates. In Illinois he outperformed her win in New York. He kept other big states like New Jersey, Massachusetts and California close enough to grab those delegates.
In fact, he looked so strong that he had to backpedal in a press conference the next day in order to maintain his perceived status as a new frontrunner (if not by that much).
By contrast, the Clinton camp is dazed and confused. The message is ever-changing, and the internal strategies over fundraising are now headlines.
Regardless of which tracking polls are right or wrong on specific numbers, it is now clear that Obama has picked up more support than Clinton since Tuesday nationally. It is also now probable that we will have to rely on super delegates to get somebody over the 2,025 mark (if at all).
As many have posted here before, the contests over the next month are treacherous for Hillary Clinton. Of the seven states that vote next, the perception is that Obama should handily win six of them, and only one - Maine - looks like a decent shot for her (and it's by no means assured). Should that happen, the public will see Obama as the front runner, and that means more difficulties for Clinton in the contests that follow - until she can best him again if at all. And as that happens, it is more than likely the super delegates will begin to come out for Obama in greater numbers as well. They can read the same polls we can; the polls that show Obama stronger against McCain, and the polls that will show the public's distaste with a brokered convention.
And while this goes on, the Clinton campaign will continue to flail around looking for the message to right the ship, even as it is taking on too much water.
Is it too late for Hillary? No. But the negatives are piling on, the challenges are piling up, and that is why she's in trouble.