The other day I wrote about Barack Obama's lobbyist money. Needless to say, most sets of ears chose to remain deaf to the warning that their candidate might be less of an angel than they like to believe. But if Obama supporters have developed a reputation for going ballistic over unpleasant truths, Hillary Clinton's campaign staff might be able to show them a thing or two about bad reactions to less-than-thrilling revelations.
The Nation's Nicholas Von Hoffman writes of Clinton's own money troubles:
The suddenly milkless Clinton was forced to make the campaign a $5 million loan. Apparently, she knew nothing about the campaign's financial situation until it had gone broke. And today the New York Times reports her major donors are beginning to question what's been done with their money.
Did this campaign have a budget? If not, why not? If it did, was it poorly constructed? Or did people running the campaign simply overspend? Anyway you slice it, the money mess throws into serious question her ready-on-day-one executive ability.
Clinton fired her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, who was reportedly afraid to tell her boss the bad news about the squandered money. Lesson one for organizational disaster: A boss whose subordinates are scared to give her bad news. See Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam for what can happen.
The tragedy of Hillary Clinton's campaign for president is that she decided to run at all. It's been pretty clear from the start that she isn't even close to being as smart or politically savvy as her husband, Bill. He knew how to win a presidential campaign. She doesn't. But here's a sadder truth: Bill isn't exactly a genius at politicking, either.
Consider this: why would a guy who managed to win the White House in 1992 and 1996 be so inept at helping his political party win down-ticket races? It's because when you cut away all the bullshit, the guy is really only in politics for himself (and those inner circle cronies with whom he is allied). It never occurred to him that there are things more important in politics than a single candidate for public office, or that trying to campaign only in a few heavyweight states might be offset by wins in the rest of the country as well as losing in the aforementioned heavyweights. And so it looks to be with his wife. Hillary cannot seem to break free of the mentality that the smaller electoral states don't matter, that she can ignore them and focus her energy on the "big" states.
The problem is that this has always been an utterly stupid strategy, one that has kept Democrats out of power for sixteen years. Howard Dean came in, thankfully, and instituted the fifty-state plan that led to the electoral successes in 2006. And Obama is, unlike his opponent, savvy enough to recognize this fundamental truth and take full advantage of it.
But don't tell this to Hillary Clinton. Nor should you tell her that her campaign can't manage its money, if you want to keep your job. Then again, once she realizes what's going on you're still going to be fired, so I guess you might as well be damned for doing. I don't think it'll count against you on your resumé. The point is, Mrs. Clinton has a serious problem, and it has destroyed her biggest Rove-talking point.
That problem is that she doesn't abide unpleasant truths, and it has combined with another serious flaw -- an inability to manage money -- to finally send her presidential campaign down in flames. Now Hillary Clinton looks as though, contrary to her boasting, is isn't "ready to go on Day One". She can't even handle her own campaign's finances, so how can she expect Americans to believe she'll be able to handle the nation's?
Obama may be a DLCer in sheep's clothing, but Clinton has proven to be a rank amateur on all fronts. She now has nothing on which to campaign, except perhaps her opponent's nastiness on the campaign trail, and even then she can't really complain about that because her own campaign has used Rove-style attacks to try to portray her rival as not being ready to fight terrorists.
One has to wonder if, when finally forced to concede, Hillary Clinton shall be forced to actually grow up. One can only hope.