Needless to say it's difficult to single out any one incident or action that cost Hillary Clinton the nomination, but there are several things that I feel are important to note. It's clear that many of her supporters feel so cheated that they plan to withhold their vote or worse, and I for one plan to talk as many of them down from that ledge as possible between now and the general. Knowing what went wrong might be a good place to start.
I should add that everything in this diary is pure speculation on my part, based on my observations over the past year.
- Running For The Right -
Clinton's unbeatable name ID, high dollar donor base and unmatched power within the democratic establishment apparently caused her team to believe that she was guaranteed the nomination. While it's tough to characterize this as a total miscalculation, they clearly decided to go against the standard play (win the base with rhetoric, then drift to center once you've cinched the nomination). Instead, they spent the early primary season focusing on their general election prospects, which for her meant warming up to Republicans to soothe their hatred of the Clinton brand. It seems that they believed her positive rating in the Democratic Party was so strong that she could publicly run for the right and still win the left. Publicly cozying up to Roger Ailes and the entire Fox News crew was bad. Publicly and repeatedly dismissing the left was unforgivable.
Once it was made clear that she intended to run as an ultra-conservative Democrat that was more interested in winning Republican votes than those of the Democratic left, she aligned a broad slice of the liberal-leaning electorate against her, while giving serious pause to moderate democrats and left-leaning independents. If it weren't for this one fatal mistake, I am completely convinced that she would have won the nomination months ago.
- Pandora's Box -
If Barack Obama had played the race card as often as Hillary and her "supporters" (using the Angry Mouse definition here) have played the sexism card, he would have been dismissed long ago. But the biggest problem here isn't the obvious one - that it's completely unbecoming of a candidate to whine about bias - but rather the message she has sent to her supporters, which has become a Pandora's box that should have never been opened.
One of the big lessons I learned from the 2004 election and my support of Howard Dean is that emotions and politics don't mix very well. I was so pissed I SWORE I'd never pull the lever for Kerry. Well, guess who I ended up voting for once the anger passed and my rational mind took control? I know a lot of people here went through the same thing.
When Hillary supporters directly tie her nomination to a much larger and more complicated issue like sexism, they are setting themselves up for serious disappointment, and removing any hope of rational discourse. Is it really fair to suggest that a vote for Barack is a vote against women? Is it really fair to say calls for Hillary to concede is part of some anti-female conspiracy? By directly tying her candidacy to this issue, her supporters have lost perspective and see this as a fight for women's rights, rather than a fight to nominate the best candidate. The voters who weren't swept up in this madness saw a desperate candidate using a scoundrel's tactics, and a group of emotional, tired "supporters" screaming their lungs out at the world. Not exactly the way to win a political contest.
- Victim By Osmosis -
When Hillary first started taking on the Florida and Michigan cause as her own, I was a bit confused. Obviously she hoped to pick up extra delegates and, despite the buggy math, increaser her "popular vote lead," but there was something missing. It became clear to me that she was closely aligning herself with the FL/MI cause to give her campaign some legitimate victim-hood, and to provide a victim-based talking point with which to anger and rally her "supporters."
Many of her "supporters," the protesters at the DNC hearing and sites such as hillaryis44 seem irrationally angry and feel personally disenfranchised over the entire MI/FL fracas, even though few of them actually live in those states and didn't seem the slightest bit bothered by this "disenfranchisement" back when Hillary was indifferent to the delegate stripping of those states. My conclusion is that they decided MI/FL represented the victim-hood they so strongly feel, but provided a more legitimate cover for this victim-campaign than the sexist charge which hadn't gained any traction in the reality-based world. Once again, by tying the candidate directly to emotions and big complex issues is a dangerous game, one the Hillary campaign seemed all too willing to play.
The DNC meeting aside, I noticed a marked change in coverage and tone regarding the Clinton campaign once she started pushing the MI/FL issue. Many pundits (rightly so in my opinion) saw this as a desperate move and they weren't terribly shy in saying so. I call this as her third big mistake, because once the media turns on you...
- Aligning Against the Media -
Most people on both sides of the aisle feel the media is biased against them, and in a lot of cases that's probably accurate given that the media's only true allegiance is to their advertisers. That said, it's a very dangerous move to align your campaign against the very tool you need to win elections, the media. Once Hillary began talking as though the media was sexist and intentionally trying to ruin her, a lot of folks smelled sour grapes. I'm sure the media truly did turn on her at that point, why wouldn't they?
As a result, she not only lost a lot of free, frequently positive air time, but she started to pick up more negative reporting than positive. I can only guess, but it must have required a lot of campaign cash to combat those negative reports and make up for the loss of free positive air time. For a campaign already in the red, this might have been the death knell.
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It goes without saying that there are many, many reasons her campaign failed, these are just a few moments in the primary that I noticed a real shift in the tide. Hopefully some of these points will sink in with her more, how does one say, "aggressive" supporters. Until they accept the truth, they will continue to falsely believe the Democratic Party acted against them as women and against the Clintons in general. I believe the record shows that the Clinton campaign made serious, fatal mistakes, and that the "supporters" will only recover once they stop associating everything they hold dear with one single candidate.