Unless you've been living under a rock or hiding in a cave with Osama bin Laden, you know that Barack Obama won decisively in Wisconsin and Hawaii. , giving him a ten state winning streak. He has begun to eat into many of Hillary Clinton's core demographics, and labor unions, including the Teamsters Union and the Service Workers Union have been falling over themselves to endorse him. Hillary Clinton's campaign seems powerless to stop Obama from rocketing from a longshot second to disputed frontrunner status. Her ugly attempts at doing so, including the rumor that she will attempt to win the nomination by strong arming superdelegates into backing her, even if she loses the popular vote, and the American Leadership Project, a 527 committee, that has been recently formed in Ohio for the purpose of airing negative ads are quickly eroding her political capital. Her actions have degenerated into selfishness; for Hillary Clinton, it's no longer about America. It isn't even about the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton's campaign has become about nothing more than Hillary Clinton and her desire, even need, to become President.
The state of her campaign is a stark contrast to the way that it looked at the beginning of the primary season. Back then, she was almost singlehandedly keeping the tone of the primary campaign positive. She looked graceful on the stage at the debates, gently but firmly pushing everyone to party unity. The positive, upbeat Hillary Clinton was also popular; even people like me who didn't feel that she was electable in the general election and had serious problems with some of her behavior and policies admired her poise.
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
So what happened? How did the Hillary Clinton of those first few debates, who couldn't be needled by even the most subtle leading questions into saying a single bad word about her fellow Democrats, turn into an attack dog so vicious that she's alienating former allies and supporters? I think the first sign of what was to come happened after Obama's win in Iowa, with Hillary Clinton's now infamous New Hampshire tears. While some may argue that these tears were a genuine and uncontrollable expression of emotion, anyone who's had enough exposure to politics and politicians knows that the best of them do not lose control of themselves this way. Hillary Clinton is one of the best; make no mistake, the tears were calculated.
As Obama's poll numbers increased, Hillary Clinton went increasingly negative, and her campaign fell apart. Her campaign manager and deputy campaign manager both quit right around the time that she made the bizarre choice to focus on Texas and Ohio, all but skipping the "little states" in between. Such a boneheaded decision looks even more boneheaded because of how well it "worked" for Guliani less than a month ago. I know that memories are short during the primary season, but this is ridiculous. There were money troubles as well, the standard 'nosediving campaign' craziness. But there's more.
Ready From Day One?
Even though Hillary staked her entire campaign on Texas and Ohio, and spent almost all of her time stumping in those states, her campaign staff never bothered to look up Texas' byzantine primary system and targeted their campaign in all the wrong areas. And in Pennsylvania, they didn't get in all the names of their delegate candidates, even though Governor Rendell, a vocal Clinton supporter, extended the deadline by a day and a half due to bad weather. She was short ten or eleven delegate candidates, and if the deadline hadn't been extended, the figure would have been double.
How could a campaign run by such a seasoned politician, who started out as the "sure thing" and who was touted as being "ready from day one", blow up so spectacularly? The question itself contains the answer – Hillary Clinton believed all of the media "inevitability" hype and ran her campaign accordingly. She believed from the beginning that the White House is not only her destiny, but her right. She wasn't paying attention to the possibility that she might have a formidable challenger, and never saw Obama coming.
As primary after primary passed without anointing Hillary Clinton as the clear frontrunner, her campaign became increasingly disorganized. But the Super Tuesday primaries were where things really started to fall apart. Hillary Clinton believed the pundits who were certain that she would sweep the Super Tuesday states, and she believed that the dawn of February 6th would see her as the nominee. She was so certain that she probably had few or no plans to continue her campaign as anything more than a victory tour, and her campaign wasn't able to adapt to the sudden and unexpected situation when Obama remained a contender.
In the end, Hillary Clinton's campaign has resembled a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. Her very greatness led to the hubris that caused her downfall, while the young and virtuous contender has risen to take her place. The only thing that's missing is the final horrible moment of terror and pity before the curtain closes on the final act. Let's just hope that she won't gouge out her eyes on national television.
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