Reply #28: The sad thing is . . [View All]

[nichomachus]

it was hers to lose -- and she lost it.

She made several huge blunders.

1. She assumed it would be over by Super Tuesday -- and she had no plan B.

2. The mood of the country had changed -- and she relied on a guy (Penn) who was unaware of that.

3. The campaign totally misread Obama -- they still do -- and didn't know how to counter his appeal to large segments of the voters.

4. She relied too heavily on tactics that worked in the past, but had begun to turn off large segments of the voters.

5. She underestimated the rebound effect of "Clinton Fatigue."

The last one is a phenomenon that few people have picked up on. I compare it to having been in a relationship that ended. You still have some feelings for the other person, and, over time, you begin to remember the good times and forget the bad. So, you decide to try to "make it work." (Many of us have been there.) It doesn't take long, however, for all the bad things to begin to piss you off again and begin to overshadow the good.

I think that's what's happened with Clinton Fatigue. The absolute wretchedness of the Bush years made us pine for the Clinton years -- often forgetting the things that pissed us off back then. (Hell, the Bush years made me pine for the Nixon years.)

Then, once Hillary's campaign began unraveling and things started to not go her way, the campaign began flailing, and that has led to a series of blunders. That's like walking into quicksand. Once you're in, there are only a few things you can do to get out successfully. Continued flailing only gets you in deeper. I suspect that, like Bush, she listened only to her acolytes and inner circle who told her what they thought she wanted to hear. The fact that the country is headed in a different direction still hasn't sunk in.