Alter: Hillary ran one of the worst campaings in moderm political history

[Staples]

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080220174204.aspx

[scheming daemons]

1. Wow... already speaking of her campaign in the past tense...

...and Alter is a VERY Clinton-friendly reporter.

[Cha]

7. I caught that...it's got so much more

grande dame of dumpster-diving politics to go..

[CorpGovActivist]

31. .

[BattyDem]

2. What I don't understand is this:

How did a woman who is so intelligent and has so many political connections end up having a campaign that was completely disorganized and unprepared for a challenge? What the hell happened? :shrug:

[crispini]

3. It's my understanding that the Clintons are very loyal to their people.

And perhaps they picked the wrong people to stick with? :shrug: I hear Mark Penn is very big on the policy-wonk stuff. Obama, on the other hand, has clearly read George Lakoff.

[bluedawg12]

11. Yeah and when we talked about Lakoff here a few years ago

everyone said, dems don't need to "frame" their message, dems talk about issues.

I think Lakoff was correct.

[crispini]

22. Ha. We took Lakoff books and passed them out to candidates like candy.

We formed a Lakoff study group. We handed DVDs around like they were going out of style.

And I think some of those seeds found fruit. We swept the county in 2006. :bounce: Democrats won EVERY DOWNBALLOT RACE.

[cali]

33. baloney. Lakoff became all the rage at DU

You're indulging in blatant revisionism. Period.

[elleng]

38. Lakoff WAS right,

and still is! Interesting to hear that peeps here said dems don't need to! And may answer some questions.

Listen to Reps, and note the difference (and relative success.)

'Issues' or not, public discussions should be put in context, which is what 'framing' does.

[XemaSab]

13. Dean, Obama, and Lakoff:

the three wise men of the democratic revival! :D

[BattyDem]

19. That's right!

:D

[crispini]

20. Exactly right!

And Obama has clearly been listening to the other two! I see very similar themes there shared between them.

[bluedawg12]

25. Yeah, Obama got it Hill still talks issues.

We live ina media age, inforamtion comes fast and it comes in images.

[PassingFair]

4. They thought they had it FRONT LOADED in Michigan and Florida.

"Super Tuesday" was to have clinched it.

When 45% of the Michigan vote went to "uncommitted"
despite Hillary's being the only real contending name on
the ballot, they had to know they were in BIG trouble.

DLC didn't HAVE a plan beyond that for "their girl".

[Stephanie]

5. She believed her own "inevitability" hype.

She's a bigger sucker than the voters are, apparently.

[Johnny__Motown]

8. she assumed she couldn't lose and never planned beyond Feb. 5th.

She put cronies in charge

She pissed away over 140 million dollars and ran out of money

She did not put any effort into winning caucus states

She depended on her husband to do the heavy lifting once she lost Iowa

Maybe she isn't as intelligent as you think.

[BattyDem]

16. I know you're right ...

but how could they NOT plan beyond February 5th? I'm merely a spectator in political campaigns and even I know that there are no guarantees. ANYTHING can happen over the course of a campaign. You can't take on a challenge - any challenge - and not prepare yourself for the various possible outcomes. You have to at least consider them and have some kind of a Plan B - that's just common sense ... isn't it? :shrug:

[Johnny__Motown]

35. She believed her own hype, Rookie mistake

[TheWraith]

37. Honestly, after this campaign I have to question just how bright Hillary is. Bill too...

...For that matter, and anyone else working in the top level of the campaign. Truly bright people would have realized in the beginning that negative campaigning against Obama and framing yourself as being on the other side of hope and change was a really bad idea. Reasonably bright people would have figured that fact out after the drubbing in South Carolina. Moderately clever folk would certainly not have pursued a strategy of more of the same, over, and over, and over, each time thinking that somehow losing meant you should keep doing what you were doing.

On the other hand, maybe it's just Mark Penn's presence, dragging down the IQ's of everybody in a ten block radius. Everything I've ever seen or heard about that man suggests to me that to say he was as dumb as a bag of hammers would be insulting the intelligence of hammers everywhere. A true, first-rate moron, whose understanding of politics is so woefully bad that he still thinks that somehow the campaign is going to magically turn around if they just keep plodding along at the same failed strategy. I'm surprised he wasn't snapped up by the White House to work on Iraq. This after he did wrong pretty much everything you can do wrong on a campaign.

Alter is right: the Clinton campaign has been the biggest disaster and self-destruction American politics has seen in a long time. I'm just dazzled that even after all of this, there are still people who think that Clinton could win the nomination or the general election, or worse, that she's our strongest candidate!

[The Backlash Cometh]

39. Two things, maybe. First, Hillary came into this as the DLC darling.

She had to unload an image that was holding her down from being accepted with open arms by everyone else. But Hillary, is a loyalist. So she was slow to recognize that she had to repackage herself.

That's what happens when you live in the Ivory Tower for so long. She wasn't really feeling our pain, or convincing us that she understood the problems that the next president needed to tackle. She's perfect as the Senator of New York, but if she came down to Florida, would she really understand Florida? Or would she just side with the real estate types which are making this state more and more unbearable to live in?

[superkia]

42. I dont think most political campaigns expect the American people...

to actually pay attention and get involved. Americans are sick and tired of being dumped on and they are actually getting out and voting. Maybe Clinton assumed that a normal campaign would do it once again and expected the American people to do as normal and acceot what the media told them. From the beginning, the media was telling us all that Clinton was the nominee and would most likely be the next president but the people finally ignored the media some and are trying to make some much needed change...even if that change is just getting out and voting.

[rocktivity]

6. Actually, the title of the article is

Newsweek's Alter on Clinton: 'One of the Worst Run Campaigns in Modern Political History'

...“I’d say it’s one of the worst run campaigns in modern political history, and...(t)hat’s the irony – that she turned out to be a pretty darn good candidate(,”) Alter told the audience gathered at Nathan’s in...Washington, D.C...

Yes, she IS a darn good candidate--despite everything, I will vote for her if she does somehow make it. But she should have invested more effort in convincing others of it.

She wasn't wrong in believing that her "brand name" would be more than enough to serve as her greatest strength. Had she won the first few primaries by demoralizing margins, she would have been sitting pretty by Super Tuesday. But her inability to put Obama away, especially in Iowa, gave his supporters the audacity of hope...

:headbang:
rocknation

[billyoc]

10. Indeed. I believe this has less to do with Sen. Clinton than those two

dicks Wolfson and Penn.

[Kahuna]

40. I don't agree. I think the culprits are Hill and Bill. They are responsible

for their own mistakes.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. I Guess They Showed That Race-Baiting Didn't Work

We can all learn from that.

[Whisp]

17. the old school politics may not be working any more.

people are getting fed up with the same old stunts and lies.
We aren't quite so accepting of 'all politicians lie', etc. and have this wonderful resource to check a little deeper into the candidates real history.

millions of people are whispering behind their backs now.

[Lerkfish]

41. apparently, some people refuse to learn that.

[Danger Mouse]

12. i think guiliani wins that prize handily.

[Colobo]

15. Yes. Giuliani, then Hillary and then Fred Thompson in 3rd.

[BattyDem]

21. Oh yeah ... Guiliani is the gold medal winner in this event!

"I want to be president, but I don't want to campaign so I'm going to skip all the early states and let my opponents get all the press coverage." :rofl:

[Colobo]

14. I believe her team sucks. She's a great candidate with a terrible team behind.

[Cleita]

18. I think voters are tired of the same old retreads. They

wanted someone new. Obama fits the bill. They're fed up with the Reagan/Bush rerun and didn't want a Clinton rerun. They didn't want any old worn out senators and governors either. I think, it's as simple as that.

[rocktivity]

24. I also suspect that there are subconscious rebellions going on

against Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton as well as McCain resurrecting the worst of Reagan AND Georgie.

:headbang:
rocknation

[bluedawg12]

28. Definitely, and also against the boomer gen and last century worries.

I think t young folka looked around and saw that no one was giving a sh*t about what kind of world we leave them and got involved.

[antigop]

23. but, but, but... wasn't she was running a "flawless campaign"? n/t

[meow mix]

26. history will say Hillary ran a dirty and sleazy campaign. because it is..

good legacy for her.

[psychopomp]

27. Her management of this campaign was awful

Fortunately, we have an incredibly popular candidate in Sen. Barack Obama to get behind!

[rocktivity]

29. That's another piece of the puzzle--HER management?

I get the sense that she went to this Penn guy and said, "Make me president." While Obama's campaign hasn't been flawless, you do get the sense that his flaws have been exactly that--HIS flaws. Which in turns makes him just human enough to be just presidential enough.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Divernan]

30. "She could go out classy or she could go out ugly."

To quote the OP's link.

[jgraz]

32. I think that ship has sailed.

The choice now is between ugly and disgraceful.

[mythyc]

34. proof that you're right about her choosing ugly:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/category/1208.aspx

left me speechless, and made me come here and create an account after lurking as an interested observer for the past few weeks....

[FunkyLeprechaun]

36. Hillary's campaign reminded me of Thomas Dewey's

Dewey, like Hillary, thought he was inevitable to win the presidency. Granted that these are two different things as Dewey was
A couple of points, taken from Wiki's page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948

"Virtually every prediction (with or without public opinion polls) indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas Dewey."

You could say the same about the polls before this primary season. All the polls were gunning Hillary to have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday. I believed that she would win too (I didn't back her, started backing Obama last summer after wavering between Edwards and Obama).

Dewey's handicap was that many Republicans disliked him; he often struck observers as cold, stiff and condescending.

How would you regard Hillary's behaviour during this primary season? I often felt she was arrogant, as if she was saying, "Move over boys, don't waste your time. The nomination is mine." I might get slammed for this comment but that's how I felt.

(Dewey) spoke in platitudes, avoided controversial issues, and was vague on what he planned to do as President.

Hillary did somewhat the same thing. She had originally planned to have the nomination wrapped up by the 5th. Then she started to steal Obama's campaign mottos in order to fire up her crowds. If you'd like to flesh out this comment, feel free to do that.

She's since tried to play up silly "scandals" against Obama to sink his polls and it's not working.

On the newsreel campaign video: The Dewey film, shot professionally on an impressive budget, featured very high production values, but somehow reinforced an image of the New York governor as cautious and distant. The Truman film, hastily assembled on virtually no budget by the perpetually cash-short Truman campaign, relied heavily on public-domain and newsreel footage of the President taking part in major world events and signing important legislation.

Obama was like Truman in this regard, not relying on rich donations but relying on the grassroots and meeting with people. Hillary's like Dewey, thought money would buy her way into the presidency.

I really truly believe that this primary has changed everything. In the past two decades or so, it was the candidate with the most money will win the presidency. At the start of this season, Hillary fit this bill. And that didn't happen.

I know they were two different types of elections but Dewey's campaign is strikingly similar to Hillary's in some regards.