History will not look back kindly on the failure of the Clinton campaign.

[peoli]

In fact, I believe that it will be remembered as the biggest case of political buffonery in this nations history. A campaign to be studied and remembered for generations on how not to run a campaign.

From the beginning of the campaign where they all sat in their thrones counting the days until Hillary became President, to the end where they woke up and realized they up shit creek without a paddle. The kitchen sink strategy employed by new campaign manager Maggie Williams, and the lack of vision or originality of any of the staff members. The new slogan every week. The planting of questions in local Q & A sessions. The bitterness and hatred teaming from every wrinkle in her face when speaking about Obama.

It was a campaign that was run over by a bus that they never saw coming. It will be remembered as the most poorly run campaign in history.

[Catherina]

1. No it will not. I hope people like Zinn are writing new chapters already n/t

[ThatBozGuy]

19. The Machinations of Ms Clintons current campaign staff, not in the campaign but in the 2005-2007 DNC

Will be much more contextual to the failure.

They made the rules in those timeframes of 2005-2007 which explain the campaign she ran in 2008.

Incumbent, big state, over by super Tuesday was the fix that the rules favored.

Any candidate that ran that campaign with the NEW DNC rules that Ms Clinton's compatriots had laid had a stacked deck in their favor for a quick and succinct win.

They never thought anyone could run a true 50 state campaign and gain the people and grassroots to compete let alone beat the deck that they had stacked.

That is why she had no plan beyond Super Tuesday. She had 4 aces. Mr Obama drew the royal flush.

Ok Ok no problem We have the Super Delegates as a back up that Geraldine Ferrarro and Harold Ickes designed for just such a thing when they needed to kill Ted Kennedy's chance in the 1980 election.

Ms Clintons compatriots in that endeavor never believed a candidate could over come that barrier also.

But Mr Obama once again has nullified that hand also.

The one thing in all this political intrigue and DLC/NDC coups and so on they forgot one thing.

Its not the politicians that matter, it is the power of the people, and the observation of the Clinton campaign destruction will not be about the failed day to day Of Mark Penn but the story of how the American people beat a several stacked decks to win a President not of Washington political intrigue of the Clintons, but a president of the people, for the people and by the people, in Mr Barack Obama.

[grantcart]

57. Actually I think they thought that their infrastructure would also

guide them to win all of the caucuses after Iowa.

When Obama ran through all of the caucus states they had no response at all.

[frogcycle]

2. glad to have your pronouncement

now I can go back to basketball

[Ned_Devine]

3. Maybe for democrats but Giuliani's certainly takes the overall cake

[FrenchieCat]

4. Maybe so, but he wasn't married to a President.....

[Ned_Devine]

5. No, he was married to 9/11

[Swamp Rat]

20. LOL!

:D

[KittyWampus]

41. DUZY! my first nomination.

:rofl:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Don't forget Fred Thompson's brilliant, riveting campaign.

That will be a classic, too -- probably the first presidential campaign in history where the primary task of the campaign staff was to keep the candidate awake.

[bhikkhu]

9. you beat me to it, and said it better...

at least we owe a bunch of hilarious "Red state Update"s to his run.

[havocmom]

17. Team Fred didn't lose much money on that exercise though.

Hillary loses primary & a shit load of money. Started at the top of the heap too. All that frontrunner, inevitable arrogance.

Such hubris

[bhikkhu]

7. Don't forget Fred Thompson, the one-time presumptive (R) winner!

[Ned_Devine]

8. Yeah! I never understood his appeal...

...apparently voters didn't either

[bhikkhu]

10. Talk radio loved him.

"The only true Reagan Conservative running" or something like that.

[Ned_Devine]

14. I always think of how gross it is...

...for his 20 something year old wife to have to do anything with his wrinkled 80 year old penis

[krkaufman]

52. I'm eternally grateful for his running...

... as it got him off of Law & Order, and may have killed his entertainment career, entirely.

[scheming daemons]

12. Giuliani didn't blow over $150 million in order to still lose....

...

[peoli]

15. None of the repubs campaigns even compare to Clintons. She was supposed to cakewalk in there.

[ShadowLiberal]

26. Rudy was never the front runner in any early states

Rudy was never really the front runner in the early states, he may have been near the top in a few of them at certain points, but he wasn't as it got closer for the first votes to be cast.

Rudy's campaign simply made a bad decision by betting it all on Florida, Hillary's campaign made a number of mistakes to lose the once insurmountable lead they had.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. Only glassy-eyed media goobers thought Rudy had a chance.

Many of us were shouting from the rafters that hell would freeze over and turn into a skating rink before the GOP would nominate someone pro-choice for President.

Funny, the same people who blather about how all-powerful the "values voters" are in the general electorate also seem to underestimate the extent to which a few Flat-Earth fundies control the GOP.

[David Dunham]

11. Actually, Obama's campaign will look really bad if McCain trounces him in the fall

[NashVegas]

13. Not Just Obama's Campaign

But also the press corps and the Beltway dems who greased the lane for him.

[Ned_Devine]

16. Which beltway dems would those be?

[quantass]

18. She ran a horrendous campaign....Easily the worst in Democratic history

[joshcryer]

21. The campaigns primary historical memory will be just how undemocratic caucuses are.

Historians will recognize the meat of the issue and report on it.

[Citizen Kang]

37. Those Damn caucuses!!!!

Where you have to show up and actually participate in a democracy instead of having Diebold count your vote for you. The horror!!! The horror!!


Yes, those damn undemocratic caucuses! They were to blame, not the horrible campaign run by political stooges for an extremely unlikable candidate.

[davidpdx]

22. I agree, there will be a campaign book written about the failure of Hillary's campaign

Her campaign suffered in two ways:

1) It was a textbook "top down" campaign that was run very in a mediocre fashion. The campaign wrote off many of the states, including small states, red states and caucus states. They gambled and lost on the notion that they would have the nomination wrapped up by Feb 5th. The campaign underestimated Obama's campaign, had a poor strategy, showed a lack of restraint in dealing with problems (surrogates, dismissing states they lost, having an arrogant attitude).

2) The campaign faced a real grassroots effort at full force for the first time (granted Dean and his campaign blazed the trail, but didn't last long enough to turn it into a full force effort like Obama has).

People in this thread have tried to compare Rudy G or Fred Thompson's campaigns, but neither had the strength at the beginning, the fund raising capacity and a former president behind them. There is no comparison though.

I really hope there is an author out there who will write about this. It would be fascinating to read.

[Mme. Defarge]

47. Waiting for the

made-for-tv mini-series.

[BenDavid]

23. Oh bullshit! History is written by those that have killed heroes, and

since the whoremedia will be doing the writing I suspect it will be just as described in the above, but history can also be written by those that know the truth. The truth is obama is a liar. obama played the race card and blamed Hillary.Obama is a bigot. So see history can be told with the truth in it too.

Shalom

[peoli]

25. The media didnt make Hillary fail, but if thats what you want to believe then go ahead,

[blm]

32. Clintons certainly spent the 90s rehabbing BushInc's legacy and deep-sixing the REAL DEM HEROES'

years of efforts to expose the government corruption of BushInc and its illegal operations.

You can't name a hero greater than John Kerry in uncovering and exposing the TRUTH about this nation's last 35 years of corruption in government and its illegal operations, and you can't name a Dem lawmaker who PROTECTED and REHABILIATED Poppy Bush and his powerful cronies more than Bill Clinton has since he took office.

The same John Kerry who the closed government protecting Democrats worked to undermine throughout his campaign.

[zulchzulu]

24. I had a conversation with John Nichols (The Nation) and he said...

...he actually just feels sorry for her at this point. Her handlers screwed up monumentally on so many levels and with so many bad decisions. Certainly attacking Obama's kindergarten paper was indeed unprecedented in American Presidential Politics. There's so much more.

I've actually gotten to feel sorry for her as well sometimes... until she calls Barack Obama "unAmerican"...then I just hope she ends the race gracefully.

[peoli]

27. Thats interesting.

There is definately enough material for a book.

[EFerrari]

28. The whole enterprise has been so counter intuitive

it almost makes you think aliens invaded both Clintons and are manipulating the campaign from Pluto.

[ClassWarrior]

30. Nichols sure is a good bloke, isn't he?

One of the most open and gracious "political celebrities" I've ever met.

NGU.

[ShadowLiberal]

29. Hillary's campaign doomed itself by reinforcing her negative image in it's attempts to redefine her

I agree, people will look back to Hillary's campaign as one of the biggest turn-arounds in a presidential primary in history.

I think one of the biggest flaws with Hillary's campaign that her people just couldn't shake is her negative image by half of America. The fact is a lot of people view Hillary as cold and calculating, but Hillary ran... well a campaign that looked very calculated with plans constantly changing the second the polls start to show their old plan isn't working well enough. Remember the flip flopper label they gave John Kerry? That's a big part of Hillary's problem in her campaign, there was just no consistent reason for why you should vote for her. I mean off the top of my head I can think of these reasons they used in the last year.

-Hillary tough and ready to lead
-Hillary is soft and just a regular woman like you ladies
-Hillary has experience to lead on day one
-Hillary has experience to bring about change we need

I remember quite a few months ago hearing someone say on a political talk show (back when Hillary had a 20% lead in the polls over Obama) that Hillary's campaign looked like a campaign that was running scared.

That's exactly how Hillary has run things, she had such a massive lead from the start that she didn't want to take any risks at all, and wanted to be whatever the polls said the party wanted. But her attempts to constantly reshape her image merely reinforced her old image of being cold and calculating to many people.

Her campaign was also really arrogant and foolish when they decided to go all out in Iowa, where they had consistently polled the worst all year long. Hillary should have just pulled out of Iowa a few months before they voted, that way it wouldn't have been so bad politically for her to lose to Obama and Edwards.

[KittyWampus]

42. very sober and insightful post! And wouldn't it be better to run on what you truly believe and lose

than to run on a platform that doesn't sincerely reflect your core and win?

[Mme. Defarge]

49. Very much on point.

I never warmed to the idea of her as the Democratic nominee, but there was a moment during the debate held right before the New Hampshire primary when I thought I could vote for her. Everything she has done after that has only served to confirm my inital impression that, for her, it is about winning at all costs.

[blm]

31. These asshats were in charge of the Dem PARTY, too, since 1993, and you wonder why

the party infrastructure was in total collapse in so many states and why the RNC was able to take control of the election process at every level where the votes are allowed, cast and counted, so neither Gore or Kerry could gain office when their votes couldn't be tallied in those states.

Gore and Kerry won. The RNC stole those elections, and the DNC let them do it.

The same Dem 'leadership' actors who have been running Hillary2008 thinking we would never know what BAD ACTORS they proved to be for our party in the past.

TUFF - Too many of us KNOW now what they have done to undermine and hurt our party.

[Mooney]

33. I respectfully disagree with the premise of your thread.

The Clinton campaign will be largely forgotten the minute it's over, even if she wins. This type of thing only matters to deeply obsessive political junkies like us.

If anyone does take anything away from the Clinton campaign it will be:

1) "Have a plan B in case you actually have to compete beyond Super Tuesday" and;

2) "Never hire Mark Penn."

[WinkyDink]

35. At the very least, there will be a book on Obama's rise, which perforce will include

Hillary's fall.
Of course, by "a book" I mean a half-dozen.

[peoli]

38. I respectfully disagree with your disagreement

BTW my mothers maiden name was Mooney.

I think Hillary's demise is a MEGAGIGANTORTASTROPHE. It is an eye-popping fall of epic proportions. The most powerful and popular democratic family in 20 years collapses. Your two points will be included though, I believe.

[LiberalAndProud]

43. I second point #2.

Isn't he handling McCain's campaign as well? This give me as much hope as any other for the GE.

[blm]

45. How about, don't backstab every other Dem leader and their efforts to gild yourself?

.

[WinkyDink]

34. I guess you don't remember Sen. Eagleton. In any event, "kindly" isn't how history

would view anything; "objectively" is more like it. Historians will have no dog in the hunt; they will simply describe the events. The best of them will form their thesis into a narrative, but "kindly" or not will be neither here nor there.

BTW, "every wrinkle in her face"? Is Obama's face smooth as a baby's bottom? Is Michelle's?

[OhioBlue]

36. I think both Clintons have harmed

their historical legacy.

[Melinda]

39. You poisoned the well: "The bitterness and hatred teaming from every wrinkle in her face..."

Your bias has effectively shut down any objective argument you attempted to make.

Obama supporters are (should be) much better than this.

[peoli]

40. sorry how about every "nuance" in her face

does that work better?

[Melinda]

44. Too bad you didn't write that in your OP instead.

It's ever so much more fair. Maybe next time, thanks. ;)

[Mme. Defarge]

46. Running on experience

against Biden and Dodd, and now McCain? That kind of fakery could never fly.

[suston96]

48. History will what? Never mind history. How about November will not look kindly on Obama...

...for screwing 3 million Democrats out of their "full participation in the nominating process" as guaranteed by the Democratic Party Charter......?

[boppers]

55. In what year were all states needed to have a vote in the DNC primaries?

I'll give you a hint: NONE.

FL and MI chose to have non-binding straw polls, good for them for participating.

Maybe next season they'll want to have a vote?



tpyo

[suston96]

60. Nonsense. Democratic Party Charter mandates were violated.....

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:i1Dy8P2UOcoJ:www.democrats.org/pdfs/charter.pdf+Democratic+Party+Charter&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

Section 4.

The National Convention shall be composed of delegates equally divided between men and
women. The delegates shall be chosen through processes which:

(a) assure all Democratic voters full, timely and equal opportunity to participate and include
affirmative action programs toward that end,

(b) assure that delegations fairly reflect the division of preferences expressed by those who
participate in the Presidential nominating process,

[Trajan]

50. History will not look to fondly ...

At the backbiting and infighting which pit camp against camp, ignoring the 'big picture' issues while positioning their own pet peeves as the most important issues to face mankind ....

This is among the ugliest hatefest I have ever seen in a Democratic nomination process ....

I wonder what will happen should we LOSE in November, which used to be in the bag, but which now looks more and more unlikely ... This battle is as mean as it gets ...

Much of that is reflected here, unfortunately ....

[krkaufman]

51. Well, even in this single cycle, we've seen a couple of worse run campaigns.

9iu11iani & Thompson, at a minimum.

I'd think that HC's will be remembered for the arrogance, sense of entitlement, and possibly the election of John McCain.

[jillan]

53. This post reminds me of GW. He is always telling us how history will remember him.

geesh!

[marshall]

56. It will also besmirch Bill Clinton's presidency

They'll have to add a wing to the presidential library to explain this fiasco.

[grantcart]

58. there will be a small industry of Clinton insiders selling their stories in the form of tell all

books

[enlightenment]

59. Well, you're entitled to believe it,

but you might want to actually study history before you commit to making a pronouncement that includes "biggest" "remembered for generations" and "most poorly run campaign in history."

There's a whole lot of history out there. This primary is just one relatively small event during a period of great crisis - a tiny ripple amongst gigantic waves.

Someone will write about it, I'm sure. Most likely some future Ph.D. student desperately seeking a dissertation topic that hasn't been beaten to death with a stick.

But it's not the "biggest" anything in history. Really.