What went wrong with Hilary's campaign?

Yes, I grew tired, then bitter about Hilary and her campaign. But it's still worth thinking about how she went from the presumed dominant candidate with all the advantages of name recognition, favorable ratings, good will, lots of money, her husband's immense political skills, connections, and popularity the support of a great many party leaders to second place behind a comparative rookie, and a black man at that.

Some of it has been campaign strategy and management. And some of it has been that Obama's and his team played the game quite well. In the end though, it was the wrong time. The War in Iraq and Hilary's choice made regarding the decision to go to war revealed more than she intended. Obama is going to beat McCain, but Obama's beating Hilary marks the passing of an era.

Hilary ran a less than stellar campaign

Remember when Hilary's campaign mantra was "ready on day one"? Despite all the appearances, she wasn't.

She figured it would be over on Super Tuesday in early February. It wasn't. And when it wasn't over in February, she didn't change course.

Hilary ran a slice and dice campaign. Mark Penn was not only key to the operational aspects of Hilary's campaign, he represented the type of campaign that poll at the microscopic level and tailor policy positions and demographic and cultural symbols to appeal to enough microscopic groups to add up to more than half the voters. Of course, when the appeals to two different groups contradict one another, it's difficult, if not impossible to resolve.

And it wasn't just campaign staffing. Hilary couldn't change course because her campaign was like a supertanker. Hilary's campaign was emblematic of the past 30 years, big, strong, tough, domineering, extraordinarily arrogant, and failed much like the Bush Presidency. What it was not was smart, subtle, supple, and clear-headed.

Obama ran a very good campaign

It wasn't just that Hilary ran the wrong campaign. Obama ran a smart, flexible, clear-headed campaign. It was bottom-up rather than top-down. Despite the huge amounts of money they raised, they were lean; they controlled their spending. They not only used new technology. In taking advantage of the social networking tools on the web, they advanced its use way beyond what Howard Dean did a mere four years ago. They also built on Dean's 50-state strategy at the DNC, by looking for stray delegates wherever they could find them and by working effectively to expand the base.

What they needed was delegates. That's what they got. His unification message was quite contrary to the Mark Penn slice and dice messaging and tactics.

The War

Hilary's voting for the resolution that enabled George W. Bush to take us into the strategic blunder and moral failure and her inability or unwillingness to come to grips with her own decision was fatal. That decision may not always have been in the forefront of the public face of the contest. But it was always there. For many, the decision itself was enough to permanently alienate them from Hilary. The decision to go to war was bad enough in its own right. But the war vote by Democrats also symbolized something else. Many Congressional Democrats, and Hilary may have been one of them, voted for the war because they were fearful of the political consequences if they did not. Trying to appear tough, they revealed their inner weakness. It took time, but their own fearfulness revealed itself and turned back on them.

The passing of an era

Hilary's campaign was right for her. It was wrong for the time.

Hilary and her campaign misread the time, because they are from a different political era. Only the recent past, but the past nevertheless. One of the things I found both distressing and curious during the campaign was how careful some of the candidates were (and still some Democratic members of Congress are) way too careful about offending Republican sensibilities and fearful of the wingnut right. Why? Old habits die hard I guess, but the Republicans are going to be crushed this fall. Take it from the Smirking Chimp. Because damn little is going right and the American public is rightly fed up. The Republican brand is like one of those companies that sold poisonous pet food not too long ago.

From the beginning I've thought all we had to do was choose somebody reasonably competent and we'd win. And we started with a large group of very competent candidates. The field narrowed rather quickly, but pretty much all of them were plainly preferable to pretty much any of the Republicans.

One of the funny things about Democratic politics the past couple decades is how fearful it has been. National Democrats have been fearful of being perceived as "weak," especially on issues of national defense, but also in terms of campaign tactics. Part of Hilary's argument was that the "Republican attack machine" had already gone after her, she had withstood it, and Obama wasn't ready for it. But the psychology of that message is one of being defensive, undermining its own premise. Obama essentially ignored it. In doing so, he not only showed he was tough enough, he showed the self-confidence and temperament that changed the terms of engagement.

Negotiate with our enemies? Those fearful that they will be perceived as weak, make tough statements that they won't. Those who support a war out of fear of appearing weak are weak. It just take some time to be revealed.

Those confident of themselves are not afraid to be on the same field with the bad guys because they have inner strength. They set their own terms of engagement.

The conventional wisdom was not only wrong. It was delusional. Yet, it persisted even as its victims began falling by the wayside. Remember Fred Thompson, a Reagan wannabe? The best part of his campaign ended the day he announced. Remember when the chattering classes were hyped on a Rudy-Hilary race? All 9/11, all the time. When Rudy vanished, did any of the analysts, or did any of Hilary's strategists stop and wonder what the hell was going on? Apparently not.

Let's not forget Bill Clinton role here. Despite his prodigious talents, he cost Hilary in four ways. First, his comments about race during the South Carolina primary campaign were a turn off. They were bad enough by themselves, but because he and Hilary had always had strong support in the Black community, they were interpreted as Clintonian willingness to say anything for advantage. From that point on, Black voters went from being split to overwhelming support of Obama. But they caused movement by White voters as well, who were disgusted by the comments themselves and by what they revealed. Second, Bill's constant presence was a reminder that the era we are leaving has been Bush/Clinton all the time. We link these two families and we're tired of them. Lastly, Bill's a wild card. We love him, but we're tired of worrying what he's going to do next. Enough of that. Lastly, his presence undermined the message of Hilary's being the ground breaking woman candidate and more experienced than Obama. It was too easy to think that had she not spent eight years as first lady she would not be a candidate and that her "experience" was not really hers.

It's useful to think about John Edwards here. Edwards was the leading candidate who presented an aggressive agenda and demeanor. He apologized for being wrong on the war, but he did not apologize for being a Democrat and believing that we have obligations to one another, especially those less advantaged. Democrats, including myself who were tired of seeing National Democrats in a defensive crouch, fearful of what the Republicans might do and Democrats, like myself who believed that it was our time, moved toward Edwards and Obama. When Edwards dropped out, it was an easy move for many who wanted a more aggressive stance, to move to Obama.

Hilary came close. But she came in second.

Obama ran a better campaign. He had a better message. And he's much more representative of the time we're hoping for and of our desire to leave the past three decades behind.

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Some other opinions:

Washington Post

The Carpetbagger Report

The Wall Street Journal

Larry Beinhart

Time Magazine (on how Obama won)