Team Clinton's Slow Motion Trainwreck

[Patrick Degan]

Just to add one more thing - if you look at where the candidates were after Maryland and Virginia (i.e when both parties still had races), these were the vote counts:

Obama - 8,978k
Clinton - 8, 425k
McCain - 5,256k
Huckabee - 2,684k

Clinton won more votes than the two leading Republicans. You don't do that by running a bad campaign.

Invalid comparison —the GOP primary system is set up differently than that of the Democrats (winner-take-all, for a start) and fewer Republican voters participated in the GOP primaries. To name just the two states of your example:

MARYLAND: Democratic vote - 760,314; Republican vote - 268,115
VIRGINIA: Democratic vote - 970,393; Republican vote - 464,448

In both states, the GOP primary vote was less than half that of the Democratic turnout.

It's important to look at all the numbers. Not just the ones which suit you.

That was my whole point! That's why I took numbers from there, when the GOP still had a race of their own. Clinton ran a campaign good enough that her share of the vote was pretty near the total Republican turnout, even when both primaries were still competitive.

And your whole point is still a red herring in regards to the question of the competence of Team Clinton and how they manged to blow $100 million and still not manage to defeat a rookie.

Let's put in another way. Democratic turnout in 2008 had a 112% increase over 2004 - it more than doubled. The TOTAL number of votes cast in the Democratic primaries in 2004 was 16.35 million - Hillary got more than that by herself this year. You don't get that many people out to vote for you by running a bad campaign. They just had an opponent who was even better,

The reason for the upsurge in Democratic totals was the party's voter drives —efforts which were launched by Howard Dean two years ago in addition to those launched by Barack Obama. There was also, however, the aforementioned Republican cross-over registrations which may or may not have been part of what's been termed Operation Chaos.

(I don't see the significance of the different delegate distribution systems - do "winner take all" primaries have a different turnout to one which split delegates?)

WTA means that the candidate wins if they even manage to get one more vote more than their opposition, and if one candidate has momentum in that system, it likely discourages turnout in the later primaries.

[Glocksman]

WTA means that the candidate wins if they even manage to get one more vote more than their opposition, and if one candidate has momentum in that system, it likely discourages turnout in the later primaries.

Plus it discourages nasty convention fights like the Repubs had back in 1968 and 1976 by providing the eventual winner with an insurmountable delegate lead, despite however close the vote totals actually were.

Which is exactly why the Republicans do it that way.
Without WTA, the Republicans would have one nasty convention on their hands this year, given the distrust and dislike that many in the party's base have for McCain.

The resulting dustups between McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Ghouliani, and Thompson would have made the Clinton/Obama race seem friendly.

[Androsphinx]

Ok, to deal with your second and third points: It would be misleading to compare the total votes cast for Obama, Clinton, McCain and Huckabee as of June 2008 - that's why I took numbers from mid-February, when both races were still competitive.

Neither the exceptionally long Democratic primary, nor the fact that the Republicans tied theirs up earlier makes any difference to those numbers - because those things happened later. Nor was Republican cross-over (which I also think has been over-rated) an issue in February - for the same reason.

And your whole point is still a red herring in regards to the question of the competence of Team Clinton and how they manged to blow $100 million and still not manage to defeat a rookie.

They didn't manage to beat Obama. That doesn't mean that the Clinton campaign was bad, only that Obama was better. What criteria can we use to assess whether a campaign was objectively bad, or just not as good as another one?

I would think that there are some obvious things to measure - money raised, votes won, super-delegate support, how long the race was competitive, and so on. By any of those assessments, the Clinton campaign was the best unsuccessful campaign for at least a generation, and it did very well even in comparison with successful campaigns - both of previous election years and in comparison with the Republicans.

What I don't think is a good way of assessing it is to see that the Clinton campaign lost, and that it had heavy infighting and made mistakes, and conclude from there that it was objectively a bad campaign. It's post hoc ergo propter hoc, and if anything it cheapens the Obama victory.

Obama ran a superb campaign, doing any number of things which have never been done before - raising money and local organisation on an unprecedented scale, dealing directly with issues which threatened to scupper him, tackling race head on - and to say that the Clinton campaign must have been terrible because they couldn't beat him is fallacious.

Oh, and to say "They spent $100 million and couldn't beat him" also misses the point that he spent more. Through to January 31st, 2008, Clinton had spent $106 million, Obama $115 million.

[Mr Bean]

They didn't manage to beat Obama. That doesn't mean that the Clinton campaign was bad, only that Obama was better. What criteria can we use to assess whether a campaign was objectively bad, or just not as good as another one?

How about the giant loosing streak post Super Tuesday when Obama won the lead and kept it the rest of the way, the Clinton did not not even have field offices in most of those states. Have you read one shread of analysis or their own December/Janurary plans?

It will end on Super Tuesday they said, and they spent their money and energy on that basic premise and it was horribly, horribly wrong as the giant 11 win streak of Obama's showed. He was planning to compete in every state up until June while she had no plans post Super Tuesday.

Face it, she ran a shitty campaign, race baiting, smears, heavy use of "the great lie". Remove the name Clinton and have a Generic Democract run the same campaign and they never would have lasted past Super Tuesday.

Yes she tied up the big name doners, because of her name. Yes she tied up the old party folks, because she's know them through her Husban and cemented relationships due to his stint in the Whitehorse. The only reason she did as well as she did was because of the connections her name provided her.

[Patrick Degan]

They didn't manage to beat Obama. That doesn't mean that the Clinton campaign was bad, only that Obama was better. What criteria can we use to assess whether a campaign was objectively bad, or just not as good as another one?

The fact that they lost to a rookie —that they failed to put any organisation on the ground in primary states past the first Super Tuesday. The fact that they got caught utterly flatfooted when faced with the challenge of Obama and had no means to overcome their own inertia. The fact that Hillary's connections and name-recognition, on which the campaign was basing its strength, proved utterly insufficient when circumstances changed. The fact that Clinton's strategists were bickering continually over which plan to follow. The fact that only Harold Ickes understood that the Democratic primaries and caucauses were NOT winner-take-all and everybody else on the campaign, including Hillary, ignored this point each and every time it was brought up until Obama's delegate lead was well on its way to becoming insurmountable. That's fucking incompetence, whether you choose to believe it or not, and constantly repeating the pro-Hillary propaganda doesn't erase that grim fact no matter how much you really want to believe it does.

[SirNitram]

I wouldn't keep emphasizing rookie. Yes, he was a nobody before, but he was a nobody with bags of charisma, and since he was a rookie, didn't play the primary game in a way that Clinton's tactics could defeat.

[Patrick Degan]

I wouldn't keep emphasizing rookie. Yes, he was a nobody before, but he was a nobody with bags of charisma, and since he was a rookie, didn't play the primary game in a way that Clinton's tactics could defeat.

Well, charisma can only get a candidate so far. Obama's trick was combining that charisma with a strategy which exploited internet networking to maximum advantage as well as paying close attention to what the actual rules of the game were and knowing exactly how to exploit them. Now, a better organised opponent might have been able to better adapt to the challenge of Obama, but this was Hillary, the ultimate insider, who's campaign was more suited to running against a John Edwards or an alt-Obama who had the charisma but not the networking skills or the sharp eye for detail where the party primary/caucaus rules were concerned. We both know they planned chiefly to glide to the nomination and found themselves in a bitter dogfight instead.

[SirNitram]

They were pretty clearly prepared for a fight, but I think we can chiefly lay the blame on her inability to take charge of her advisors, and the incredible idiocy of them. Mark Penn alone could account for the loss observed, frankly, given his actions and the memos released.

[Knife]

They were pretty clearly prepared for a fight, but I think we can chiefly lay the blame on her inability to take charge of her advisors, and the incredible idiocy of them. Mark Penn alone could account for the loss observed, frankly, given his actions and the memos released.

Nah, Hillary again. She hired the typical hacks and a pit bull and then couldn't decide who's advise to go with.

[Mr Bean]

In a just world Mark Penn would be reduced to a clerk somewhere. This is a man who repeatably gave bad advice and charged three times as much for his bad advice to boot. Hillary forked over millions of dollars to a man best described as having the same planning ability as Paul Wolfwizt and about as much ethics.

[SirNitram]

They were pretty clearly prepared for a fight, but I think we can chiefly lay the blame on her inability to take charge of her advisors, and the incredible idiocy of them. Mark Penn alone could account for the loss observed, frankly, given his actions and the memos released.

Nah, Hillary again. She hired the typical hacks and a pit bull and then couldn't decide who's advise to go with.

Heh. Sadly, Mark Penn is not just any idiot. He ingratiated himself with bootlicking during the Clinton's previous runs for offices. Much like the rest of the senior staff. Then Hillary found out she lacked Bill's ability to take charge and simply fire people who were incompetent beyond measure.

[Guardsman Bass]

They were pretty clearly prepared for a fight, but I think we can chiefly lay the blame on her inability to take charge of her advisors, and the incredible idiocy of them. Mark Penn alone could account for the loss observed, frankly, given his actions and the memos released.

Nah, Hillary again. She hired the typical hacks and a pit bull and then couldn't decide who's advise to go with.

Heh. Sadly, Mark Penn is not just any idiot. He ingratiated himself with bootlicking during the Clinton's previous runs for offices. Much like the rest of the senior staff. Then Hillary found out she lacked Bill's ability to take charge and simply fire people who were incompetent beyond measure.

That's what got me, too; the fact that she just did so badly at making many decisions. She'd sit on them for a while, indecisive and the like.

In any case, if they were preparing for a fight, they didn't let a lot of their supporters notice it. Anyone remember the rhetoric before the Iowa Primary about how February 5th was going to be a "coronation" for Hillary, after she won the Iowa and New Hampshire Primaries?