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HILLARY'S LOSS AND THE DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT CLASS
The post-mortems dissecting Hillary Clinton's loss to Barack Obama are beginning to trickle in, and for the most part what they have to say is unobjectionable. Whenever a contest is as close as the one between Obama and Clinton was, there are any number of things that might have tipped the balance one way or the other. Clearly, given strong anti-war sentiment in the country at large and in the Democratic base in particular, Hillary's staunch refusal to make a John Edwards-style apology for her vote authorizing the war is one of the main things that did her in. Oddly enough, however, most of the "why Hillary lost" narratives either don't mention the war at all, or downplay its significance.
One thing nearly all the post-mortems do agree on, however, is that Hillary's advisers did her no favors. For example, this Wall Street Journal piece argues that the "experience" message Hillary's team crafted did not resonate with voters, that her campaigned was poorly managed, and that her advisers made a fatal strategic error by assuming she'd have the nomination wrapped up by February 5th and failing to plan beyond that.
What hasn't been emphasized enough, however, is that the election results are a resounding affirmation of the netroots critique of the Democratic consultant class. One of the basic netroots arguments is that the Democrats have been ill-served by a grossly overpaid, out of touch, incompetent, and pathologically risk averse consultant class. The Clinton campaign provides some powerfully persuasive evidence in support of this critique. Hillary started out with every advantage: money, name recognition, the overwhelming support of the Democratic establishment, and enormous leads in all the polls. Yet her advisers somehow managed to burn through all that political capital in record time.
At a time when polls show the public moving significantly leftward on most issues, and with record numbers of Americans disapproving of Bush and the war and saying the country is moving in the wrong direction, there has never been a better time to craft a "change" message. Yet the Hillary people stubbornly insisted on sticking to the "experience" meme. They smugly assumed Hillary would have the nomination wrapped up after Super Tuesday and failed to draft contingency plans. Their fundraising aggressively targeted big donors, yet they ran out of money. The campaign reportedly owes $10 million to Mark Penn, a man so stunningly ill-informed that, according to the Wall Street Journal piece and other sources, he didn't realize that California's delegates are awarded proportionally, not winner-take-all.
Barack Obama's team, however, worked smarter and harder. They spent their money on grassroots organizing instead of bloated consultants' fees, a strategy that paid off spectacularly for them. They thought ahead and planned ahead. They poured resources into every state, and refused to give up any of them as "lost." Their fundraising strategy focused on small donors and proved wildly successful. Most importantly, rather than timidly adopting a "me, too" message on Iraq, Obama strongly defended his anti-war position and aggressively punched back when Republicans accused him of being weak on national security. In short, Barack Obama ran his campaign in the manner the netroots had always urged Democrats to do, and he won, defying the pundits and the conventional wisdom at every turn.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Obama's style of campaigning will work as well in the general election as it did in the primaries. But his team has already provided strong reasons to believe that they'll be every bit as capable of dealing with McCain as they were with Hillary.
Finally -- how hard do you think John Kerry is kicking himself for hiring Bob Shrum instead of David Axelrod?
--K.A. Geier
COMMENTS (6)
Just one more example of the DFHs being right. I wonder whether anyone else in the Democratic Party is listening? This should be an interesting election.
Posted by: PaulB | June 6, 2008 12:37 PM
First, about the last - I'm not sure Axelrod would have been a good fit for Kerry, and perhaps the instructive thing about the Obama/Axelrod pairing is that it took a relative neophyte, not particularly enamored of Washington's consulting class, to give a relative unknown a chance. But the second part of that... is that those DC consultants get work for a reason. Axelrod was untested, and I think in the rush to crown Obama, a lot of people are overlooking mistakes on the Obama team's part (in particular, also not having an especially nimble, adaptive operation once Clinton strengthened, leading to a string of high profile, and damaging losses right through to this past Tuesday). Axelrod's good; he's not necessarily a genius. Just keeping it real.
Second, I think the question of "war vote? help or hurt?" tends to illustrate the Clinton/Obama divide; those who say the lack of apology hurt tend to see the Obama side, and those who'd say (as I do) that it was hardly crucial, tend to see the Clinton side. I'm not sure an apology, an explanation or anything else could have helped Clinton with some primary voters; yet still, she won about half of the popular vote, and had primaries been held instead of caucuses in a number of states, this whole story might be a different one. To say the Iraq War vote made the difference, then, seems like a stretch. If Clinton had prevailed - a result that is, at the very least, in the realm of possibility -I'm not sure one could argue the opposite. The war vote mattered to some and not to others. In neither case was it the real key difference. Which is why I think the "politics of the war" and how they will drive this election are still a bit of a puzzle. If Obama wins - as I think he will - I'd bet the reasons for it will be more, or different, than simply Iraq.
Posted by: weboy | June 6, 2008 4:51 PM
While the Obama campaign did a great job of mobilization and grass-roots efforts in the early primaries and caucuses, after those wins in February, Obama's campaign adopted the "playing not to lose" strategy. Fortunately for him, Hillary's campaign also had the same strategy, so he managed to run out the clock.
Posted by: H-Bob | June 6, 2008 5:09 PM
Please remember that David Axelrod worked for the Clintons long before he worked for Obama - in fact, he CHOSE to work for Obama this primary season and not Hillary. Secondly, both candidates' stances on the war were indeed critical. It was the most definite 'policy' difference between them - plus it highlighted the whole 'experience' vs' 'change in Washington politics' meme better than any other issue.
Posted by: Sheila | June 6, 2008 7:28 PM
Axelrod's role in the Clinton campaign would never have been the role he had in the Obama campaign - and thus, a "choice" between the two doesn't mean the options were equal ones.
Second, their "war positions" was one of the least distinct differences between them - Obama and Clinton's withdrawal plans were essentially the same, in terms of timing and numbers, and as well, an overall vagueness on definitive endings... something Obama clearly is going to stick with in the fall. Though highlighting the "war vote" was helpful early on, the "experience" question didn't help the Obama folks, and eventually they stopped trying the "right kind of experience" line in favor of emphasizing "change you can believe in".
Again, I think for voters for whom the war vote mattered, supporting Obama was, often, a given. But for those who didn't, supporting Clinton was perfectly fine; and the 50-50 split in voting suggests that neither side was really persuading the other. There were other, more crucial distinctions - around organizing, for one thing, as well as on issues with more appeal to working class voters (no one, really, in these post mortems has asked just how the gas tax holiday debate worked one way or the other, for one thing). Had Clinton made caucuses a priority, or had caucus states been using primaries, the "war vote" question may well have cut the other way.
Posted by: weboy | June 6, 2008 10:35 PM
Weboy:
You are just wrong. If Hillary votes against the war (and it's the 2002 vote, not the lack of an apology, that killed her), Obama never runs. And if he does run, he never wins Iowa.
You can argue, if you want, that on the merits the war vote shouldn't have mattered, but there's no doubt it did. It was the reason why at least 20 percent of Obama's voters voted for him. And without that 20 percent, Hillary wins easily.
I suspect that the real motives of people who are downplaying the war's effect are substantive-- they don't want the Democrats' foreign policy to become more dovish, either because they are hawks or because they don't think doves can win elections.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | June 9, 2008 2:27 PM