Why clinton lost

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One year ago I was advising someone pondering an endorsement of Barack Obama. I will not claim incredible prescience. I did not predict that Obama would become the Democratic nominee for President. But I did think he had the best chance of winning. I thought there would be an anti-Clinton candidate. I thought it would not be John Edwards. I felt Edwards' populism would not play well in New Hampshire, where he finished fourth in 2004, and that his fundraising wouldn't give him the needed resources for a strong showing on Super Tuesday. By elimination if nothing else, I thought Barack Obama would become the alternative for voters looking for someone new. Obama proved he could raise a lot of money. I thought it was a "change election," and voters wanted something vastly different than their choices of recent elections, and that Obama offered the biggest break with the past that would be tolerated by the primary electorate. I thought that Democrats would hope for something more than the half-loaf we came away with from the Clinton administration; instead of rear-guard actions delaying the advancing Republicans, Democrats want bold change. And I thought that any campaign guided by Mark Penn, as was the case with Clinton's, was probably doomed to failure. In 1940, France had the world's largest army. France, having been invaded twice in the previous seventy years by Germany, had also built the Maginot Line, a series of bunkers and obstructions designed to prevent a direct assault from Germany or Italy. The Germans avoided the Maginot line by invading with overwhelming force through the Low Countries and in through unfortified Northern France. The construction of the Maginot Line and the deployment of much of France's army in the wrong place to repel the German invasion is one of the most oft-cited examples of generals preparing to fight the last war. Hillary Clinton did not become the Democratic nominee for many reasons. Barack Obama was simply the better candidate. Voters wanted change; people generally vote either their fears or their aspirations, for what someone might become and bring about rather than what they were, are or have done in the past. Obama appealed to and personally exemplified the aspirations of voters, especially younger voters and African-Americans. The Clinton campaign also committed many errors. They ignoring caucuses, didn't plan for the races beyond Super Tuesday, and didn't offer a compelling message beyond "the Clinton years were good, and voting for Hillary Clinton will bring back what was good about the Clinton years." Clinton had also alienated many activist Democrats with her vote for the Iraq War resolution, and exacerbated this problem by refusing to repent for her vote. But most debilitating and pervasive within the Clinton campaign was the malady that afflicts many military organizations. Like the French in 1940, the Clinton campaign was built to wage the previous battle, in this case a 1990's-style Democratic primary campaign. The Clinton campaign was not prepared for the changes in the Democratic electorate or electioneering. Furthermore, too many of the "generals" leading the Clinton campaign, beginning with Bill and Hillary Clinton, were unable or temperamentally disinclined to complete the missions required of them in the modern campaign. Personnel A few years ago, while I was working on a campaign, one of my twenty-something staffers asked me what it was like to do campaigns before cell phones. It would have been an excellent question for Bill and Hillary Clinton. The 1992 Clinton campaign was innovative and tactically more modern than the Bush campaign. But watch The War Room, the documentary on the 1992 Clinton campaign, and you barely see a cell phone. It was before the spread of the internet, email, web browsers, blogs, online commerce and political donations, and YouTube. Despite all these changes, Bill Clinton, the NYT reported this morning, doesn’t use email or a blackberry. It is hard to believe that people such as Bill Clinton who have had such a hard time adapting to technology and tactics that are ubiquitous on campaigns can provide the best strategic and tactical guidance. And from all accounts, the biggest player in the Clinton campaign after the candidate herself was the former President. Clinton's presidency is responsible for some of the other problems of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Bill Clinton insisted that Hillary bring on Mark Penn as pollster and senior strategist. Bill Clinton gives Penn great credit for his 1996 reelection, and Penn used that validation to prevail in intra-campaign disputes. Furthermore, where the Obama campaign used five polling firms, and none of the pollsters had preeminence in devising strategy, Penn had exclusive control over the polling, and used his own numbers to back up his arguments. There was little empirical data coming in to the Clinton campaign that didn't first go through Mark Penn, and Penn had that authority because Bill Clinton was too tied to a campaign from twelve years ago. Penn's role was part of a larger problem: too little new blood. Most of the Clinton team had been in place for ages. It's important to have people loyal to the candidate, who know the candidate and those around her. But it appears that there were some orthodoxies that went unchallenged, while there were simultaneously raging battles between key Clinton aides that had been going for decades. The Clinton campaign, by relying so heavily on long-time staffers to the exclusion of new people, inherited the infighting but wasn't infused with fresh blood, innovative ideas and new perspectives. Even the decision to keep the campaign in suburban DC ensured that people tied to DC, often with conflicts from clients outside the Clinton campaign, didn't put their full attention to getting Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination. Understanding the Lay of the Land The Clinton campaign doesn't seem to have recognized the huge change in Democratic party activism in recent years. Especially as unleashed by the Dean campaign in 2003-2004, and carried on through the 2004 campaign on behalf of John Kerry, literally millions of new or reinvigorated activists lent time to campaigns. The Obama and Edwards campaigns recognized this, and volunteer-driven activities were at the center of much of their voter outreach. But as MissLaura explained earlier, the Clinton campaign didn't capitalize on the new activism. The Clinton campaign benefited greatly from independent expenditure operations by the likes of AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers and EMILY's List. But they never harnessed the energy of volunteers like Obama and Edwards did. Not only did the mass of volunteers save the Obama campaign resources, the energy of his campaign became part of his very message and image. Message The Clinton folks also appear to have grossly misunderstood the Democratic electorate. Most Democrats recognize the achievements of the Clinton presidency, and are grateful for his competence, tenacity and spirit. The Clinton years were absolutely a time of sound and often wise Democratic governance. But Democrats didn't want a return to an era that was also full of frustrations, irritation with the Clinton battles, and Republican initiatives dominating the day. Democrats and most independents were also sick of the war, and no longer wanted bellicosity or fear of looking like Michael Dukakis. Hillary Clinton's efforts to look tough may have been necessary for the first serious woman candidate for President, but they were in conflict with a Democratic electorate that opposed the Iraq war from the state, and is now adamantly opposed to it's continuation. Clinton and her campaign appeared to be still fighting the accusations that Bill Clinton was a draft dodger, something that most of the electorate left behind several years ago. What worked for Bill Clinton in 1996—but even then only with a 49% win—wasn't enough for Hillary Clinton against the more charismatic and visionary Obama. Competence harkening back to the golden era of 1997 wasn't enough. Fundraising Clinton had a formidable fundraising network, and it's odd to critique the efforts of a campaign that shattered all previous primary fundraising records. But Clinton was outspent by Obama by a large margin. She had a huge inherent advantage due to Bill's networks and her aura of inevitability. But the donors who were key to Bill in the 90's included many who raised then-permitted soft money donations that could go to the DNC. Since McCain-Feingold, federal candidates cannot be involved in raising soft money, and 527's played a very small role in the Democratic primary. The Obama campaign adapted better to the new emphasis on creating networks of raisers who can collect many checks in the $500 to $2,300 range. Obama, obviously, also far outraised Clinton on the internet. His campaign very early put an emphasis on small-donor fundraising, and it was small donors—especially donors who gave less than $200—that powered his campaign in the later months of the campaign, as both campaigns had largely tapped out the available pool of Democratic primary donors capable and inclined to give the maximum $2,300 donation for the primary season. Targeting If Obama hadn't won Iowa, he probably wouldn't have become the nominee. Iowa was the catalyst to his win in South Carolina, as African-American voters saw that Obama could get the support of white voters and had a chance to win. Obama's Iowa win was both the partial product of Clinton's backward-looking campaign and the result of further problems based on looking back to the 90's. The Clinton campaign suffered the larger problem of not preparing for caucuses, which along with the Potomac and Wisconsin primaries allowed Obama to open up the pledged delegate lead he n