‘Hillary Clinton did a great job for the women of America’. A quote from Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House? No. From Madeleine Albright, once the Foreign Secretary in Bill’s Administration? No. The quote is from Laura Bush, wife of the incumbent US President. So it must be true!
And although it is true, in the meantime Hillary lost the race for the Democratic candidacy to her black opponent, the man Obama. Was it because he is black, or was it because he is a man? A wide range of analysts all over the place agree on one conclusion: Hillary made too many mistakes and Obama was a smarter campaigner.
Presumption. Hillary believed she was unbeatable. Throughout the whole year 2007 she was leading in the polls. Several times her speeches referred to: ‘when I am the President…’. But she overlooked the new young voters who were attracted by her young opponent Obama and who were obviously not included in the polls.
Change. She underestimated the very strong wish of Democratic voters for real change. After seven years of Bush they want a better country, a different country. Hillary campaigned for gaining back the golden nineties when Bill was President. But ‘her’ voters were desperate for change, and Obama got that. A missed opportunity. She could have been positioned as a change, the first woman with a serious chance for the US Presidency, new in US history. A chance completely overlooked by her strategists.
Iraq. Maybe her biggest mistake: Hillary followed a belligerent President Bush and voted shamelessly for the invasion of Iraq, probably to show that a woman can be tough enough to be Commander-in-Chief, especially after 9-11. The effect was that the strong anti-war wing of the Democratic Party lined up under the banner of Obama, who was against the Iraq war from the beginning. This was Obama’s momentum, he saw that he could break Hillary’s hegemony and he did.
Strategy. She ignored the golden rule that winning the first state in the race, Iowa, is of great importance. Not for the number of delegates but to gain momentum and pole position in the attention of journalists and voters. Hillary also ignored many other smaller states with fewer delegates to win and concentrated on the big states, which she won. But in the meantime Obama collected enough delegates in the smaller states to take a lead. Hillary was convinced that seizing the opportunity Super Tuesday offered would make her the winner, an enormous miscalculation. Her party doesn’t have a ‘winner takes all’ rule but a proportional system.
Fuzz in the team. Many problems in the Clinton team were not solved quickly enough. Hillary stuck with old friends too long when they were causing problems for the campaign. Obama was resolute in this kind of situation. He even firmly took distance from the reverend who raised and married him when he endangered his campaign. .
Money. The Clinton family are fabulous fundraisers. But Obama found a new lucrative way. He used the internet and appealed to tens of thousands of supporters with a small purse. What’s move he could go back to them when he needed more money. That was impossible for Hillary when she ran out of money, her rich fans gave already the legal maximum.
Bill! The best presidential campaigner ever, but evidently only for himself, in the past and unfortunately not for the presidential race of his wife. Her sidelining of Bill came too late. Liberal media, like the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and New York Times, endorsed Obama. They were never big fans of the Clintons.
Barack Obama is a smart man. He praised his opponent after her unconditional ‘abdication’. He will need her to beat the Republican candidate McCain, but taking her as his Vice-President looks like a huge bridge too far.
