The Autopsy Report -Exploring the political reasons for Hillary Clinton's defeat

[babylonsister]

The Autopsy Report by John B. Judis
Exploring the political reasons for Hillary Clinton's defeat.
Post Date Wednesday, May 21, 2008



Tuesday's results replicated much of the Democratic race during the last two months. Hillary Clinton once more showed her strength and Barack Obama's weakness among white working class voters in Midwestern swing states, while Obama proved his hold on young and college-educated voters in states where a new post-industrial economy has developed, and where college-educated voters make up about half of the Democratic electorate.

For Obama, the question will be how to capture enough of these white working class voters in November to defeat Republican John McCain. For Hillary Clinton, the remaining question is retrospective. Her success in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky only puts into relief the question of why--after having been the prohibitive favorite to capture the nomination--she had already lost the nomination to Obama by the time she had begun to articulate her own message of change.

A big part of the reason, extensively reported by my colleague Michelle Cottle, is that she and her campaign made glaring organizational errors. Clinton wasn't prepared for a protracted nomination battle; and when it became apparent that her staff wasn't either, she didn't act quickly enough to replace them (as Ronald Reagan did in 1980). But another part of the reason for Clinton's failure is political: how she ran initially, and how she ran against Obama.

Critics within the campaign have singled out Clinton's decision to run in 2007 as the heir apparent. That was important, but nothing compared to the way she handled the issue of the Iraq war and the possibility of war with Iran. During the campaign's first year--before the Iowa caucus in January--the principal, and perhaps only, way that her opponents (particularly Obama) could undercut her candidacy was through criticizing her support of the resolution authorizing the Bush administration to use force against Iraq.

At the time, the issue of the war overshadowed all other concerns. This was especially true among the party activists who would staff the campaigns and go to the caucuses, and among the Internet donors who would, as it turned out, fund Obama's effort. John Edwards, who had actually been a member in absentia of the Intelligence Committee and had acted far more irresponsibly than Clinton, cut off criticism of himself by apologizing for his vote in favor of the resolution. But Clinton--looking ahead, perhaps, to the general election--refused to apologize. That reinforced an impression that, on an issue as central as the war, she was willing to put politics before principle, and, in so doing, she sustained Obama's campaign at a time when he was making little headway in national polls.

Still, Clinton, who regularly voted in 2007 for resolutions to set a deadline on the war, looked poised to put the issue behind her--until September, when she backed a resolution introduced by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Republican Jon Kyl directed at Iran's "destabilizing influence" in Iraq and at its Revolutionary Guard. The sponsors watered down the original resolution, which had supported using armed force to "combat, contain, and roll back" the Iranians, but what was important was not the specific wording, but the political context of the resolution. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney, with Lieberman's support, was beating war drums against Iran; and the resolution, like the infamous Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, seemed to be the kind of measure that could eventually serve as a justification, however tenuous, for another preventive war. Of all the Democratic candidates, Clinton alone voted for it.

more...

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=f1281d27-d950-4dfd-a59b-66e905918d20

[gateley]

1. Yeah, her Kyl-Lieberman vote has always been a puzzlement to me.

I don't understand why she would have supported it, if not to make herself appear "strong on terror" against the Republicans in the GE.

None of the "good" senators supported it -- those who consistently to the 'right thing' and to whom I look to get a feel of a bill.

[yurbud]

2. she was auditioning for the corporate constituency, not actual voters

If the corporate crowd thought she wouldn't follow their orders up to and including invading Iran, they would ridicule or ignore her out of the race.

[blm]

3. No surprise - it's her real position. She and Bill knew Bush will start war with Iran

and they are down for it. They just believed the Dem voters would agree with the 'inevitability' of another Clinton.

People forget that Hillary had been meeting privately with Bush as part of their premature 'transitioning' exercises. he wanted her on board with him and he trusted her to continue his policies, no matter what she said publicly as part of her primary race.

She has no trouble lying to her primary audiences about her Iraq position which she only adjusted leftward (rhetorically) after Lieberman lost his primary race.

[cliss]

4. Clinton's biggest blunder = the Iraq war.

She should have known. She should have realized that it was going to be a disaster, and that her war vote would come back to haunt her. Absolutely elementary math, like 1 + 1 = 3 strikes you're out.

The fact that she couldn't figure this out just excludes her from the presidency.

==============
Clinton web site.
I checked out the Hillary web site. Interestingly, there is a section on the Iraq war. It says "we need to end the war now" "bring out troops home right away". And you wonder why people voted for Obama?

[unblock]

5. fundamentally, she never shored up the base before shifting attention to the g.e.

everyone knows you appeal to partisans first and then shift to the center once the nomination is in hand.

she adopted shrub's 2000 campaign of inevitability and presumed she would win the nomination, thus freeing her to campaign for the g.e. from the start. this works great when it works, you avoid the pitfalls of inconsistency, for example.

but it opens the door for someone who appeals more to the base....