Clinton's Error

On the whole issue of whether or not Hillary Clinton's run a bad campaign, I think it's necessary to draw some distinctions. I think the Obama campaign made a variety of errors during 2007, while Clinton's campaign made very few. What's more, Clinton's team did a great job of reading the issue landscape well and developing smart policies that were well-suited to the political and objective circumstances. She did what I thought was a surprisingly good job of largely defusing the war issue in the minds of the voters. What's more, they made an excellent recovery after losing Iowa. Consequently, they woke up on the morning of February 6, 2008 in pretty good position -- up in delegates, up in national polls.

Then things fell apart. The campaign made two weird decisions. First, they essentially decide to throw ten primaries and caucuses in a row and that as part of the throwing strategy they were going to repeatedly insult the residents of the states in question. Second, they decided to respond to losses with panicky moves -- amping up the decibel level on their attacks, shifting the message, etc. These both struck me as mistakes independently, but they've truly made for a bizarre combination.

Thus, to add it all up we need to consider different possible interpretations of "Hillary Clinton's campaign." It's a big operation, a lot of people work there, and as best anyone can tell most of them have done an excellent job. The policy people have mostly come up with excellent policies and the communications people who worked with them have done an excellent job of rolling those policies out, providing surrogates, etc. The new media people have done a good job of handling an objectively difficult situation. Her speechwriters haven't produced any classics that'll go into collected volumes, but the candidate's not well-suited to soaring oratory and the speechwriters have done good work producing speeches that work well for her. One could go on like this. Lots and lots of people involved with the campaign, and the vast majority seems to have done a very good job. But a few key strategy architects have made a couple of bad mistakes, and the candidate herself has chosen poorly in terms of whose advise to take. It appears likely that those mistakes will be fatal, but that shouldn't cast aspersions on all the other good work that lots of people have done over the past 18 months (or more).

Comments

Shorter (and true) MY: Mark Penn sucks.

Posted by Glenn | February 21, 2008 9:21 AM

It is tough being an incumbent candidate when there is a miserable economy and a ridiculously unpopular war.

I know the nit-pickers out there will point out that she isn't actually an incumbent, but I think she is in the minds of a lot of voters. And the voters simply want more change than she can evoke after her vaunted 35 years of experience.

But the longer this campaign has dragged on, the more like George Bush it has seemed. They have been arrogant and had no contingency plans if everything didn't go the way they expected. But the main thing that happened is they ran into a buzzsaw.

Posted by Curtis | February 21, 2008 9:24 AM

It appears to me that the biggest mistake they made was in expecting February 5th to be decisive, so they spent almost all of their primary campaign money and organization effor on the states up to and including Feb 5. When they saw that the Obama campaign was still alive and kicking the next day, they must have been terrified.

Posted by omellet | February 21, 2008 9:24 AM

That seems a sound and fair analysis. I would add that news reports indicate that a bubble atmosphere developed that allowed strategic problems to fester unnoticed by the candidate. Also, related, that some reports of Hillary valuing loyalty over competennce in key staff harmed the campaign.

Posted by wvng | February 21, 2008 9:26 AM

I don't disagree with this in general, although methodologically it's probably chopping things too fine to treat a campaign's good performance in race A and its poor performance in race B as independent events. A campaign may do well in A and not in B because it expended limited time, resources, and organizational energy in A and not in B.

In particular, it's almost certainly wasn't a "weird decision" on the Clinton campaign's part "to throw ten primaries and caucuses in a row" after Super Tuesday. Rather, it seems that the Clinton campaign chose to use the resources that it might have expended in those states on the Super Tuesday states. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

Posted by alkali | February 21, 2008 9:26 AM

Does this come under the heading of "speaking well of the dead"?

Clinton couldn't come up with a rationale for running that was bigger than herself. There isn't a single point in her limited political career where she's shown an ability to transform the nature of our politics into one of co-operative effort rather than partisan bickering, the very thing that the majority of the country is looking for now. And on the question that matters most in presidential campaigns - judgement and temperament - her biography doesn't speak well of her.

So in the end, it was about the cult of Hillaryland and a hoped for return to the 90s. But most people recognize that you can't turn back the clock, and that even if we could, the 90s were notable for a non-stop spate of scandals in and around the Executive branch, all of which had the Clintons involved as more or less willing participants. Add that to the simplest, most direct obstacle she had to face: Hillary is Tracy Flick from "Election." She's the girl who knows all the answers, and is SURE that everyone else knows that she knows 'em.

And no one really likes to have someone around who's convinced that they have all the answers, particularly when history indicates that they don't.

Posted by Marcus | February 21, 2008 9:28 AM

A couple of demurrals on this.

First, there were a lot of long term decisions made in 2007 which turned out to be bad. They assumed that the contest would be over by February 5, so they put no effort into organizing any of the post 2/5 states. Even on 2/5, they put all their effort into the big states, assuming that the other candidates would do the same, and that they would win the caucus states by default. Both of these decisions proved flawed. More broadly, there seems to have been a lot of failure in the area of "on the ground organizing."

Secondly, I think you are overestimating the strength of Clinton's position on February 6. Both because of the mistakes of her own earlier strategy, and because of the terrain of the states which immediately followed February 5, Clinton really needed to get a knock out blow in the 2/5 elections. Instead, Obama actually got more delegates than her. They always knew that the rest of February would be good for Obama, so this was pretty disastrous.

The key mistake here, I think, was racializing things before the South Carolina primary. This proved disastrous since it unified the African American community behind Obama, and also delivered Obama a massive win in South Carolina, which more or less destroyed the inevitability which she seemed to be regathering around herself in the weeks after New Hampshire. The calculation here, again, seems to be have been the key stupid one they made after February 5. The assumption was that they would lose South Carolina, so, instead of trying to minimize the damage, get as many delegates as they could, and move on to February 5, they basically did everything they could to maximize the damage so that they could more easily dismiss the results as meaningless. To say the least, this strategy did not work. If Obama had won South Carolina narrowly, people would have said, "well, the demographics favor him - but Clinton's still getting a decent percentage of the black vote; and look how poorly he did among whites!" I think, in that case, Clinton would have cleaned up on February 5, and it probably would have been over. Instead, he had a massive landslide to push him on to Super Tuesday, and managed to catch up well enough to tie her.

The strategy since February 5 has only compounded this, but the key error was made before January 26, not February 6 and beyond.

(Also - Clinton was never ahead in pledged delegates. Obama's been ahead in pledged delegates since January 3)

Posted by John | February 21, 2008 9:30 AM

Does this come under the heading of "speaking well of the dead"?

Clinton couldn't come up with a rationale for running that was bigger than herself. There isn't a single point in her limited political career where she's shown an ability to transform the nature of our politics into one of co-operative effort rather than partisan bickering, the very thing that the majority of the country is looking for now. And on the question that matters most in presidential campaigns - judgement and temperament - her biography doesn't speak well of her.

So in the end, it was about the cult of Hillaryland and a hoped for return to the 90s. But most people recognize that you can't turn back the clock, and that even if we could, the 90s were notable for a non-stop spate of scandals in and around the Executive branch, all of which had the Clintons involved as more or less willing participants. Add that to the simplest, most direct obstacle she had to face: Hillary is Tracy Flick from "Election." She's the girl who knows all the answers, and is SURE that everyone else knows that she knows 'em.

And no one really likes to have someone around who's convinced that they have all the answers, particularly when history indicates that they don't.

Posted by Marcus | February 21, 2008 9:30 AM

I don't think she did defuse the war, really. Even though the differences on Iraq-going-forward are not huge, and although Obama does not steadily beat the drum of no-war, since his style is more Jedi master than Bruce Lee, make no mistake: this is the anti-war candidate that's winning.

Posted by otto | February 21, 2008 9:30 AM

How about giving Senator Obama some credit here. What most amazes me is the amount of money he has been able to raise. I would never have believed that another Democrat could challenge and even exceed the Clinton machine in money raising, which, I suspect was also the mistake that the talking heads in the MSM, who anointed Senator Clinton as the odds on Democratic nominee last summer, made. I think that's the real secret of the Obama success. Without the money which he raised, he would have been another Bill Richardson or John Edwards.

Posted by SLC | February 21, 2008 9:32 AM

I think Curtis has it just right. Clinton is burdened by being the "incumbent". She's just too well known to the electorate. Paradoxically, at this moment in time it looks like name recognition is a hinderence.

Posted by Michael L | February 21, 2008 9:34 AM

Once the residual goodwill from the Clinton name and the inevitablity from the Clinton money wore off -- the campaign sucked. So I'm not sure how much 2007 was 'good' and how much '2007' was inertia.

Posted by joejoejoe | February 21, 2008 9:38 AM

Matt, I'm surprised you managed to discuss the successes and failures of the Clinton campaign without mentioning money.

There's a degree of Kremlinology to deciphering the campaign's internal workings, but looking at the $5 million loan and the financial information that leaked during the staff reshuffle, it looks as though Clinton came up broke.

Obama deserves some credit here, as his superior fundraising forced Clinton to spend more money than she had available, but the reason for Clinton's "thrown" primaries is simply lack of funds. Hillary has made determined (if futile) run of it since super Tuesday, but there's only so much strategy available when you are out of money.

Posted by heedless | February 21, 2008 9:41 AM

I've got,
Ninety thousand pounds in my pyjamas,
I've got forty thousand French francs in my fridge,
I've got lots of lovely lire,
Now the Deutschmark's getting dearer,
And my dollar bills would buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
There is nothing quite as wonderful money,
There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash,
Some people say it's folly,
But I'd rather have the lolly,
With money you can ma-ake a splash.
There is nothing quite as wonderful as money
(money money money)
There is nothing like a newly minted pound
(money money, money)
Everyone must hanker for the butchness of a banker
It's accountancy that makes the world go 'round
(round round round)
You can keep your Marxist ways
For it's only just a phase
For it's money makes the world go round
(money money money money money money money
money money)

Posted by phil | February 21, 2008 9:42 AM

John hits the nail on the head absolutely. Otto is also right that she did not diffuse the war vote as well as she could have, by admitting it was a mistake that she has learned from.

I saw Frank Luntz on TV offering Hillary advice for the future. Essentially, he said that she should "kill Obama with kindness". Its obviously too late now, but if she had followed this advice throughout the campaign, talking Obama up and not attacking him, but saying merely that she was the more experienced alternative, then I think she could have won it.

Posted by Jim W | February 21, 2008 9:44 AM

I think "speaking well of the dead" captures it nicely.

You make some good points. For all of Obama's strengths, the Clinton campaign has did a lot well and does some things better, the most important (and most worrisome for Obama fans) is that her campaign has been very skilled in controlling the media cycle on many days, particularly jumping on her opponent's mistakes.

Obama's campaign is good at reading the mood of the country, but lackluster recognizing and responding to potentially damaging attacks. Has anyone been satisfied with the rapidity or strength of Obama's response to McCain's attacks to "not break your pledge"?

Posted by Jason | February 21, 2008 9:51 AM

I think what you're missing, Matthew, is the fact that her whole campaign was a house of cards. Even though she was able to sail through most of 2007 unchallenged, eventually, when people started to pay attention at the end of the year, the problems with her approach became apparent. You can't be for and against something at the same time. (See: John Kerry.) When she tripped up on the licenses for illegal immigrants question at that debate it exposed her efforts to pander to both sides of an issue and it was at that moment that the media seized on the inconsistencies and she began to look vulnerable. That was the moment when the first card tumbled and it was inevitable that the rest would fall eventually.

The question was whether the rest of the house would fall during the primaries or during the general election. Thankfully for the Democrats, it appears to have collapsed before she could walk off with the nomination.

Posted by Howard B. | February 21, 2008 9:57 AM

Has anyone been satisfied with the rapidity or strength of Obama's response to McCain's attacks to "not break your pledge"?

Yes.

Posted by Lucy | February 21, 2008 9:58 AM

I don't think that Hillary has run that poor of a campaign. It's largely a Giuliani thing. Before people were paying attention, they preferred the name they knew and liked. Then they met the candidates and realized Obama was a more appealing candidate.

One thing Hillary and her team have done, though, is display a general lack of knowing when the mic is on (in a figurative sense). They just threw out all sorts of arguments and bits of spin in order to make this or that tactical move, without realizing that people in general were listening and these things might not reflect well on their candidate. This was basically Romney's problem, too. She should be applauded for trying hard to win, but not for trying things that were predictably counter-productive.

Posted by Colatina | February 21, 2008 9:58 AM

I agree with John. Racialization before SC ended up working in Obama's favor in a big way. It pretty much made the South unwinnable for Hillary.

Also if you consider the demographics of post Feb 5, Hillary did terrible on Super Tuesday. She had no choice but to "throw" those primaries due to fiscal disadvantage.

Posted by MS | February 21, 2008 9:59 AM

Frankly, I have to disagree. If Clinton had gotten lucky and won Iowa, we'd say she ran a brilliant juggernaut campaign.

But one huge mistake was failing to nip the whole 'inevitable' meme in the bud, mainly because it allowed the campaign very little room to maneuver successfully after Iowa.

The problem, however, was that Hillary's strategy was one of intimidation and inevitability -- a powerful but fragile one. The victories in Nevada and New Hampshire were problematic because they were tactical -- Hillary tears didn't play so well in South Carolina, and the Nevada caucus outcomes could have been far worse. Finally, Bill's efforts to spin the South Carolina rout may have been a good way to damp Obama's momentum going into February 5, but it cost the Clintons dearly amongst African-Americans.

By contrast, I'm convinced that the Obama campaign had planned all the way through for a delegate fight (probably with more conservative estimates on their fundraising). And they spent their money to maximize their delegate 'takes.'

This penny-wise approach was one of the reasons that Obama focused on Caucus states. The caucus systems actually turn out to be closer to a winner-take all system because viability requirements kick in repeatedly as delegates work their way up through the state convention/caucus process. Note that the final Iowa delegate totals, for example, won't be entirely determined until Spring.

The bottom line: the Clinton Campaign got blind-sided. There's no question they are resilient, but Obama broke into their OODA loop the day after Iowa.

Posted by Carrington Ward | February 21, 2008 10:02 AM

> But a few key strategy architects have made
> a couple of bad mistakes, and the candidate
> herself has chosen poorly in terms of whose
> advise to take

Once it was revealed that Mark Penn ran, as _CEO_, a union-busing consulting firm there was no way I could ever vote for Senator Clinton in a primary. Unless she fired him immediately - which she didn't, reminding me (and I think many others) immediately of her vote for war in Iraq.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | February 21, 2008 10:02 AM

Once again, a top blogger completely underestimates -- in fact, misses altogether -- the impact of the Clinton campaign's decisions from NH through SC. Their tactics were beyond the pale and I've talked to more than one prius-driving, latte-drinking liberal who have washed their hands of the Clintons altogether because of that period.

Also, to just skate over a third-place finish in Iowa (after which, hours later, she telegraphed her position about losing any state -- they don't matter) is also missing the point. Yes, they fell apart completely after Feb 5, but their problems happened well before that date.

Posted by evie | February 21, 2008 10:04 AM

What mistake do you think Obama made in 2007 ? I think he stayed the course all year long which looked stupid in the summer when he was way down but in hindsight was the right way to go. I would love for you to expand on that

Posted by Benjamin | February 21, 2008 10:06 AM

saw Frank Luntz on TV offering Hillary advice for the future. Essentially, he said that she should "kill Obama with kindness". Its obviously too late now, but if she had followed this advice throughout the campaign, talking Obama up and not attacking him, but saying merely that she was the more experienced alternative, then I think she could have won it.

Jim W,

I think you hit the nail on the head with regard to Clinton's approach to Obama. Her constant belittling of Obama seemed to me to be a turnoff. It was also condescending. Whille she talked about her 35 years of experience that includes her time in law school, she could never say anything positive about Obama's community service. I still think that she can pull through should Obama mess up in the debate tonight.

Posted by MGJ | February 21, 2008 10:08 AM

You have to wonder how Hillary would have done if she had goten on the right side of the Iraq issue and pressed it like she should have. This is merely anecdotal but I would have supported Hillary in a heartbeat if not for Iraq. I wonder how many other potential supporters she lost over Iraq? Obama has a slightly better record but he hasn't been very good on Iraq either.

Hillary had a choice between a position that is both morally correct and appeals to the Democratic base versus triangulation on genocide, a position that doesn't really wholly appeal to anyone.

She made her choice and now she's paying the consequences. Boo-hoo.

Posted by Junius Brutus | February 21, 2008 10:13 AM

"If you don't love me by now, you will never, never, never, never love me"
(Clinton's new karoke song)

Posted by Unicorn Hotdog | February 21, 2008 10:13 AM

I was wondering why no one's pointed out that Clinton, in a recent e-mail, told her supporters that Obama had outspent her 4-to-1 in Wisconsin, without mentioning that she didn't make a real ad buy in the state until it was far too late. Were I a contributor, I'd be pissed that she seems so dedicated to spinning those who are actually on her side about an issue like this.

Posted by nitpicker | February 21, 2008 10:17 AM

What mistake did Obama make in 2007?

For starters: How about that willy nilly bill he wrote equating Swift Boat with MoveOn. How about bring up Social Security after Democrats beat it down in a rare show of leadership?

Posted by john stephen lewis | February 21, 2008 10:19 AM

What mistake did Obama make in 2007?

For starters: How about that willy nilly bill he wrote equating Swift Boat with MoveOn. How about bringing up Social Security after Democrats beat it down in a rare show of leadership?

Posted by john stephen lewis | February 21, 2008 10:19 AM

I have absolutely no trouble believing that Clinton' speechwriters, policy people, etc., were just aces. But I also think that whoever was setting a strategy for the campaign, and then deciding how to execute it, should never ever be employed again. If you have a dreadful strategy, all the genuinely wonderful speechwriters and experts on pre-K education will not help you.

One way to see it is to think: Clinton has run a pretty conventional campaign, doing all the conventional things, and just assumed that being very, very good at those things would be enough. Obama, by contrast, seems to me to have run a very imaginative campaign, based on a combination of a pretty specific read of the electorate, a hypothesis about what they might be looking for, and stellar organization on the ground. It's a real strategy based on a read of the conditions out there and how, in those conditions, to get to the actual goal of winning. Clinton, by contrast, seems to have just done the kinds of things that normally win, done them pretty well, and not felt the need to think further. Thus, I imagine, her surprise when it didn't work.

Posted by hilzoy | February 21, 2008 10:22 AM

Isn't the simpler explanation that Obama is a more appealing candidate who connects on a much deeper emotional level with voters than does Clinton?

Don't we see this in all the caucus states in particular? Organization and money aside, the best way to win a caucus is to have enthusiastic supporters who are willing to show up.

I will agree that the Clinton campaigns constant disrespect of voters, and the nomination process (flawed as it is) is also a contributing factor, at least among horserace geeks such as myself.

From the dismissal of red-state voters, attempts to clear the way for Michigan and Florida delegations to decide the nomiee, the transparent spin concerning the 'automatic' delegates-all broadcast, better than any Obama campaign commercial, the idea that Clinton is win at all costs.

Posted by Chris | February 21, 2008 10:24 AM

What John and Marcus said, about 5 or 6 comments down from the top.

Also, the spending of money like water (generally attributed to Solis Doyle, who'd done this before in Hillary's 2006 Senate campaign) that put them in the predicament of having to concentrate on a few big states on Super Tuesday.

If you're going to plan for a Super Tuesday KO, then you'd better get to Super Tuesday ready to land your best haymaker.

Team Hillary made a lot of good moves in 2007, building up their support. But when it came to the actual primaries, they clearly came prepared for a coronation rather than a dogfight.

That was a pretty huge mistake, and not just in retrospect. Throughout this business, they've clearly never had a Plan B for when anything went wrong.

They got lucky in NH, when Hillary shed a few tears, a bunch of men from Chris Matthews to John Edwards reacted badly, and that swung enough voters to Hillary's side to win NH. But that wasn't planning, that was unexpected good fortune. When Iowa and SC and Super Tuesday and the rest of February went Obama's way, they had no fallback plan, except to dis the states they lost.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | February 21, 2008 10:26 AM

Isn't the simpler explanation that Obama is a more appealing candidate who connects on a much deeper emotional level with voters than does Clinton?

This only goes so far. Michael Dukakis would have to have been one of the least appealing candidates in 1988, in terms of natural charm and charisma. (Although I'm less certain of who wins the "most appealing" award among the Seven Dwarfs...) Neither was John Kerry the most appealing candidate. Obama's charm and charismaa were necessary conditions for his (probable) victory, but they were not sufficient.

Don't we see this in all the caucus states in particular? Organization and money aside, the best way to win a caucus is to have enthusiastic supporters who are willing to show up.

And the best way to lose them is to completely ignore them, as the Clinton campaign did. If this was all about natural likeability, why wouldn't Obama have been winning this throughout?

Posted by John | February 21, 2008 10:30 AM

"Clinton couldn't come up with a rationale for running that was bigger than herself."

No, Clinton couldn't *articulate* such a ratonale. Reasons to elect her, like "return to the Clinton 90's" and "first woman President" and "screw over those rabid wingers who hate me" are very much alive, and have sway over a lot of voters. She's just not aloud to say them overtly.

Anyway, in terms of nuts and bolts there's been a decent number of articles, including in the Atlantic, TNR, and Nation, about the specific bad decisions that have been made by her campaign, in terms of field operations and burning through money fast. This is the same campaign that spent $30 million to win NY Senate in 2006, and that wasn't on purpose. Whether that technocratic stuff is what doomed her, or whether it was worse than any other campaign, is up for debate. But it certainly existed as a problem.

Posted by Shock Mouse | February 21, 2008 10:34 AM

Chris has it right - Obama is simply a more appealing candidate. People like Bon Jovi, but given the choice of Bon Jovi or Springsteen, Bruce is get more votes.

Posted by blindjoedeath | February 21, 2008 10:35 AM

I'm going to dissent from Matthew's analysis and cast my vote for John's at 9:30. The die was cast before February 6.

Posted by Preston | February 21, 2008 10:38 AM

Hilzoy hits the nail on the head, and reminds me of something else I've been turning over in my mind over the past few days that I think is relevant.

Hillary's claim to fame is her "competence," managerial skill, and even policy "brilliance." But while I think she understands trees very, very well, she has a bit of a problem with forests. This campaign in a weird way reminds me of her Iraq vote. Taken textually and divorced from a larger context, you COULD argue that the AUMF did not explicitly authorize the administration to go to war, at least not without jumping through a ton of hoops. Hillary can make very persuasive arguments that, based on the text of that legislation, she did not intend George Bush to launch a war in the way he did. But she seemed completely unprepared for the fact that this is George Bush we're talking about, and the political context of the moment clearly suggested he would take the AUMF vote and run with it all the way to Baghdad. It's the same thing with this campaign-- she can master the briefing books on policy, run a top-down organization that is first-class by most traditional standards, and yet completely miss the fact that the outside world is zipping right past her and requires her to adjust, which she can't really do.

Clinton masters a lot of details, but her grasp of the big picture really does worry me. She lacks not intelligence, but imagination and vision. I mean, who in God's name has ever won a presidential election by promising above all to "work hard?"

Posted by Yossarian | February 21, 2008 10:38 AM

Sure there is an intrinsic quality to a campaign but its real measure is its success relative to the competition. This is kind of like pointing out that the KC Royals are an extraordinary baseball team containing some of the best athletes in the world. That's certainly true but doesn't tell you much about their playoff chances.

Posted by ano | February 21, 2008 10:40 AM

That should be Bruce gets more votes.

Posted by blindjoedeath | February 21, 2008 10:40 AM

I strongly disagree with Matt that Hillary defused the war issue. In fact, it is her continuing failure to own up to her war vote that has created the opening for Obama who was against the war from the beginning. If Hillary had admitted a mistake as clearly as John Edwards did, she might still be viable.

Posted by Ron | February 21, 2008 10:41 AM

There isn't a single point in her limited political career where she's shown an ability to transform the nature of our politics into one of co-operative effort rather than partisan bickering

Neither has Barack Obama in his even more limited political career. Great oratory or running a good presidential campaign doesn't transform anything in itself, let alone end any "era of partisanship." Both Obama and Clinton have shown a willingness to work across the aisle. Obama has worked with Richard Lugar, for instance, and Clinton has worked with Lindsay Graham. Clinton even worked with Newt Gingrich on health care earlier on in her Senate term, a man her husband sparred with bitterly while they were president and speaker. I think that shows a strong willingness to be bipartisan but I'd never claim she should usher in a new era of cooperation. Neither Obama nor Clinton were members of the Gang of 14, mind you, which was a concrete case of real bipartisanship (whether or not you agree with its goals is beside the point).

judgement and temperament

Barack Obama's "judgment" is nothing to write home about. His famous illustration of his better judgment is a war vote he never had an opportunity to participate in, in any meaningful way, because he was a state senator in Illinois and not part of the national political debate at the time. Responsibility and judgment are inextricably linked, therefore its difficult to know what he would have done had he had any at the time.

More recently Obama has shown poor judgment in openly ruminating on under what circumstances he would bomb an allied nation, making pledges he couldn't live up to on campaign finance, and carelessly failing to cite lifting rhetoric in a major address. Not to mention choosing to buy property with a known crook.

Posted by Tim K | February 21, 2008 10:42 AM

I lost count of how many times Matt used "good job" or "excellent job" to describe the defeated Clinton campaign.

This is not a campaign that lost an even contest. This was one of the most lopsided battles in political history; it was David vs Goliath. The Obama campaign started with nothing. The Clinton campaign was a machine built over almost two decades, with the backing of tons of party insiders, elites, and even a former president. Just before Tuesday, Hillary was in Texas, Bill in Wisconsin, and Chelsea was in Hawaii. Obama can't be three places at once!

To lose a campaign with all of those advantages against someone who couldn't even get a ticket to the 2000 DNC is not an excellent job nor a good job. It is an abject failure in every sense of the word. If nothing else it shows that Hillary Clinton can come up with a battle strategy but is inflexible and incapable of adapting to changing realities. Once Hillary belatedly realized her plans were failing, her only capability at that point was to launch inane personal attacks against Obama in an attempt to divide people up.

It reminds me of the current tenant of the oval office.

Posted by Nick | February 21, 2008 10:43 AM

Further to Nick, critics used to say that Clinton had only managed one thing in her career in public service, i.e., the failed health-care reform effort of 1993-1994. Now, the critics can say that she has managed two things.

Posted by alkali | February 21, 2008 10:48 AM

for whatever reason we live in a country and have a media in which it is okay for Obama to begin a speech "I thought this day would never come" and have its multiple meanings echo down through the ages and a female candidate cannot say the same thing: Her edge of making history of being the first viable woman with a real shot of winning and being president never came close to his edge and ability to capitalize on his being the first african american man to have a real shot at winning and being president.
The media had a million articles about generational differences between blacks and how profound it was for them to be able to vote for a viable AA candidate. This was not true for Hillary: the media did not affirmitively emphasize how mothers and daughters and school children felt about the possibility of the first female president.
Feminism is a dirty word yet in america and civil rights is hallowed ground.
A campaign usually can run several targetted campaigns in different regions at the same time and after Iowa this became less true for both campaigns and that made Hillary's campaign look at crossed purposes when it was not.
Its just the way things have turned out so far.

Posted by Michael C. | February 21, 2008 10:58 AM

John @ 9:30 got this exactly right.

Clinton herself did a very solid job of campaigning in 2007, but her campaign made a number of poor long-term decisions that precipitated her collapse.

I think the true watershed moment was Bill's disastrous intervention in South Carolina. Obama would likely have won SC anyway, but he came out of that dust-up looking more Presidential than either Clinton. Hillary's campaign has never really recovered.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | February 21, 2008 11:02 AM

I mostly agree with MJ Rosenberg: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/21/how_obama_won/

It's not so much that Clinton lost as Obama won. Time was on Obama's side. Clinton had to win decisively on Super Tuesday. As in baseball, a tie goes to the runner, and Obama is far more fleet afoot than Hillary.

Hillary started with a big lead based on name recognition, but she had nowhere to go but down from there. She's not blessed with Bill's charisma but she is burdened with Bill's baggage. Obama has a ceiling too (because of racism), but it's a lot higher than Hillary's.

Even with the front-loaded primary schedule, Hillary's "inevitableness" couldn't suffocate the Obama campaign when it was vulnerable.

Posted by Bragan | February 21, 2008 11:04 AM

Hillary has been working on campaigns for most of her life, she really should have done better than this.

Posted by Soullite | February 21, 2008 11:12 AM

IMHO, the Clinton campaign's fatal mistakes come down to two. They both happened long before Super Tuesday:

1) Forget about not having to campaign beyond 2/5, I think the underlying assumption was there'd be no need to campaign after NH, South Carolina, and Nevada. The big mo was supposed to pick up from there and run into Super Tuesday. That's why they had no money after Iowa and the panic set in.

2) For all of Bill Clinton's alleged political genius, he apparently forgot that AAs vote for Democrats in much bigger numbers than Caucasians. It was a horrifically bad idea to condescend to them in South Carolina. He ruined what was a great organizational game for her there and ruined her for AAs in other states.

She might have been able to pull off #1 by a nose if it weren't for Bill's big mouth. AAs had a lot of doubt about Obama's viability as a candidate. They could have exploited that if Bill hadn't gone there. It was still early and he had come in second in NH, the other predominantly white state.

Hillary Clinton ran a great campaign until people actually voted. Then it fell apart.

Posted by Chaos | February 21, 2008 11:28 AM

John @ 9:30 got this exactly right.

That's the consensus, which I agree with. Its amazing, though. At the time, most pundits thought that the Clintons' attacks on Obama before South Carolina were going to cripple him by casting him into the role of "black candidate". Boy, were they wrong.

Posted by Jim W | February 21, 2008 11:29 AM

More recently Obama has shown poor judgment in openly ruminating on under what circumstances he would bomb an allied nation,

This is bullshit, and repeating John McCain spin, to boot. But attacking Al Qaeda position in Pakistan (which is what Obama suggested) is something the US is doing right now.

making pledges he couldn't live up to on campaign finance,

Again, bullshit. He never made a pledge. He said he would "aggressively pursue" an agreement with the Republican. He still says the same thing.

and carelessly failing to cite lifting rhetoric in a major address.

Lifting rhetoric is something which every politician on earth has done and does on a daily basis. At worst, this is a very small misdemeanor.

Not to mention choosing to buy property with a known crook.

He's been indicted, but not convicted, so I'm not clear that we can call him "a known crook" even at present. Even admitting that he is a crook, he was not a "known crook" in 2005 when the purchase was made - he wasn't indicted until late 2006. So this is grossly misleading. It was, nonetheless, an error of judgement, I will agree.

Posted by John | February 21, 2008 11:29 AM

Four letter.

B - I - L - L

Posted by An Outhouse | February 21, 2008 11:30 AM

More recently Obama has shown poor judgment in openly ruminating on under what circumstances he would bomb an allied nation, making pledges he couldn't live up to on campaign finance, and carelessly failing to cite lifting rhetoric in a major address. Not to mention choosing to buy property with a known crook.

Maybe here is part of the reason for the difference in the campaigns. Obama and Clinton supporters just disagree about the substance of Tim's answer. And right now, more people agree with Obama.

We don't think it is a bad idea to take out bin Laden in a lawless region of a military dictatorship that has shown no desire to go after the very terrorists who perpetrated 9/11. We don't think it's problematic to disarm and write off nearly a million small donors if the GOP won't muzzle the swift boaters. We know that every single politician is speaking someone else's words. And we aren't going to get worked up over some flimsy connection to Rezko (whether it's Hillary's or Obama's) that even less of a "scandal" than Whitewater.

People disagree. Obama and Hillary disagree. And right now a significant percentage are siding with Obama.

Posted by Merle | February 21, 2008 11:35 AM

At the time, most pundits thought that the Clintons' attacks on Obama before South Carolina were going to cripple him by casting him into the role of "black candidate". Boy, were they wrong.

I think the key thing was that this was incredibly stupid. If they'd just let South Carolina play out without appealing to race, they'd have probably gotten a third or so of the black vote (although maybe not - Obama/Uncommitted did better than that in Michigan and Nevada, so maybe their share of the black vote was doomed - but even that was already after the MLK/LBJ flap, I think - it was the week after New Hampshire where things started to racialize).

If that had happened, Obama would still have won, but it would have been quite narrow. And, without the Clintons having to do anything, the press would have started speculating on whether Obama was just the "black candidate" and whether he could win over whites, etc.

But by pushing that angle so hard themselves, they made themselves look like asses. The story became not "Is Obama the 'black candidate' who can't win white votes?" but instead "Are the Clintons playing on racial divisions to win votes?" This hurt them, and not just with Blacks, but with a lot of white liberals as well. It's anecdotal, obviously, but I remember around this time my mom talking about how all her middle aged women friends were turning against Clinton.

I will say that I think Iowa was more about Obama winning than Clinton losing. The problem was that they didn't have an adequate back up plan in the event of losing Iowa, and the one they settled on after New Hampshire (racialize it!) was the worst they could have chosen.

Posted by John | February 21, 2008 11:39 AM

No, you've got this all wrong. At best, you describe some narrow, rentable technical competencies.

1. HRC never had a compelling strategic rationale for her campaign. "Ready from day one" isn't a good one, and seriously misreads what voters have been looking for.

2. Obama won 2007, in the sense that he built from scratch a fundraising and campaign organization equal to or better than the one HRC inherited. It should be obvious months ago that she would face a serious challenge in Obama. HRC and her campaign apparently believed the name recognition polling six months out--a rookie's mistake.

3. HRC ran as a neo-incumbent, compounding the stratetic shortings described under 1). Running on inevitability only works as long as you're inevitable; it's an inherently fragile rationale.

4. HRC assumed from the start that the campaign would be over by super Tuesday. No plan B. I know people who've been organizing for Obama in the mountain states for more than a year. To "learn" about the Texas delegate selection rules just a few days ago is pretty stunning.

5. HRC never established clear internal controls and organizational discipline, leaving her, to her surpise, to run out of money after Iowa. Also pretty stunning from a management perspective.

6. Mark Penn is an idiot, and anyone who hires him lacks intellectual depth or judgment. The "microtrends" stuff he pettles is entirely subjective and entirely without discipline. He's made a career of this stuff based on a talent for salesmenship.

Posted by Matt | February 21, 2008 11:41 AM

$$$ MONEY $$$
Those saying that Obama won because he had the advantage of more money are overlooking where the money came from. Hillary's donors were a given before the campaign began. Obama had to engineer a grass roots movement.

When Penn says Wisconsin doesn't count because they were outspent, he is saying that it is unfair that Obama has a million supporters willing to send him money. (and that Democrats, unlike Republicans, vote for the Primary candidate who spends the most money)

As an aside, the strain on poor Bill of having to come up with all the stupid statements must have exhausted him. Now that he's back from vacation, the strategy of having Bill and Mark Penn share the responsibility of pissing off most of the electorate seems to be working well judging from their current vigorous stream of stupidity.

Posted by GPS | February 21, 2008 11:43 AM

John:

I am a believer in the phrase that "politics should end at the water's edge." For me, that doesn't mean that president's should be free from criticism on their foreign policy, but that any president - Democrat or Republican - should conduct his foreign policy in a sound and competent manner. I think Barack Obama made those comments on Pakistan as political calculation in order to appear tough enough to be commander-in-chief. The truth is that John McCain was correct that a president, or potential president, shouldn't be revealing what he would do in such a circumstance. There is a strategic argument to be made for maintaining a sense of strategic ambiguity when it comes to the use of force. That's why the correct answer on the use of force is always "all options are on the table." It's just like Obama's naive answer on committing to meet with rogue leaders with preconditions within his first year. With such a statement he not only boxed in himself, but the office of the president. That was foolish. This isn't an issue of Democrat or Republican, it's about smart or not smart.

On public financing, Obama either was misleading the public for political advantage then, or he changed his mind for political advantage now. Either way it's not a different kind of politics and it's definitely not change we can believe in.

And on Rezko even Obama admits it was a "bone-headed" move and I couldn't agree more, and that was my point. It was an opening to be called corrupt, rightly or wrongly.

Posted by Tim K | February 21, 2008 11:46 AM

"Her edge of making history of being the first viable woman with a real shot of winning and being president never came close to his edge and ability to capitalize on his being the first african american man to have a real shot at winning and being president."

As a woman and a feminist I don't buy this. Women who have been married to powerful men, or in some cases daughters of powerful men, have on occasion pierced the glass ceiling. I can't quite come to feel that Hillary's election to President would be meaningful in the sense of a woman finally "making" it. Margaret Thatcher (for example) was ground breaking in that sense, but I just can't feel that way about Hillary.

Posted by Sherry | February 21, 2008 11:53 AM

I think Michael C. is right that Clinton could not have said "They said this day would never come" post NH, but I think it perhaps has less to do with feminism/anti-feminism and more to do with the meme her campaign has been running on. If you've chosen the narrative of experience and being tried and tested as your theme, it's harder to make claims like the "this day would never come." The fact that you are claiming to be thoroughly vetted belies the idea that people thought you'd never be in this position. It's the reason why Clinton's comment about finding her voice post NH rang false for me. She'd already found her voice before this race even began. I do think there has been an anti-feminist bend in the coverage of her campaign, Chris Matthews being a prime example of this point. I did read several comments post NH about mothers voting for Clinton because of the symbolic moment of voting for a woman for president. I have seen less of these narratives, however, as the campaign has progressed.

I do want to hear what Matt or anyone else thinks are the campaign mistakes the Obama campaign has made. I think the Obama campaign doesn't always control the news cycle enough, ceding ground here to commentators. But I also find this handsoff approach fascinating.

Posted by LL | February 21, 2008 11:57 AM

I think another aspect to consider is that as an elite DNC activist, people like Mark Penn assume that the elite DNC activists are the people that matter. In this election cycle Obama beat out Clinton by appealing to grass roots activists. We've gone over this issue recently- Obama outraised Clinton by a huge margin among under $200 donations and I think the difference in fund-raising ultimately had a pretty huge impact.

I really dislike Mark Penn and his stragies. But those strategies normally work. If he doesn't find future employment in the future b/c of the Clinton campaign's failures that would be great, but I'm not sure it would be justified. (I avoid saying fair, b/c I think it's fair for Penn to get hit with whatever lumps come his way in a general karmic sense)

Posted by mpowell | February 21, 2008 12:00 PM

Clinton's problem isn't that she's run a bad campaign. It's that her whole appeal, story, and reason for running have been compromised. Hillary Clinton was the presumptive nominee because Democrats see this year as an absolutely crucial moment to retake the White House. The "safe" way to assure this is to nominate the wife of a still fairly popular former President, and campaign on the idea that restoring the Clintons to the White House will restore the Democratic dominance of the 1990s (of course one would have to ignore the 1994 congressional race to even buy this). Now that she has been beaten in contest after contest by Obama, she has lost her primary advantage - the image of assured electability. As a result, Democrats are flocking to someone who they actually want to vote for, rather than the person who can deliver the White House to the party, because it's been shown that either could accomplish the latter.

Posted by TH | February 21, 2008 12:03 PM

John@10:30:

Good points. I don't mean to imply that the only reason he's ahead is his greater sizzle factor. But it does have a significant impact. I think he's had to work to convince people that there's enough substance behind the star appeal, especially against an opponent who's appeal is based on her policy knowledge.

The Democratic electorate, more so than the R's, really values the easy grasp of policy. I think that's why in the early going (aside from name recognition), Clinton polled so well-most of the exposure anyone had to the candidates was in the debates, where she really does well in outlining her 5 point plans.

As you referenced, its pretty rare for Dems to NOT give the nomination to the policy wonk-even Bill, charasmatic as he was, was masterful at explaining the nitty gritty details. BTW, thanks for the Dukakis reminder-just cringeworthy as a candidate, way stiffer than Kerry. How the heck did we nominate that guy?

Posted by Chris | February 21, 2008 12:22 PM

As I wrote at my place this morning:

. . . Obama is the first candidate who embodies in his frame the change people feel all around them in the rest of their lives. He gives voice to tradition, in the very timbre of his speech, which under the circumstances is VERY important, while projecting a genuine resolution about the future that relies less on policy initiatives (which drives good people like Krugman nuts) than a clear-eyed awareness that the nation needs to be awake to every new day if it is to recover itself.

This is NOT the message being sent by the Clintons or any of the candidates of the dying GOP, who have mainly relied on the old rules of print and TV -- call it the authority of the sound bite, the feeding of the Press.

And here's the deal. As frustrating as Obama's appeal is to the rest of the establishment, no one, not Hil, not the GOP, not FUX or the Washington Pest, is going to lay a glove on him this time around. The strength of TV networks and newspapers is ebbing daily, and they know it. The election is about the death of their influence as much as the rise of Obama.

Our Stupid President is the apotheosis of a ton of bad ideas which have sustained the GOP for a generation, mainly the triumph of Public Relations and Nepotism (two factors which figure heavily in the Clintons' dying game plan, btw.)
. . .

Look at it this way, a new medium creates new rules.

Posted by Will Divide | February 21, 2008 12:43 PM

The Clintons' dying game plan ?

Are Hillary and Bill plotting to color peoples' hair or something?

Posted by Tim K | February 21, 2008 1:02 PM

People simply found Obama to be the more appealing candidate. When Clinton's campaign had to start coming up with reasons that he wasn't, that's when they started looking bad. If their reasons had been better, the execution wouldn't have looked so bad, but the basic problem was that the reasons weren't very good.

Posted by Alan in SF | February 21, 2008 1:04 PM

Yossarian: Clinton masters a lot of details, but her grasp of the big picture really does worry me. She lacks not intelligence, but imagination and vision. I mean, who in God's name has ever won a presidential election by promising above all to "work hard?"

Yes! Senators are expected to be wonky, so the "solutions" pitch is a fat one down the middle against a big-picture guy like Obama. Yet Hillary's campaign persists in attacking Obama's rhetoric even though Obama's 10-0 streak would suggests a different tack is called for.

Posted by Lucy | February 21, 2008 1:11 PM

"I think Barack Obama made those comments on Pakistan as political calculation in order to appear tough enough to be commander-in-chief. The truth is that John McCain was correct that a president, or potential president, shouldn't be revealing what he would do in such a circumstance. There is a strategic argument to be made for maintaining a sense of strategic ambiguity when it comes to the use of force."

Tim K,

Both you and McCain are dead wrong. Obama made those comments to point out the failings of the Bush/Cheney administration's foreign policy, which include a failure to direct our military force in the right direction. If Al-Qaeda is rebuilding itself in Pakistan, why are we concentrating our military forces on invading and occupying Iraq? Why aren't we taking steps to prevent Al-Qaeda's buildup in Pakistan, under the very nose of the government there? If our enemies are using the territory of our allies to rebuild themselves, and if our allies are unwilling and/or unable to act to counter this, then we have to take action ourselves to prevent this threat from rebuilding itself, under the very nose of our ally.

Since this situation involves an ally's failure to take action, your strategic ambiguity argument doesn't hold water. An ally like Pakistan needs to know explicitly what the consequences of their failures will bring. If we don't make this clear, that ally will continue to act in the manner they acted before, which is to do nothing about AQ rebuilding itself.

The fact that you, McCain, and Clinton fail to see that key distinction (because it falls out of the usual Beltway "strategery" groupthink mindset), but Obama sees it very clearly, just further demonstrates how much better Obama's judgement is than Clinton's or McCain's.

Posted by eltoro | February 21, 2008 1:13 PM

If Obama ran Clinton's campaign, she would still have lost against a person like Obama. The problem is with the candidate, not with the message.

Posted by Amecha | February 21, 2008 1:28 PM

This analysis is way off. Clinton woke up on Feb. 6th in big, big trouble: behind in pledged delegates (by 24 or so), out of money, and facing a hostile primary schedule for the next two weeks after failing to secure a lead when the schedule favored her (Feb. 5th). This was clear to those of us paying close attention to the race. Even worse, her campaign was completely unprepared for the next phase of the race. So either they took a strategic decision to bet everything on Feb. 5th and lost or they were just too incompetent to prepare for anything after Super Tuesday. If it was the former, then it is arguable that this wasn't the result of a lousy campaign. If the later, then this is pretty indefensible.

Posted by ikl | February 21, 2008 1:32 PM

"Consequently, they woke up on the morning of February 6, 2008 in pretty good position -- up in delegates."

That is false. Obama got more delegates on February 5. He won the day.

(slightly off-topic: Obama never lost a day; he drew New Hampshire and won Nevada - in terms of delegates)

Posted by davidv | February 21, 2008 1:50 PM

"It's just like Obama's naive answer on committing to meet with rogue leaders with preconditions within his first year. With such a statement he not only boxed in himself, but the office of the president. That was foolish. This isn't an issue of Democrat or Republican, it's about smart or not smart."

How is Obama boxed in by this statement? Meetings are part of the 1st steps of diplomacy, not the endpoint. If the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venuezuela, or even (gasp!) Cuba fail to negotiate in good faith with Obama, Obama is not bound to accept any of their offers. On the other hand, Clinton's "preconditions" requirement would box her in; if Iran, NK, Venuezuela or others fail to give up something BEFORE they even meet her, she would be forced to pass on opportunties for using diplomacy.

It would be akin to Reagan failing to meet with Gorbachev, because Gorbachev hadn't torn down the Berlin Wall beforehand. As a result, the opportunity to end the Cold War peacefully would have been squandered, and the Berlin Wall would not have been torn down. If fact, it probably would have been made bigger and more impenetratable, since a Vladimir Putin type would have eventually deposed Gorbachev. Reagan did not make that mistake though. He took full advantage of the opportunity provided by Gorbachev's willingness to use diplomacy, and paved the way for the peaceful end to the Cold War.

Obama is simply arguing that the leader of the Free World should not be afraid of diplomacy, but instead use it in bold and imaginative ways in conjunction with our military power, in the manner of Reagan, Nixon, JFK, Ike, Truman, and FDR. When the President of the US, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, refuses to meet with the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Cuba without preconditions, he or she is demonstrating WEAKNESS, not strength.

Obama is willing to be a strong President from Day One; is Hillary Clinton willing to? If her instincts tell her that using diplomacy is a sign of weakness, one wonders if she will ever to be ready to be President, whether it is Day One or Day One Thousand.

Posted by eltoro | February 21, 2008 1:50 PM

I think that Hilzoy nails this.

MY seems kind of blind to the bigger picture. Team Clinton is good at certain kinds of tactical stuff: fund raising from big doners (though when you are a Clinton how hard can this be?), putting together policy papers, getting their spin into the press (even when it is widly implausible), rapid responce to everything and anything. But that is only a part of running a campaign. Only a few of their field operations seem any good (NH, NJ, NY, MA, CA) and excpet for NH where Michael Wholey did a great job as usual, this is a matter of knowing the right people in those states more than anything else). The messaging / branding of the campaign was pretty messed up, the attacks on Obama tended to be counter-productive, and the Clinton campaign seems to have almost no strategic sense (sending HRC to south Texas with its very few delegates instead of Wisconsin or Dallas or Columbus) and can't manage money worth a damn.

So yeah, the Clinton campaign is good at some things, but on balance, I'm not too impressed given the advantages it had coming into the year. HRC is practically an incumbent and benefited from this a lot early on both with doners and voters. But as that advantage diminishes over time, what remains is far from impressive . . .

Posted by ikl | February 21, 2008 1:52 PM

Tim K.

On public financing, Obama either was misleading the public for political advantage then, or he changed his mind for political advantage now. Either way it's not a different kind of politics and it's definitely not change we can believe in.

And on Rezko even Obama admits it was a "bone-headed" move and I couldn't agree more, and that was my point. It was an opening to be called corrupt, rightly or wrongly.

Two things have stuck out for me. The poor quality of the anti-Obama Trolls during the primary and the whole Michigan/Florida episode. The Clinton campaign needed to employ better Trolls to have had a chance of winning. Betraying the pledge on Michigan and Florida was cheezy and sleazy.

Actually, three things stick out for me. I am very dissapointed in Edwards and the Edwards ideologues. Although I agreed with Edwards more on policy issues, even before Iowa I knew Obama had a chance to beat Hillary if she became overconfident and believed the hype about her inevitability.

Historical moments like this only come along once in a lifetime, if that, which is why many of Obama's supporters are so excited, which why turnnout has been so high and which is why McCain will lose.

The Clinton campaign argued that Obama has never had a tough opponent in a general election, well it's apparent Hillary never had a tough opponent in a primary.

Yes we can, yes we did!

Posted by Peter K. | February 21, 2008 2:11 PM

I agree that Hilzoy nailed it. I would also point out that the campaigns drew on completely different organizational structures--Obama built his own and Hillary relied on the endorsing folks within the states who "perhaps" could draw on their own organizing folk.

Obama was very early on the organizing and it focused almost exclusively on local activists. I know his campaign received a lot of hoots for selling their own merchandise. But here's what happened with that "stuff" like stickers. Activists bought it to support the campaign and then had to find places to use that "stuff"--handing stickers out at art shows, etc. It made money for Obama and kicked some number of activists out the door to get rid of the stuff.

Another example: There were two presentations at my local ward meeting--one focused on walking the neighborhood in the ward and talking to people and how the election should go to the person energizing so many of our young people as we had been energized in our youth while one (late to the meeting so didn't hear the first one) recited a list of accomplishments, wanted the support of the committee, and ended wondering aloud if anyone even knew a primary was coming up. One was a state chair for the campaign and one was a retired resident in the ward. Can you figure out which person belong to which campaign? That's the difference.

Posted by cube3u | February 21, 2008 2:15 PM

Obama made those comments to point out the failings of the Bush/Cheney administration's foreign policy, which include a failure to direct our military force in the right direction

That point could have, and indeed has, been made without discussing hypothetical situations involving the using force against an allied nation. The fact Barack Obama seems to be confused on that issue it further evidence of his lack of readiness to be commander-in-chief. I agree with Obama: words matter.

How is Obama boxed in by this statement? Meetings are part of the 1st steps of diplomacy

The phrases "without preconditions" and "in the first year" box him into meeting on a rigid timetable. When Obama quotes JFK on the importance of meeting with our enemies, he completely misses the point of the criticism. The point is that committing the power and prestige of his office without preconditions is irresponsible. Kennedy never committed to meeting with Nikita Krueschev within his first year without preconditions. Hillary Clinton never said there would necessarily be preconditions and she never said she would refuse to meet with anyone in her first year. What she did do is show the foresight and good judgment to allow herself maximum flexibility in diplomacy. For all of Obama's eloquent rhetoric, the substance of his position on diplomacy is devoid of nuance.

Posted by Tim K | February 21, 2008 2:21 PM