Don't Talk About the War

Gail Sheehy's Clinton campaign post-mortem is interesting, but like all such articles it's shocking to me how much it downplays Clinton's catastrophic political and substantive error in voting for the 2002 Iraq resolution. That mistake was about a thousand times more consequential than any particular instance of Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson bickering about this or that. It's just impossible for me to imagine her losing the nomination if she'd spent 2002 through early 2004 as a liberal hero and a lonely voice of sanity on the war.

If she'd made that call correctly, Obama never would have gotten in the race and we'd be talking about whether she should do the daring thing and pick that charismatic black Senator from Illinois as her running mate.

Comments

I don't think the vote was the death knell, but rather it was her insistence that her vote was not a mistake. She was pretty much unrepentant, trying to push all of the blame onto George W. and trying to demean Obama's rhetoric against the war from the get-go.

Her Iran vote, which she should have easily seen could be used by Bush to start yet another war, didn't help either.

Posted by LFC | July 7, 2008 1:07 PM

I also believe that it was Clinton's lack of apology for her Iraq vote that cost her the nomination -- I know that's why I voted against her.

But has anybody seen any survey data on this point?

Posted by The Fool | July 7, 2008 1:12 PM

The press has become really vested in this idea that policy doesn't matter, that political decisions are the only thing worth talking about. If the media decided that Clinton's (and Obama's and McCain's) policies really did matter, they'd have to pay attention to them, and try to figure them out, and that would make their heads hurt, and they'd come to the conclusion that most people don't like the Iraq War and other Republican policies, which would make some conservatives accuse them of being liberally biased.

Much better and safer (and more fun!) to just stick to the horse race.

Posted by Tom Nawrocki | July 7, 2008 1:14 PM

Absolutely the lack of apology did it. Edwards was still loved by the left because he acknowledged his mistake. Clinton's defense was she was outsmarted by Bush.

Posted by MikeJ | July 7, 2008 1:16 PM

See what Atrios had to say:

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_07_06_archive.html#1817057582646206908

I, too, am constantly amazed out how the various pundits are unable to comprehend that Senator Clinton's Iraq war vote was the only thing standing between her and the nomination.

Posted by Gary Mulen | July 7, 2008 1:17 PM

No question it hurt her with the activists, even though Obama's record and hers is indistinguishable during the time they served together in the Senate.

What really rankled the activists is that she wouldn't apologize or use the word "mistake." She said just about everything else, but because they couldn't bend her to their will on the use of those two words, the activist base generally went for Obama because he gave a speech at a local event in Chicago six years ago, a speech which was little noticed at the time and one which no one who actually attended the event remembers.

Posted by John Petty | July 7, 2008 1:17 PM

Ditto for John Kerry, BTW. He'd be president today if he had voted No, and the only reason he voted Yes was because he believed that vote served his personal ambition to become president. That was an act of moral cowardice that erased all he had done before.

BTW, where would Matthew Yglesias be if he had opposed the war back then? Maybe he'd be a liberal icon with a column in the Atlantic and a blog that constantly gets links from Atrios. Sadly, however, he, like Clinton, has paid the price for his moral cowardice. Oh wait . . .

Posted by cervantes | July 7, 2008 1:19 PM

Not admitting that she made a grievous error in voting for the war, is the only thing that prevented her from locking up the nomination. This was a humilating performance by this very talented woman.

Posted by Gary Mulen | July 7, 2008 1:21 PM

Ditto for John Kerry, BTW. He'd be president today if he had voted No, and the only reason he voted Yes was because he believed that vote served his personal ambition to become president. That was an act of moral cowardice that erased all he had done before.

BTW, where would Matthew Yglesias be if he had opposed the war back then? Maybe he'd be a liberal icon with a column in the Atlantic and a blog that constantly gets links from Atrios. Sadly, however, he, like Clinton, has paid the price for his moral cowardice. Oh wait . . .

Posted by cervantes | July 7, 2008 1:21 PM

This whole "she wouldn't say it was a mistake" point is, I think, basically correct, but it doesn't go to the substance of Matt's argument.
in the first place.
She wouldn't have had to say anything was a mistake if she's voted against the war in the first place!

So, yes, she could have handled that massive error in judgment better, and that might still have been enough to lock in the nomination, given the arrayed forces behind her, but better still would have been to not commit a massive error in judgment.

Posted by DivGuy | July 7, 2008 1:22 PM

Perhaps I'm naive, but was Clinton's 2002 vote a campaign decision, in the same way that hiring Penn and calculating the adbuy in Iowa were campaign decisions? Maybe her 2002 vote was simply a reflection of what she thought was right, at the time. So, yes, she might have won if she'd voted differently, but that's kind of like saying that she might have won if she were a slightly different person. That's fine, but I'm not sure Sheehy could do much with that.

Posted by Trieu | July 7, 2008 1:23 PM

As LFC says, not so much the vote itself (Kerry and Edwards managed) but the firm avowal over many years that it was the right thing to do. Followed by Kyl-Lieberman just to make it absolutely clear that she is ) a hawk, b) a hawk who can't admit or learn from her mistakes. Been there, done that, turning the page.

But it's true that the postmortems seem to want to ignore something as simple as "wrong policy at the wrong time" to make it all about one fatal flaw--if she'd just hired or fired the right person, if Bill had just stayed quiet (or the truly wacky if she'd just skipped Iowa).

Posted by Deborah | July 7, 2008 1:24 PM

Ditto for John Kerry, BTW. He'd be president today if he had voted No, and the only reason he voted Yes was because he believed that vote served his personal ambition to become president. That was an act of moral cowardice that erased all he had done before.

BTW, where would Matthew Yglesias be if he had opposed the war back then? Maybe he'd be a liberal icon with a column in the Atlantic and a blog in which he continually criticizes Democrats who initially supported the war. Sadly, however, he, like Clinton, has paid the price for his moral cowardice. Oh wait . . .

Posted by cervantes | July 7, 2008 1:26 PM

Edwards was still loved by the left because he acknowledged his mistake.

Not so much, really. If votes=love, that is.

Posted by notsofast | July 7, 2008 1:27 PM

I'm not sure this makes much sense. Clinton's vote on the war was a pre-existing condition of her campaign. It doesn't make sense to say "Clinton lost because she voted for the war," because for a very long time it looked as though Clinton would easily win despite having voted for the war.

Any interesting explanation of Clinton's loss has to deal with the fact that, so far as one can tell, her support for the war was not, in fact, sufficient to cost her the nomination (I will agree with Matt that it was, however, necessary.) What these post-mortems are looking at is not "Why did Clinton lose the nomination in spite of the fact that in early 2002 she looked like the most likely Democrat to win it?" The question is "Why did Clinton lose the nomination in spite of the fact that at the end of 2007 she looked like the most likely Democrat to win it?" Clinton's vote for the war does not provide an obvious explanation of this.

Posted by John | July 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Sorry about the multiple posts -- entirely unintentional. Kept getting error messages saying my post had not gone through.

I'm obnoxious, but not that obnoxious.

Posted by cervantes | July 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Note too that Sheehy's story describes Mark Penn as "superhawk on Iraq." Even if Clinton was ever inclined to apologize for her vote, I'm sure Penn managed to convince her it would be politically disastrous.

Posted by Tom Nawrocki | July 7, 2008 1:29 PM

The Iraq War Vote was NOT more consequential than the decision not to contest the caucus states.

That is what doomed her campaign.

Hubris.

Posted by YIATS | July 7, 2008 1:32 PM

Sorry about the multiple posts -- entirely unintentional. Kept getting error messages saying my post had not gone through.

For future reference - every post I ever make to this site always garners an error message saying it didn't go through. It always goes through. Don't ever post multiple times, at least not without reloading the page to see if it went through.

Posted by John | July 7, 2008 1:36 PM

Don't a lot of us suspect that HRC voted for the AUMF honestly? That she was sold on the Saddam threat & WMD arguments? That her refusal to apologize was not driven solely by political fear of looking 'weak', but also because she was not sorry?

It was a vote worth losing over.

Posted by tomtom | July 7, 2008 1:44 PM

Many seem to be forgetting (which is nice actually) that as a woman, fighting the "soft on defense" label was a huge hurdle. She did it so well, it was "too well" for many of us.

But had she voted against the war, then ran as an anti-war candidate it is no fait-accompli that all of the moderate working class voters would still have been behind her. Without them, she doesn't win and the young and progressive voters sick of the Clinton-Bush dynasty go for Obama anyway.

She may have done even worse...

Posted by WW85 | July 7, 2008 1:46 PM

If Clinton's Iraq vote cost her the Presidency, then maybe, just maybe, there might be some accountability in the celebrity press corps. That is one thing the Versailles Villagers do not want.

Posted by dcblogger | July 7, 2008 1:47 PM

If Clinton's Iraq vote cost her the Presidency, then maybe, just maybe, there might be some accountability in the celebrity press corps. That is one thing the Versailles Villagers do not want.

Posted by dcblogger | July 7, 2008 1:48 PM

If Clinton's Iraq vote cost her the Presidency, then maybe, just maybe, there might be some accountability in the celebrity press corps. That is one thing the Versailles Villagers do not want.

Posted by dcblogger | July 7, 2008 1:53 PM

I agree with Matt and I am not sure whether an apology would have helped because where Obama won, he won fairly convincingly.

But it is also true that Clinton said about as forcefully as possible that if voters didn't like the way she voted on Iraq they should vote for someone else. It's almost like she was sticking out her tongue at us -- and that, plus Kyl-Lieberman and the PA debate, made it clear to me that she was sufficiently hawkish that she really might have gotten us into Iraq all on her own, even if she had used better reasons. I never thought that way about Kerry or Edwards, even though they voted for the AUMF as well.

Posted by Barbara | July 7, 2008 1:53 PM

Trieu and John are right: John for noting that at some point you can't blame old things rather than things that happened during the campaign itself, and Trieu for noting that the discussion fails to credit the possibility that Clinton has substantive, non-political reasons for supporting the war in 2002-2003. Clinton's attacked for allegedly reducing everything to political calculation, and then she's attacked for failing to be politically calculating enough. Jeesh.

Posted by Rich | July 7, 2008 1:57 PM

"Don't a lot of us suspect that HRC voted for the AUMF honestly? That she was sold on the Saddam threat & WMD arguments?"

I know I would have suspected it, if she had and done her homework and read the NIE. She wasn't a victim who was sold on bad intelligence if she didn't read the intelligence.

Posted by ml | July 7, 2008 1:58 PM

it is no fait-accompli that all of the moderate working class voters would still have been behind her.

I suppose that nothing can be said to be assured. But 68% of Americans are against the war, 68% were against it in November of last year, and in between the disapproval number dropped to a low of 63%. (Numbers from Polling Report compilation of CNN numbers.) If I've read the table properly, that's 68% of Americans. I'd expect Democrats to be more against the war than the general public, and Democrats who vote in the primaries more still.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 7, 2008 2:00 PM

I'm not sure this makes much sense. Clinton's vote on the war was a pre-existing condition of her campaign. It doesn't make sense to say "Clinton lost because she voted for the war," because for a very long time it looked as though Clinton would easily win despite having voted for the war.

It makes sense because if she had voted against the war, Obama would merely have been a road bump in the primary. He might still have run, but he would have been a minor candidate. No viable Obama challenge, and Hillary would have won.

Posted by rebmarks | July 7, 2008 2:02 PM

Everyone is mistaken if she had voted against the War in 2002 we would be working no her 2008 Presidential reelection campaign now

Posted by smartone | July 7, 2008 2:02 PM

The polls in 2007 were just that, polls in 2007. They represent name recognition more than actual enthusiasm. Gugliani had a huge lead for most of 2007 also, and had his team game the system to favor someone who couldn't win in the south, and still that lead proved worthless when the campaign involved actual campaigning and debating the issues.

Which is a long way of disputing John's notion that it could have been sufficient to cost her the nomination even though the polls in 2007 showed her with a commanding lead.

Posted by Curtis | July 7, 2008 2:11 PM

Did Matt read the article he linekd to? Did any of the commentors?

Here's what it said

"Clinton’s stance on the Iraq war turned out to be an albatross around her neck that no amount of spinning could shake off. Penn, a superhawk on Iraq and with a strong allegiance to the security of Israel, reinforced Clinton’s own instinct not to admit she had made a mistake. “She felt it wasn’t her mistake,” says a campaign official. “It was Bush’s mistake.” Other senators, such as Florida’s Bob Graham, had gone into the national-security vault, read the National Intelligence Estimate on Saddam’s W.M.D. for themselves, and found the evidence to be unpersuasive. Clinton took the safe, see-no-evil, hawkish road, arguably a precaution necessary for a female with presidential ambitions."

Sheehy, somewhat scandalously, throws in a dual-loyalty accusation on Mark Penn. I don't see her as soft-pedalling thsi at all.

Posted by Ikram | July 7, 2008 2:13 PM

Triangulation.....ain't it a bitch.

Obama better remember that too.

Posted by Phillip Dukes | July 7, 2008 2:16 PM

She certainly lost MY primary vote (as did Kerry before her, and even Edwards both times as well) because of her Iraq war vote.

[ As a side note, I have no idea if her vote was "sincere." That's an open question in my mind. All politicians at this level in the game are political creatures, so it's hard to divine what is pure political calculation vs. what is sincerely felt. An argument could be made for sincerity here, since one would think (at the very least) that she would have read the political winds well enough to know that her refusal to apologize & the Kyl-Lieberman vote were going to be political missteps. I'm inclined to think, however, that it was still largely political. I really think she was playing for the general election the whole time -- that she thought she had the primary wrapped up, so she didn't think she had to tack left, before going full on center (or even right, on foreign policy). Go back & read her speech on AUMF. Maybe it's my intense anti-Iraq war bias speaking, but that speech makes me vaguely nauseous. It is one of the most CYA say-a-whole-bunch-of-crap-to-it-make-it-sound-like-you-know-what-you're-talking-about-without-really-SAYING-anything speeches I have ever read. I can almost respect someone like Tom Friedman who, while foolishly for the war, stood up and explained his rationale clearly & concisely. He was wrong, but at least I can understand what he was thinking. ]

Anyway (sorry for the lengthy tangent), I do agree with John & others that she obviously still could have (should have?) won the nomination even with her war vote, but for her campaign's critical missteps, particularly after 2/5. It would be nice, however, if the press would at least acknowledge the war vote as among the significant causes, since in my view, it clearly was.

Posted by Lynn | July 7, 2008 2:30 PM

She certainly lost MY primary vote (as did Kerry before her, and even Edwards both times as well) because of her Iraq war vote.

[ As a side note, I have no idea if her vote was "sincere." That's an open question in my mind. All politicians at this level in the game are political creatures, so it's hard to divine what is pure political calculation vs. what is sincerely felt. An argument could be made for sincerity here, since one would think (at the very least) that she would have read the political winds well enough to know that her refusal to apologize & the Kyl-Lieberman vote were going to be political missteps. I'm inclined to think, however, that it was still largely political. I really think she was playing for the general election the whole time -- that she thought she had the primary wrapped up, so she didn't think she had to tack left, before going full on center (or even right, on foreign policy). Go back & read her speech on AUMF. Maybe it's my intense anti-Iraq war bias speaking, but that speech makes me vaguely nauseous. It is one of the most CYA say-a-whole-bunch-of-crap-to-it-make-it-sound-like-you-know-what-you're-talking-about-without-really-SAYING-anything speeches I have ever read. I can almost respect someone like Tom Friedman who, while foolishly for the war, stood up and explained his rationale clearly & concisely. He was wrong, but at least I can understand what he was thinking. ]

Anyway (sorry for the lengthy tangent), I do agree with John & others that she obviously still could have (should have?) won the nomination even with her war vote, but for her campaign's critical missteps, particularly after 2/5. It would be nice, however, if the press would at least acknowledge the war vote as among the significant causes, since in my view, it clearly was.

Posted by Lynn | July 7, 2008 2:32 PM

There’s only one problem with the basic argument posited here: Hilary Clinton wouldn’t be Hilary Clinton if she didn’t vote for AUMF. She is a Hawk’s Hawk. AUMF was not an anomaly for her. AUMF, Kyl-Lieberman, taking more donations from defense contractors than any candidate in history…..war with Iraq is not an outlier in her world view.
Obama’s supporters are routinely branded “Obamaniacs” and other cutesy nicknames by Clinton supporters who see themselves as tough-minded realists by comparison. Well please take some of that tough-minded realism and wake up to the foreign-policy views of your preferred candidate. Sen. Clinton’s foreign policy is about as progressive as George Bush’s.

Posted by Bob | July 7, 2008 2:44 PM

One can certainly argue all day about whether or not Hilary's pro-war vote cost her the nomination. And there are good points to be made on either side. The real point I think MY is making is that the mainstream media refuses to even address this argument.

Posted by vanya | July 7, 2008 3:10 PM

I don't think the vote itself was the end of her campaign; it was how she handled the vote. A lot of Obama supporters (including myself) were drawn to him because of his initial opposition to the war, and would have been pretty darn happy with Edwards, since he at least repented.

We all saw what happened to Kerry: he was eaten up on the Iraq vote. I think a lot of people were afraid of that happening again, and perhaps even Sen. Clinton was one of them. But instead of saying that she regretted it or now realized it was a mistake, she instead dug her heels in on the matter, trying to pass it off as a "vote for more diplomacy", when it was clearly a vote for no more diplomacy.

Posted by socctty | July 7, 2008 3:13 PM

But 68% of Americans are against the war

But that does not make them single issue voters or rob them of the inability to project how a candidate might behave in the future.

Some of those voters who are against the war now may have supported HRC because they thought her the most competent at getting us out of it while maintaining a tough stance.

Posted by WW85 | July 7, 2008 3:19 PM

It would've been much easier for Clinton had she made the right vote in '02, but she still could've won. Articles like this are premised on how she lost a winnable campaign. I agree that the way she refused to engage in any dialog on her vote and on Iraq in general was one of the bigger missteps of her campaign. Failing to fight for every delegate early in the race to save face was the biggest strategic problem, but this could've been driven by relatively poor early fundraising that would've been needed to go head-to-head with Obama in HI, AK, MN, etc where he racked up his big lead after Super Tuesday. In that case, not hitting her fundraising stride in time would've been her critical mistake.

Had Clinton decided to contest caucus states, that would've required an investment that would've hurt her huge margins in NY, CA, NJ, AR, etc, and she wouldn't have gotten the head start in OH/TX/PA that she got by spending there during her losing streak in February. The point is that more money = better than... if she had infinite resources, I doubt she would've stayed out of South Dakota just to save face.

Posted by Zach | July 7, 2008 3:21 PM

Ah, the wonderful "What If" game.
Perhaps, as MY says, if Clinton had voted against Obama may not even have run. That doesn't mean, however, that she would have won. It is quite possible that Edwards would have beaten her if Obama hadn't been in the race.

Posted by John M | July 7, 2008 3:23 PM

btw - I understand the nomination was Clinton's birthright and all, but how about some credit going Obama's way. He did run a brilliant campaign. Didn't that play some part in all this?

Posted by Bob | July 7, 2008 3:26 PM

Of course HRC's vote on Iraq was political, just as Obama's position was political. These people don't care one way or the other. That's why these gyrating flip flops happen so much. What you see with both Hillary and Obama are people so deranged by ambition, they honestly think their country needs them, thus justifying the most outrageous deviations from principle in order to maintain electoral viability.

You all know for damn sure Obama will not withdraw all the troops from Iraq in 16 months; unless it becomes easy, in which case he'll take the credit for winning the war. From the moment he takes office, the focus will be on 2012. 'Twas ever thus.

Posted by Vail Beach | July 7, 2008 3:27 PM

btw - I understand the nomination was Clinton's birthright and all, but how about some credit going Obama's way. He did run a brilliant campaign. Didn't that play some part in all this?

Posted by Bob | July 7, 2008 3:29 PM

It's shocking to me how much this downplays
Biden's and Dodd's and poor John Edwards' and
the former John Kerry's catastrophic political
and substantive error in voting for the 2002 Iraq
resolution. Not to mention Harkin and Reid and
Cleland and Waxman and Wexler and Donder and Blitzen etc.

Well, not really shocking I guess . . .

In actuality the Anybody But Hillary powers prevailed, stealthily and unremarked since most corporate media were among those powers.
-

Posted by QuentinCompson | July 7, 2008 3:34 PM

Oh. My. God. The nomination is a fucking political purity test for Yglesias?!?!?!?!

Hint: Success in getting your ass into the white house and governing is _synthesis_. Being able to make the incompatible compatible and find common ground.

Obama has shown almost no ability in this area (apart from conning people that his consistent rejection of half his racial heritage somehow makes him 'transcend' race). Clinton has shown some. Not as much as her husband, but enough. McCain has a track record in this area too (despite his huge faults). If the democrats lose the whitehouse in November it's because they went for purity for purity's sake instead of synthesis.

Posted by michael farris | July 7, 2008 3:38 PM

Notice that every senator who had presidential ambitions voted for the war. At the time it was considered a political necessity.

HRC actually made a nice speech that should have led to a "no" vote. Her logic was crazy. Her crazy, discombobulated logic remained in place throughout the primaries ("I didn't vote to authorize the Bush ..." when the title of the bill said otherwise).

Her vote was a political calculation. Her refusal to apologize was weird.

Posted by cube | July 7, 2008 3:39 PM

Of course HRC's vote on Iraq was political, just as Obama's position was political. These people don't care one way or the other. That's why these gyrating flip flops happen so much. What you see with both Hillary and Obama are people so deranged by ambition, they honestly think their country needs them, thus justifying the most outrageous deviations from principle in order to maintain electoral viability.

You all know for damn sure Obama will not withdraw all the troops from Iraq in 16 months; unless it becomes easy, in which case he'll take the credit for winning the war. From the moment he takes office, the focus will be on 2012. 'Twas ever thus.

Posted by Vail Beach | July 7, 2008 3:41 PM

but how about some credit going Obama's way. He did run a brilliant campaign. Didn't that play some part in all this?

And there is your single biggest factor. Barack is a once in a lifetime candidate and won the nomination.

Posted by WW85 | July 7, 2008 3:42 PM

Oh. My. God. The nomination is a fucking political purity test for Yglesias?!?!?!?!

Hint: Success in getting your ass into the white house and governing is _synthesis_. Being able to make the incompatible compatible and find common ground.

Obama has shown almost no ability in this area (apart from conning people that his consistent rejection of half his racial heritage somehow makes him 'transcend' race). Clinton has shown some. Not as much as her husband, but enough. McCain has a track record in this area too (despite his huge faults). If the democrats lose the whitehouse in November it's because they went for purity for purity's sake instead of synthesis.

Posted by michael farris | July 7, 2008 3:44 PM

"But had she voted against the war, then ran as an anti-war candidate it is no fait-accompli that all of the moderate working class voters would still have been behind her. Without them, she doesn't win and the young and progressive voters sick of the Clinton-Bush dynasty go for Obama anyway."

What could Obama have run on? I would say that the war was probably the biggest issue that got Obama the "wine track" voters that the media loved to make fun of him for having. If charisma alone was enough to get someone elected president, whoever is named People's "Sexiest Man of the Year" would probably win every four or eight years. You do need to have sort of policy platform. Even assuming Obama would get 100% of African-American voters, she would still get a sizeable number of white voters and Latinos. It's just likely Obama would not have run and she would be debating whether or not to make the most charismatic Democrat with a national profile her VP candidate.

Posted by Reality Man | July 7, 2008 3:49 PM

The question is "Why did Clinton lose the nomination in spite of the fact that at the end of 2007 she looked like the most likely Democrat to win it?" Clinton's vote for the war does not provide an obvious explanation of this.

It's a less-interesting question, though, because at the end of 2007 most of the polls were asking on paper "who would you vote for" but in actuality something more like "of the people on this list, which names do you recognize and feel okay about?" Even within the narrow focus of the war vote, I don't think all that many people were saying "Hmmm, Hillary was a strong yes and still is--plus the pro K-L so I know she can still be fooled by Bush, Obama's been opposed. Edwards voted yes but apologized. Richardson (did something). Biden was opposed and knew the security, has a plan--good guy. Dodd now opposed. Gravel (is he a Democratic or a Republican third tier candidate?)

National polls are not going to eke out people's feelings about the issues before people are paying attention to the issues--a year before the election people who vote in six months are not deeply versed in Mike Gravel's reasons for throwing that rock in the water. So the polls reveal less that Clinton had a fantastic lock on the nomination based on widespread support of her policy positions and her person, and more that, of the dozen or so people running, she had the greatest name recognition.

She said just about everything else, but because they couldn't bend her to their will on the use of those two words, the activist base generally went for Obama because he gave a speech at a local event in Chicago six years ago, a speech which was little noticed at the time and one which no one who actually attended the event remembers.

To the first point, some of her supporters heard an undercurrent of "I was wrong" secretly hinted at behind the scenes; many nonsupporters did not. In a debate about judgment and war and spending blood and treasure, "George Bush can fool me twice!" is not a good message. (As noted by someone above, I think she was in part shooting for "I'm tough," but for those of us who don't have a big female-cic hurdle to make, she vastly overshot, sounding as though she couldn't wait to get into office and find someone to invade, just to show she wasn't afraid to. Absolutely not what I want in a cic.)

As for the latter, that seems to be the hallmark of most great speeches, from Gettysburg on. His antiwar speech will be remembered; his much anticipated and praised speech on race probably won't, because we don't actually want to have a national dialogue on race. (Which I am okay with. Let's have it on why to get into a war and whether to get out, and keep on with acting like we're past race and let each new generation make it truer.)

Posted by Deborah | July 7, 2008 3:54 PM

I agree with WW85--as a woman she would be typecast and dismissed as a softie if she voted against the war initially. When you are in your 20s that may seem doubtful, but sexism is more insidious for older maternal types. She probably felt she had to do it to be viable. She lost my respect when she misremembered gunfire and for other clearly disingenuous remarks, including her inability to concede that the vote was a mistake. But most of all I agree with Bob that she lost despite being the "chosen one" because Obama is an incredible leader with a disciplined, talented campaign staff.

Posted by Sybil | July 7, 2008 3:55 PM

"Hint: Success in getting your ass into the white house and governing is _synthesis_. Being able to make the incompatible compatible and find common ground.

Obama has shown almost no ability in this area"

Except for the fact that Republican incumbents are running ads touting their history of working with Obama in the Senate as a way to not end up on the streets. Also except for the fact he has a history of working on real issues like nuclear non-proliferation and Darfur with GOP members like Lugar and Hagel. Except for the fact he won crossover GOP voters and independents.

Posted by Reality Man | July 7, 2008 3:59 PM

Her inability to admit her mistake on the war vote was a big deterrent for me, also.

Posted by Z | July 7, 2008 4:01 PM

Reality Man: You're wasting your time arguing with a Clinton dead-ender. They seriously argue that she is more "electable" then he. An odd arguement seeing as he beat her in a year long nation-wide campaign.
Silly me, I think the person winning elections is by definition more electable.

Posted by Bob | July 7, 2008 4:04 PM

Hate to break it to Bob, but I'm not a "Clinton dead-ender" I don't like either of them and don't trust either of them. I do think that of the final three candidates she would have made the best day-to-day president (basically a caretaker instead of the ambitious disasters in the making I sense in McCain and Obama) and I might have voted for her in November on that account alone.
But that ship has sailed. The democrats have chosen Obama and no reason for them to second guess themselves now. Practically I don't really care between Obama and McCain (more or less equally bad in different directions) so I'll probably abstain on purpose as I did in 1988 with two candidates I really didn't care about.

Posted by michael farris | July 7, 2008 4:14 PM

michael farris, outside of foreign policy Obama and Clinton had pretty much the same positions, so what are you complaining about?

Posted by Reality Man | July 7, 2008 4:19 PM

My preferred candidate was Kucinich and I think we all know how that turned out.
As far as anyone who claims to be liberal and would willingly have voted for Clinton (as I would have in Nov.) but is far too pure to consider Obama you really need to check into reality sometime. On domestic issues they are virtually identical. The closest you could come to a more progressive domestic policy on Clinton's side would be their respective health care plans: hers includes mandates (better from a liberal perspective but making passage more difficult) - his doesn't. Neither is a particularly good plan, merely a starting point.
On foreign policy there is simply no comparison. If you have yourself convinced her foreign policy would be "progressive" you are delusional. She is as militaristic as most Republicans. He has been bashed frequently for his non-militaristic willingness to actually talk to enemies.
And Sen. Clinton as a “caretaker”. Wow. That’s a new one.
But go ahead and sit this one out because your preferred flawed-centrist lost out to the other flawed-centrist. That'll show us.

Posted by Bob | July 7, 2008 4:34 PM

First, let's make it clear, I weep that the democrats couldn't put forward a better field than one where Hillary goddamned Clinton seemed like the best bet. What were/are they thinking? Edwards (not a bad bet) still had Kerry loser cooties and everyone else, assuming they exist, was waiting for ... what?

Second, all things (and not just one vote considered out of context) considered, I maybe slightly preferred Clinton's foreign policy and beyond that it was a question of perceived management styles. I could imagine Clinton dealing with an unruly congress and other unglamorous presidential things that require tact and firmness and a very thick skin.

I don't think either McCain or Obama has the thick skin needed.
McCain mixes occasional tact with increasing get-off-my-yard crazy old guy spells and Obama seems too much a people-pleaser (and with a tendency to go behind people's backs rather than be assertive to their face).

Posted by michael farris | July 7, 2008 4:37 PM

michael farris: Sorry, I just can't fathom how someone willing to vote for Clinton - nose tightly held or not - can claim a vote for Obama is too much to ask. They just ain't that different.
I understand the holier-then-thou Green party types who demand 100% fealty in exchange for a vote, but all this Obama-bashing from people who would have voted for Clinton seems a wee bit over the top.

Posted by Bob | July 7, 2008 5:06 PM

"As far as anyone who claims to be liberal and would willingly have voted for Clinton (as I would have in Nov.) but is far too pure to consider Obama"

I'm very liberal on social issues, not as much on everything else (on the liberalish side but a lot closer to the center).
Anyway, one thing that I don't think Yglesias has figured out yet is that while a lot of people thought for a long time Clinton or Obama would get just about all the votes that the other had gotten, it's not shaking out that way.
I had assumed that myself for a while and was kind of surprised when I found that that wasn't necessarily so in my case (and had Clinton pulled it out I think a bunch of Obama supporters would have bailed and I wouldn't blame them). For whatever reason support for one (no matter how lukewarm) has not yet translated into support for the other despite all the earlier optimism that it would.

Now had the republicans nominated someone really, truly dreadful like Huckabee or Cheney or Giuliani I'd be for Obama all the way, but the Republicans .... triangulated, picking a bad candidate yes, that's all they had, but the one that raised the fewest democratic hackles (probably wrongly, he really is a crazy mofo).

Meanwhile, I was really not. into. the last couple of months of Obama's primary campaign at all. If he lost me, it was then. It wasn't one thing, it was a lot of things that piled up and at one point I just decided I wasn't happy with him as nominee.
I'm far from completely decided and lots of things could change my mind either way, (nb: Clinton as VP pick would not do it, I really hope he doesn't go there) but at present ... I just don't think much of either candidate and don't want to vote for either.

Posted by michael farris | July 7, 2008 5:11 PM

I could imagine Clinton dealing with an unruly congress and other unglamorous presidential things that require tact and firmness and a very thick skin.

Wow. I find that comment ... fascinating. Hillary played the victim over and over again. She was picked on because she was the front runner. She was picked on because she was a girl. She was picked on because the media fell in love with Obama. Obama had a built in advantage because he was black (despite her actually having an initial lead in the black vote) ... or because he was the front runner (eventually). Or because the Dem Party decided they wanted him (ignoring her initial lead of nearly 100 super delegates.) Or because he had so much money (though she had a huge initial money lead, but spent it frivolously early in the campaign). Michigan and Florida shouldn't have counted, until they should have. And on and on and on...

Thick skin? She whined like the world's whiniest whiner imaginable. Her Iraq vote made me initially not prefer her. Her victim mentality made up my mind to never vote for her.

Posted by LFC | July 7, 2008 5:59 PM

Just piping to say I don't understand people who refer to whether a nation should be invaded or not as "single-issue voters".

It's not like there was a complete lack of an anti-war voice in 2002. Senator Graham was notable for his principled, intelligent approach to the issue. And Hillary Clinton? She did the opposite.

Posted by Whispers | July 7, 2008 6:00 PM

Just piping to say I don't understand people who refer to whether a nation should be invaded or not as "single-issue voters". Or that somehow, the single greatest issue facing the nation right now is a 'purity test'.

Posted by Whispers | July 7, 2008 6:03 PM

Obama is a once in a lifetime candidate and his time was going to come at some point.

But if Hillary was the liberal fighter in which she claimed to be, and voted no on Iraq, showed not only the judgement, but the courage. Obama would not have felt that "fierce urgency of now". And would not of run at all.

I understand that may just seem like a catchy oratory device. But while Obama has had his sites on the White House, media reports show he was looking at 2012/2016 with plans of re-election in Senate or a run at Governor in 2010.

While she could have still won, Obama would have never been in this race if she voted against the invasion of Iraq.

Posted by Phillip Dukes | July 7, 2008 9:55 PM

Obama is a once in a lifetime candidate and his time was going to come at some point.

But if Hillary was the liberal fighter in which she claimed to be, and voted no on Iraq, showed not only the judgement, but the courage. Obama would not have felt that "fierce urgency of now". And would not of run at all.

I understand that may just seem like a catchy oratory device. But while Obama has had his sights on the White House for years, media reports show he was looking at 2012/2016 with plans of re-election in Senate or a run at Governor in 2010.

While she could have still won, Obama would have never been in this race if she voted against the invasion of Iraq.

Posted by Phillip Dukes | July 7, 2008 9:56 PM

Just piping to say I don't understand people who refer to whether a nation should be invaded or not as "single-issue voters". Or that somehow, the single greatest issue facing the nation right now is a 'purity test'.

Totally agree. I'd also like to add that nobody complains about "purity tests" when the issue is abortion and the possibility of nominating a president or vice-president who isn't necessarily pro-choice.

I think the Dems made a smart move by choosing someone who actually put a little daylight between himself and the Republican candidate on one of the most important issues of the day.

Posted by Moonlight | July 7, 2008 10:48 PM

The Iraq war had little salience outside of Iowa.
Check all the exit polls. Clinton's vote on the AUMF sealed her fate with activists who likely would not have supported her any way. If Obama does not win 85% of African-American votes, Clinton wins the nomination in a regular wine losses to beer race.

Obama ran this time around because it was the best chance a Democrat had in 20 years. Even if Clinton voted no on the AUMF, I think Obama still runs. The war was one of his selling points to activists, but it wasn't the raison d'être of his campaign.

Posted by disagree | July 8, 2008 3:10 PM

Yeah Matt is wrong this. Plus it devalues the Obama campaign's talent and hard work.

Posted by Peter K. | July 8, 2008 5:03 PM