Imagine being the odds-on favorite to become President of the United States and then see it all slip away. That is a very small club. Al Gore is a member. John Kerry may have been a member. And now Senator Hillary Clinton is about to become one.
The widely acknowledged frontrunner at the beginning of the primary season, Hillary Clinton was leading in national polls, and it was, and still is, a very Democratic year. Thanks in no small part to George W. Bush, Republican scandals, an unpopular war -- seemingly without end -- rising gasoline prices, the foreclosure crisis, the increasing cost of food, and a generally stagnant economy, a Democrat should be able to sleep-walk his (or her) way to the White House.
Hillary Clinton was much better than the campaign she ran. In fact, if she had learned to trust herself instead of listening to high-priced consultants such as Mark Penn, and those who said a woman had to be perceived as tough to become commander-in-chief, we would be sitting here congratulating her instead of Barack Obama. If Hillary had campaigned from the beginning in the same manner as the past six weeks, she would have won the nomination in a walk.
There were three major problems with Hillary's campaign. First, as noted in the above paragraph, she felt a need to vote in favor of the Iraq War to show her toughness, instead of doing what in her heart she felt was best for the country. That vote plagued Hillary throughout the primary season, and she clung to it because of her conceived need to seem tough for the general election campaign. However, you can't get to the general election campaign until you win the nomination, and Hillary's foes were able to paint her into a corner on that vote and torpedo her relationship with Democratic activists.
Second, Hillary Clinton was pre-empted in the message of change. She chose the theme "experience" instead, ready on day one, yada yada. But this represented a fundamental misreading of the Democratic electorate, and Barack Obama outflanked her on the change message. Where were you Mark Penn? What were you thinking? How could you miss the importance of the change theme after eight years of George W. Bush? I'm a lousy Harvard graduate with a degree in Government (and the owner of a PR firm, www.cioediting.com), and I could have given her better advice.
Hillary's final mistake was an organizational one. She had a nationwide organization, the support of the Party, elected officials all over the place, and she let Barack Obama build a competing structure. HILLARY should have been winning all the caucus states, not the other way around. Instead, she coasted on her name recognition, assured by her experts that the race would be over after the regional primaries in February. When it wasn't, she was unprepared for the caucus contests that followed, and let Barack win a string of 10 elections in a row.
Instead, tonight, we have this bittersweet moment, the wistful looking back at what might have been.
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- Willy Gissen
- In 2003, Willy Gissen founded Cut-It-Out Communications, a full-service public relations agency based in Hartsdale, New York. His organization specializes in the incorporation of online activities into traditional public relations programs, primarily for business-to-business clients.
These activities include the creation of e-newsletters, the set up and maintenance of internal blogs, and the development of inbound links to maximize a client’s search engine ranking.
See his other articles at public relations instruction, and visit his other blog, New York Times Leader, for an analysis of each morning's lead story.