Obama vs. Clinton: Clinton Stumbles Due to Failings, Press Pummeling
The political gods were not smiling down on Hillary Clinton for the last few weeks. And the political winds of fortune have not recently been at Hillary Clinton's back.
That still doesn't mean that Sen. Hillary Clinton won't win the Democratic presidential nomination. I believe that after the three early primaries (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina), Sen. Clinton has a solid chance to sweep a majority of the 21 state primaries set for super Tuesday February 5, 2008. (See 2008 Presidential Primary Calendar.)
But stymied by shortcomings and awful mistakes, the Clinton campaign's 2008 prospects grow dimmer daily...
The Press Turned on Hillary Clinton
Sen. Clinton's electoral prospects are not helped by a press that has turned on her, from outright fawning and adoring before her disastrous October 30 debate in Philalldelphia, to poison-tipped press pens after that public political beheading.
Let's be honest... the poor woman has been pummeled in measures far surpassing the male candidates.
Her clothing, her every comment and unfavorable pop-eyed photo, even her laugh. She's been called a wide variety of unacceptable names. Silly incidents, such as an Iowa flag display falling down behind her, are imbued with false meaning as though she's practicing witchcraft on inanimate objects. And the press blames her for every stray utterance by her verbose husband.
Sen. Clinton's treatment by the press over the last 40 days has generally been shabby and unfair, and has surely diminished her standing in the polls.
Severe Failings of the Senator and Her Staff
But Clinton campaign stumbles are due, in large part, to failings of the candidate and of her staff.
Take, for instance, a Los Angeles Times article today, Clinton rolls a sizable pork barrel, which starts by recounting Sen. Clinton's heavy use of fatty pork politics to support a donor's real estate development, Destiny USA:
" Destiny is a classic example of how New York's junior senator has embraced old-fashioned pork-barrel politics... to fuel her rise, Clinton has relied on the controversial funding device known as 'earmarking.' The earmarks enabled her to win favor with important constituents, many of whom provided financial support for her campaigns.In the case of Destiny, she teamed up with other New York lawmakers to secure federal backing for the private investment project. And she collected tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the developer and others associated with the project."
DestinyUSA exemplifies failings of the legendary Clinton political machine, and neatly illustrates the need voiced by Barack Obama and John Edwards for eliminating barely-legal corruption from campaign finances.
A similar story describing the unsavoriness of Clintonian cash matters is from ABC News on November 15, 2007: Pardon Me? - Hillary Clinton Takes Cash from Recipients of Husband's Controversial Pardons .
Clinton Gets It Wrong Twice: Iraq and Iran
And then there's the matter of getting sucked in by the Bush administration's finely orchestrated fear-mongering to support their war desires.
Sen. Hillary Clinton got sucked into the imaginary Bushian histrionics not just once when she famously voted YES on the Iraq War, but again in September 2007 on Iran, when Clinton, along with all but two Senate Republicans, voted YES on a White House resolution to to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.
The White House resolution was roundly viewed as a precursor to U.S. agression against Iran, who Bush and Cheney firmly claimed was making progress toward building nuclear weapons.But the truth prevailed in early December, and embarrassed Sen. Clinton, along with all who supported the overreaching resolution.
Wrote Keith Porter, About.com's Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy:
" This week's new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran says the country suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The report has shaken official Washington and had ripple effects out on the campaign trail."... President Bush often rang alarm bells about Iran's threat to global security and even invoked the term 'World War Three' to describe the danger posed by Iran. "
As blogger Tony Peyser observed at Buzzflash, "She seems calculating or a bit of a dunce to fall for a ploy like this twice, not once." (For more, see Clinton's Iran Vote: The Fallout in the New York Times.)
By any objective measure, Clinton's regretful votes on both Iraq and Iran bring her judgment into serious question.
Stupid Campaign Tricks
And then there are the dozens of stupid campaign tricks by Clinton staffers who should know better, including:
- Sen. Clinton, angry at a competitor also having ambitions, raged that Barack Obama once wrote a kindergarten essay entitled " 'I Want to Become President." (The revelation prompted MSNBC to ponder if there were also upsetting paste-eating episodes in Obama's background.)
- Last week, an Iowa county chair for the Clinton campaign admitted to passing along an email falsely claiming that that Barack Obama attended a Muslim madrassa as a child.
- The Iowa waitress used by the Clinton campaign as a photo-op prop, then not left a tip for her time-consuming efforts.
- The global warming question planted with a winking Grinnell College student at an Iowa press conference. (The student told CNN that she "wasn't the only one who was planted.")
- Another college student forced at a Clinton-friendly CNN debate to ask a girlie question about diamonds and pearls.
Each incident makes the Clinton campaign look dumb. Collectively, they make the Clinton campaign look desperate and a bit pathetic.... not to mention cold, calculating and manipulative.
Can Hillary Clinton Correct Her Stumbling Path?
Can the Clinton presidential campaign correct its stumbling path? Yes, of course!
By dint of the huge Clinton lead built up among Democratic voters from January through October 2007, Sen. Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to secure the party's 2008 presidential nomination.
Per Real Clear Politics today, Clinton will smackdown all competitors decisively in primary states Michigan, Nevada and Florida, which closely follow much-ballyhooed Iowa and New Hampshire. And she's presently aligned to easily win both the New York and California primaries, which take the lion's share of Democratic votes cast on super Tuesday February 5.
But to secure the nomination, Hillary Clinton and her staffers must stem their catastrophic stumbles. The stupid campaign tricks must stop.
To secure the nomination, as well as the November 2008 election, Sen. Clinton must rethink her shady fund-raising practices. And she must demonstrate better judgment on matters of war and peace.
The winds of political fortune depend on it, as the American people are in NO mood to accept less in the next President of the United States.
(Photos: Ethan Miller/Getty Images and Mark Hirsch/Getty Images, respectively)
Related Reading
Obama vs Clinton: Is Obama Really a Progressive Democrat?
Obama vs. Clinton: Badly Playing the Gender Victimhood Card
Obama vs. Clinton: The Iowa Niceness Factor
Los Angeles Times, Dec 10, 2007: Clinton rolls a sizable pork barrel
New York Times, Oct 14, 2007: Clinton’s Iran Vote: The Fallout
Washington Post The Trail Campaign blog: Clinton's Iran Vote Prompts A Harsh Back-and-Forth
Huffington Post, Dec 10, 2007: Report: Bill Angry With Hillary Campaign's 'Ineptitude'
Comments
Dear Mrs. Deborah White,
I know you’ll like Hillary to win, but stop including Michigan and Florida in your primary calcultation because they don’t count this time around. Else, you’ll sound like Mark Penn.
There is saying that said you can’t teach old dog new tricks. Reading your essay it looks like you would like Hillary to be the democratic nominee and eventually win the presidency. That’s is wishfull thinking on your part. The problem is Hillary is not leader never has lead anything. The same way she made a mess out the healtcare proposal in 1993 the same way she’s making a mess out of her campaign. Now, just imagine what bigger mess she would create if she was to become POTUS. Fortunately if she wins the nomination she’ll be defeated by the republicans.
To both commenters, as of today, I am personally leaning toward casting my California primary vote for either Barack Obama or Bill Richardson.
But my personal leanings don’t preclude my objective analysis of the presidential race.
Wasn’t the diamonds and pearls comment planted by CNN, not the Hillary campaign? There was a whole to-do about that, and how the woman was poised to ask a question that had basically already been asked, and then CNN told her to ask a silly question. I’ve heard the Clintons had cronies at that debate, but do the CNN producers count as Clinton cronies?
Also, maybe I’m skewed by my apparently unflappable Clintonian allegiance (which sometimes surprises me as much as it does others), but I have no doubt in my mind that Hillary’s staff is not the first (or last) to plant a question. Doesn’t preclude her qualifications for POTUS, and I really hope it doesn’t squash her chances.
I’m glad you gave some space to the ridiculous things she’s been called on that others haven’t. That needed to be pointed out. Then, of course, there’s not a lot of surprises when it comes to Hillary’s political baggage, so I guess they have to focus on other things, like how her witchcraft can fell flags. LOL!