Clinton’s mistakes

Time.com has an article titled The Five Mistakes Clinton Made, that analyzes why the self-obsessed candidate who presumed that she was just waiting for George W. Bush to leave so that she could move in has seen her campaign derail.

The article says:

1. She missed the mood
2. She didn’t master the rules
3. She underestimated the caucus states
4. She relied on old money, and
5. She never counted on a long haul

What the article (rather politely) omits is that she underestimated her opponent, and crucially, his staying power. While the Clintons never publicly cast Senator Barack Obama as a candidate of color in 2007, they seem to have hoped that he would appeal to only a narrow audience, and that the others would rally behind her. The Clintons would have loved it if Obama played along racial lines, as this would have diminished his appeal.

However, credit to Obama, he never did this. He was, therefore, able to build a coalition of supporters that was more broad-based that any other candidate in the running for President in 2008. As the Clintons’ wait-and-watch strategy started failing, Bill Clinton tried to play up race as the primary factor behind Obama’s successes. This flew in the face of common sense, as Obama’s opening day victory was in Iowa, considered among the whitest of the white states. It also exposed the Clinton campaign’s expectations on this front.

While the other candidates could not get their campaigns to take off as they would have expected, Obama’s campaign worked and is still working really hard to make every state and every vote count. With Hillary, a combination of a failing strategy and pathetic operations ensured defeat.

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