As campaign ends, was Clinton to blame?

By: Ben Smith
The Politico
June 7, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 16-month bid for the presidency transformed her public image from that of a remote, ever-calculating and hyper-ambitious candidate into a sort of female version of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell — warm, earthy, tough and flying by the seat of her pantsuit into the occasional gaffe.

But at the heart of the campaign was a candidate who changed little, and whose managerial weaknesses — loyalty, distance and a damaging indecisiveness — became central features of her campaign, from the January day that she was forced into a premature announcement of her run to the hour that she was forced to withdraw. To a striking degree, the campaign was propelled by outside forces and its own mistakes, rather than by anything resembling a plan.

Clinton’s campaign, and its series of reactive decisions, began in the fall of 2006, when she and her close advisers began discussing when the campaign should begin. Clinton had initially hoped to launch her run in April or May of 2007, campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told Politico last March.

“She wanted to wait,” said another close aide. “She was like, ‘What’s the hurry? What’s the hurry?’”

But suddenly, there was a hurry. Word reached Clinton’s camp that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — whom they’d been watching warily — had begun to assemble a full campaign more rapidly than they’d expected. On Jan. 16, he launched his campaign through a new medium: an online advertisement e-mailed to supporters.

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