Hillary Clinton's 5 mistakes

By: David Paul Kuhn
The Politico
June 7, 2008

Covering a campaign is more like covering a sports team than either sort of reporter cares to admit. The same performance that’s labeled “gutsy” after a win becomes “inadequate” after a loss.

While Hillary Rodham Clinton managed more primary votes than any winning candidate before her, it wasn’t enough for the onetime front-runner to beat Barack Obama. And so the mistakes that would have been obscured by a victory have instead been brought into relief by her defeat.

Here are five of the key mistakes that helped cost her the nomination:

1) Hubris

Hillary didn’t just sell the press and the public on her inevitability as the general election candidate; she sold herself the same bill of goods, telling George Stephanopoulos before the Iowa caucus that “I’m in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run. It will be over by February 5.”

Hubris was the campaign’s fatal flaw, from which the others, both strategic and tactical, derived.

2) The Iraq War Vote

“There is a straight line from Howard Dean to Ned Lamont to Barack Obama,” said Carter Eskew, the chief strategist for Al Gore’s 2000 campaign.

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