Did Hillary Clinton forget to sow the grass seed?
What happened to Hillary Clinton’s name on yesterday’s “Meet The Press” and “This Week With George Stephanopoulos“? She was barely mentioned. Instead, it was President Bush’s thinly veiled retort to Senator Obama in a foreign speech that drove most of the conversation, and how this would help or hurt Obama in his race against Senator McCain. Did Hillary Clinton forget to sow the grass seed?
What I’m trying to discern is just when Hillary’s campaign met the fatal blow. Was it when she failed in Iowa right from the start? Was it her poor contention in caucus contests? She arguably won most of the debates and she’s certainly well-informed and studious, hard-working and has name recognition but still she’s behind. Was it one too many photo ops in a brightly colored pantsuit behind the podium instead of in the crowds?
On another thread we’ve been debating the merits of grassroots campaigning versus money and mailers. I think most people would agree that all three are important, but surely Hillary Clinton’s failure to knock this ball out of the park (so far) has shown that if you don’t launch a massive grassroots effort then the ads fall flat. Mailers are thin, inanimate objects that can’t speak to you. For all of our high-tech preoccupations in the modern world, campaigns like Obama’s, and here locally, campaigns like Jon Powers’, Democratic candidate for Congress in NY-26, seem to demonstrate that voters still identify with the human touch. Candidates can’t shake the hand of every voter, but they can inspire a network of volunteers to help them reach more voters, and that speaks to voters and gets them in the booths come election day.
You have to plant the seeds for the grass to grow.
Image courtesy Michael Parks
Really nice post. Behind the podium/out in the crowd. Point well made.
I think the primary problem - and the one that has repelled me over the course of the primaries - has been two fold issues that have more often than not created a feedback loop of disaster for the campaign:
1. A really bad campaign staff and strategy that based itself on “inevitability” and never came up with a second string argument. Of course, with Hillary, there is always a second argument. She’s very intelligent and experienced. But they didn’t plan for it, and everything after Super Tuesday has been made up as they go along. Or at least, it sure seems that way.
2. The Nineties/2000’s habit of staunchly refusing to accept fault with anything. Clinton did it in the Nineties and Bush has perfected it since. The trouble is, when you piss off major constituencies of the Democratic Party and refuse to apologize, its considerably less effective. Bill and Hillary both said stupid things at the beginning that offended lots of people. I for one would have been altogether happy to have heard an “I’m sorry.” and let it go, but they didn’t do it.
The result is that they’ve constantly played catchup and defense in what was supposed to be their year. I didn’t necessarily support Hillary at the beginning, but I didn’t resent her. Now, I’m trying hard to let the resentment go.
All good points, and a good post.
Angel asks the question about Clinton’s poor showing in caucuses. This is the part I really don’t understand about her campaign. I’m sure part of the problem was the inevitability strategy that caused them to be ill-positioned for caucuses because they didn’t plan that far. I also get the impression that the idea of getting new voters to come to the polls was completely foreign to the Clinton campaign. It occurred naturally to the Obama campaign because it’s led by someone who spent a good part of his life convincing others to join a cause.
Good post and well put, by both GA and DFE.
Excellent post.
In another example of top-down campaigning, I got another mailer today from Jack Davis.. 2 days in a row. Is he planning one every day from here on out? He still won’t get my vote.
Where can information on write-in votes in New York State be found? Does New York even allow write-in votes?
Senator Clinton’s campaign made the same mistake that Senator McCain’s campaign is hurtling towards at a breakneck pace, and that is that this is 2000. Both teams are running on an anachronistic strategy that nothing’s changed in the demographics, that the African-American turnout will be the same as always, that the youth movement will fizzle out, that the Christian right is still a monolithic bloc, that people are still receptive to swiftboat attacks. Their fund-raising efforts are concrete evidence that they relied on the campaigns of years past for the templates they used to design their campaigns for 2008. They completely ignored Howard Dean’s success at fund-raising to their own disadvantage.
It’s not your father’s election.
PS. New York and every other state (to my knowledge) allows write-in votes. Having worked as an elections inspector, they mostly appear as protest votes. While every voter has every write (sic) to make their wishes known, they’re mostly a pain in the ass for poll workers, and do nothing other than give small solace to disgruntled individuals. But, its an option you’re completely free to indulge in.
Very good post and comments. Agree wholeheartedly.
Here in Ithaca, in the one NYS county that went for Obama in the primary, I would say that it was HRC’s “act tough and ready to be Commander in Chief” stance that seemed off-putting to people early on– people are desperate to de-escalate and de-militarize US relationship with the world. Clinton campaign’s focus on presenting her as being as militaristic, or tough, as McCain kept people uncomfortable with the idea of supporting her.
Then, maybe it was about grass seed, too– Obama has a local campaign office (since before NYS primary), and an active volunteer base, already having hled a fundraising concert with lots of local bands and speechifiers.
Here’s what I found on NY write-in votes:http://www.nysthirdparty.com/how.html