The New Republic

On the first point, you're absolutely right. It's not that Clinton's campaign has been a disaster. It's actually been quite good. It's just that her key assumption about the nature of the primaries was wrong and was exploited by Obama, who's been running an extraordinary campaign since November or so.

On the broader point about the primaries and winner-take-all v. proportional: I'm torn. Primaries drawn out by proportional elections can be detrimental when the other side wraps up its nomination fight relatively quickly and can begin the pivot to the general. On the other hand, Obama is a sort of living rebuttal to the winner-take-all system, which works fairly considerably against insurgents like him.

- primwallflow

February 14, 2008 at 6:59pm

Isaac - money was critical to the grassroots organizing, but you also need to give credit to the Obama campaign for the way they've organized these states. The Clinton campaign started out with a huge advantage, inheriting some of the better "machines" in some states, i.e. Shaheen's in NH, Villaraigosa in LA, Menino in Boston. Obama had to build his field organization from scratch with only a few exceptions such as Kaine in VA. And the huge number of volunteers has supercharged the paid workers. I think it's still the most under-reported story of the campaign to date.

- jjridge

February 14, 2008 at 7:37pm

winner take all will just mean that the big states will get all the attention and the small states will be ignored. McCain won Florida with a small plurality and reaped all the benefits, and even though he wrapped up the nomination effectively, there is a significant protest vote still occurring.

Regardless, of course Hillary has been running a terrible campaign. Ready on day one? She hasn't been all that ready up to now. She still might pull out the nomination, I would never underestimate the stupidity of people in a party that nominates McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry. Hillary, hey she is a woman and a Clinton, we can't lose. Oh, and the minimum wage will be $9.50 and everyone will have health care and a house and a job and a free pony.

Evidence of how badly she has run her campaign should be evident in the amount of Democrat posters at TNR who loathe her. 4 years ago I liked Edwards but felt no ill will when Kerry won the nod, I only developed it later when he became an idiot (I voted for it before I voted against it)

- blackton

February 14, 2008 at 7:42pm

Winner take all is fine when one candidate wins a true majority - over 50% - but not otherwise. Debatable whether most voters could understand or would accept a hybrid winner take all/proportional system.

- hrlngrv

February 14, 2008 at 7:45pm

Winner-take-all is undemocratic and is intended to be.  It is intended to benefit party insiders and does.  Bravo to the Democratic party for actually letting Democrats choose their nominee.  A reaI campaign is in any case a far better vetting for a potential candidate than being anointed by insiders.

I happen to think Hillary's campaign has been plodding and miserable, nothing more than trying to protect the lead she thought she had with lots of little widgets meant to appeal to lots of interest groups.  What the campaign has done is expose Hillary as a mediocre politician with no claim to strategic, tactical, or management skills.  Her "experience" is all humbug.  She isn't ready to be president from Day 1 because she has no real political experience of her own.  She is exactly the candidate that the Democratic party does not need to face McCain and the primary campaign is demonstrating that to all the world.

- roidubouloi

February 14, 2008 at 7:50pm

By the way, the concept of super-delegates made some kind of sense as a counter-balance to potentially bizarre outcomes under a winner-take-all primary system.  Now that there is no longer a winner-take-all system, the chance of a nominating misfire is greatly reduced and so is the justification for super-delegates.

What ought to happen is that the political insiders who are now super-delegates are the head of the list as pledged delegates, pledged for a certain number of ballots at the convention.  If no one can achieve a majority after a designated number of ballots, the delegates would be released and then the people doing the nominating would at least include a large group with some bona fide political experience.  This could be a life-saver in the case of a three-way race but would make party insiders irrelevant in a two-way race where someone comes in with a majority of pledged delegates won in proportional primaries.

- roidubouloi

February 14, 2008 at 8:14pm

Yeah - I think the Clinton campaign is getting a bad rap.

At the end of the day, they're saddled with an incredibly horrible candidate who can't make a speech without boring her audience and has a husband who can't stay on message.

- virginiacentrist

February 14, 2008 at 8:15pm

The funny part of all of this is the shock of so many Democrats that they actually have a system in place that lets political talent come to the fore.  If the party had realized that would be the case it would doubtless have opted for some other system.  I say, thank god.  By the time Obama is done exposing Hillary's clay feet, the Republicans will be in deep, deep trouble.

- roidubouloi

February 14, 2008 at 8:16pm

I heard some pundits today arguing that it was undemocratic to "order" the superdelegates to vote a certain way. I guess they were trying to be evenhanded ("on the one hand, Hillary wants to count Michigan & Florida, on the other hand Obama is trying to pressure superdelegates to support the leader in delegates") but I find it hard to believe anyone outside of the Clinton campaign would buy that crock of bullshit.

Yeah, the general electorate is going to love having a candidate foisted on them who was handed the nomination by party insiders after losing to someone else. I can't believe any superdelegates who care about their party (not to mention their own reputation) would be dumb enough to pull that stunt.

- CharlesFosterKane

February 14, 2008 at 8:21pm

roidubouloi -- In one post you, imply that proportional distribution of delegates is more democratic; the second, you attempt to explain why super-delegates "made sense" at one time but don't as much anymore.

You stop short of the real point. Super-delegates are anti-democratic.

The super-delegates get to participate in their own state's caucus or primary, where each one's vote counts as much as mine or yours.  But then they get to attend the national convention and cast a vote as a convention delegate that is worth thousands of votes like yours or mine.  That's pretty anti-democratic in and of itself, without yet considering the possibility that the super-delegates may cast their votes in such a way at the convention that the loser of state-by-state delegate count might get a boost to the nomination.

- epackard-02

February 14, 2008 at 8:31pm

roid -- I whole heartedly agree with your 7:16pm post.  Folks in the Democratic Party have seemed to nominate for far too long the person who had "earned it" due to their time or work in the party.

Even Bill Clinton made that comment about how he waited his turn, indicating that Obama should have waited his own turn.

- epackard-02

February 14, 2008 at 8:34pm

As Bill Baxley in Alabama what happens when party leaders look like they are hand-picking candidates and vetoing the voters' choice. In Alabama's case, that led to the first Republican governor in something like 112 years.

- epackard-02

February 14, 2008 at 8:37pm

I'd like to climb atop my "their time has come and gone" horse again to point out that according to the Speaker of the House, none of us poor hapless citizens will know or mind how the superdelegates vote.  

- arsonplus

February 14, 2008 at 9:00pm

I wouldn't blame the Clinton campaign, blame the people of Iowa. On January 3rd the people of Iowa woke us up, stunning us with they're enthusiasm for Barack Obama. Nice work, Iowa!

I think the biggest mistake the Clintons made was not to learn from Iowa, but to try to discredit Iowa. They immediately closed their eyes and hearts to the message of Iowa, and got defensive.

Oh, caucus voters are "Starbuck's" weirdos, real Americans drink Folger's. Mean, stupid, and everyone thought, wow, the Clintons are jerks.

Iowa did it.

- fougasseu

February 14, 2008 at 9:16pm

epackard:  I think you missed what I was saying about super-delegates.  When there was an undemocratic winner-take-all system of primaries, it may have made some sense to have super-delegates to correct a mis-fire, as for example a candidate who won more delegates but lost most states and the popular vote.  Now that there is a more democratic system -- apportioning delegates so that the outcome in delegates tracks the popular vote much more closely -- it is hard to justify super-delegates.

That said, there is still a value to having the group of delegates include a large helping of political professionals.  I would accomplish that with state by state lists so that the first x percent of the pledged delegates come from a pool of pols.  In a two-way race, it would be irrelevant as one of the candidates would arrive at the convention with a minority.  But in a three or more way race, it might be impossible to achieve a majority.  In that case, I would ultimately release the delegates from their pledges and allow an open convention, the primaries having failed to pick a candidate.  In the case of an open convention, it would be very useful to have professional pols among the delegates.  

Say three candidates come in with 40%, 40% and 20% of the delegates.  Eventually, a decision has to be made.

- roidubouloi

February 14, 2008 at 11:05pm

The problem with the Clinton campaign was that it was built for speed  When the Obama campaign stayed even with Clinton, the Clinton campaign did not have enough cash to compete in the smaller state's caucuses and primaries.

- ejpjr

February 14, 2008 at 11:40pm

The problem with the Clinton campaign is that is was not built to compete politically because Hillary doesn't know how to compete politically beyond dishing dirt like the Republicans.  The underlying assumption was that Hillary would become the candidate essentially without contest by looking formidable.   But Obama, who is nothing if not a real political talent, saw that it was mostly appearance and could be had.

Wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk, wonk.  Hillary is not a politician, she's a policy wonk.

- roidubouloi

February 15, 2008 at 12:13am

Obama from the get-go is nearer what seems consensus among younger Democrats, esp on foreign policy. When he talks about "turning the page," they get it (if the phrase "get it" isn't too out of date). Not so much he favors Brzezinski and Malley, as associating with them is a positive thing in the eyes of this segment.

What Kucinich said overtly is implied by the Obama campaign. Gains votes from this substantial segment without confronting the rest.

Obama even must be the favored candidate of the Saudis, deploring the same war, even with some early Islamic education and a Muslim parent. And the Saudis have been esp influential in American politics, as Michael Moore pointed out about the presend administration in Fahrenheit 9/11.

Clinton isn't to be blamed for lacking these qualities. The surprise, that a candidate would appear tuned exactly to these currents, certainly would have appeared low in probability. The Clinton campaign was tuned against opponents like Edwards and Biden, where she would bethe coolest and most progressive candidate, simply by being a woman. With that flank secure, they thought, the Clinton campaign could tilt to the right, to pick up the rest. But the Obama campaign secured the Kucinich segment by, among other things, linking with Brzezinski and Malley, and aims for the middle and right by means of negative campaigning through proxies, like Kristof. Jefferson pioneered the use of proxies in his campaign against Adams. Undermining Clinton rather than appearing a flip-flopper to his progressive supporters.

Given this unplanned-for challenge, Clinton is doing fairly well. Turning the artillery pointing in the direction of Edwards et al. takes time. And the Obama campaign has intimidating counter-battery fire, seizing upon routine statements and declaring them racist. Has to be difficult. Esp when statements like MLK needed LBJ weren't deliberate attacks. Obama's campaign achieves negative campaigning by throwing out the accusation of negative campaigning, to avoid the prejudice, primarily on the progressive wing, against negative campaigning.

Kucinich got no traction with his positions. Has Obama simply coopted Kucinich's platform with hints, or is he sincere about theim? The best strategy is to be ambiguous. And talk generally about "change" and "turning the page."

Given the exceptiionally slick and unanticipated campaign of her rival, Clinton is doing quite well.

- FBC

February 15, 2008 at 2:54am

"Evidence of how badly she has run her campaign should be evident in the amount of Democrat posters at TNR who loathe her."

Not really. First off, most people who loathe Hillary seem to have loathed her for quite a while. (For the record, I think she'd make a fine president if it comes down to it, she just happens to be one of two obstacles in my guy's way.) And despite some of TNR's more DLC leanings, this was never a particularly good haven for her. I imagine TalkBack probably over-represents more educated voters, more Internet-savvy voters, and voters who feel less aligned with the traditional working-class Democratic coalition.

Plus, if people on the Internet were representative of how well a campaign was run, come November we'd be staring at President-elect Ron Paul.

- guyminuslife

February 15, 2008 at 3:51am

You're all right, but underneath it all, it's better product vs. famous brand. At first eveyone goes for the famous brand, but then, if better product has the opportunity to do some demos and hand out free samples and build word of mouth, then people just switch. And then better product becomes famouser, but famous brand is still no better. All better product needs is time and opportunity, and then it will just snowball logarithmically. Actually that's redundant, isn't it? Snowballs increase their mass at a logarithmic rate, right? At least in the snowball metaphor?

- psantillana

February 15, 2008 at 4:14am

I think what we've come to realize is that Hillary and her campaign never bothered to understand the rules of this nominating season: it's about delegates, not state-by-state victories.  

Lately, her camp has been trying to position her as the "solutions" candidate-- but part of the finding a solution is the ability to understand the problem.  What does this say about Hillary's strategic planning ability-- that she and her minions were unable to understand that the delegate advantage of winning a small state's caucus (like Idaho's) would be greater (because of proportionality rules) than winning a big state's primary (like New Jersey)?  And what does this kind of strategic planning failure say about her abilities to operate as Commander-in-Chief?

- nkocz

February 15, 2008 at 7:35am

As an Obama volunteer in IA and PA, I've got to tell you that the organizing is the key.  These guys are relentless in getting all us out there to do what we can.  Remember, Hillary had a huge advantage in money back a year ago when Obama was "brilliantly" organizing for the long fight.  Obama did get people to work for him WITHOUT MONEY.  Meanwhile, Clinton spends $5m/yr on Penn, $500k/Q in parking, etc.  In general, Clinton has spent somewhere close to 10 times what Obama has spent on 'consultants' (excluding Penn) while Obama has built an organization of VOTERS who tell him what he needs to know for free.  (PS, so who has be better management skills now?)

Some have expressed amazement that in IA and many other states, a key local official or community leader would express some fence sitting to an Obama volunteer, and within a day or two he would receive a personal phone call from Obama.  That's why he wins, he puts power in the hands of regular people to get things done.  And thats why he'll make a fantastic president.

OTOH, I agree that the campaign is not only at fault, sometimes it is the candidate too.  Obama has been able to exploit HRCs weaknesses while being immune to negative attacks.  He's a new kind of candidate, although I think he learned a lot from Dean.  Hill has never been able to move her numbers, but Obama was an unknown, who the more you know the more you like.  Hill's negatives provided this opportunity, without that, Obama would never have stood a chance.

- dbhuff

February 15, 2008 at 9:47am

guyminuslife, good points, but don't you find it a tad pathetic that Hillary has to rely on less educated, less internet savvy, old line voters to win the nomination. essentially you are saying she is a Dem base candidate. My main worry about her from the start was her electibility, I didn't think it was a good idea to nominate someone with a 47% disapproval rating going in. Since then she has managed to drive even those numbers up, and she is not done, imagine the disaster of her rating after she tries to force the seatings of Florida and Michigan delegates. She might make a good President, although I seriously doubt it as she will have no margin for error and she is walking into a real shitstorm, but she has to be elected first.

- blackton

February 15, 2008 at 10:37am

Guyminuslife: you said: "First off, most people who loathe Hillary seem to have loathed her for quite a while." While I don't loathe Hillary, that's not exactly true. I quite liked Hillary and always thought she got a bum rap. I thought she truly cares about children and was attacked for reasons of sexism. I was voting for Obama, but I was so happy that even if my favored candidate didn't win, I could vote for someone quite good. But after all her dirty campaign tactics, the scales fell from my eyes. Her campaign tactics, which involved deliberate distortion, were reprehensible. If her surrogates were not race-baiting (and I think they were), then she should have made it very clear and very public that she would never tolerate such measures on her behalf, and that a vote for her that was merely for reasons of her being white was a vote she didn't want.

I no longer think she is admirable. I do believe she genuinely cares about the poor and children, but that has become shaded in Machiavellian techniques. One should not throw blacks under a bus to help children. Nor does one need to!

Obama has not only shown better management skills in running his campaign (and I think that's no small potatoes) and a seriously fast learning curve. He has shown that he can win without resorting to reprehensible tactics.

- epicciuto

February 15, 2008 at 10:50am

Regarding winner-take-all:

The NY Times has a good graphic at www.nytimes.com/.../20080215_DELEGATES_GRAPHIC.html

It shows that Obama would be in the lead in that scenario as well, approximately as narrow as the current situation.

There is a lot of excellent data in this chart that highlights the depth and breadth of Obama's lead to date.

- dianakunkel

February 15, 2008 at 11:10am

The biggest psychological problem that the Clinton campaign has -- and it's skewing their operations like an underwater wreck that affects the current but is otherwise invisible -- is that she can't help giving off the vibe that she's entitled to the nomination and that some people are stealing it from her.

There was a lot of general enthusiasm and mutual goodwill among all Dem candidates until around December, but then everything was supposed to shake out in January and Clinton would be away like a champion racehorse.  There would be no hard feelings either side, as it was all expected, all planned out.  But it didn't happen like that and suddenly the tone changed to nasty when this other, faster, leaner horse started closing the gap.

Clintons plural have done themselves no good in recent times, and may have done the party some damage.

- ironyroad

February 15, 2008 at 11:27am

roidubouloi wrote: "Say three candidates come in with 40%, 40% and 20% of the delegates.  Eventually, a decision has to be made."

That used to happen all the time. And there already is a system for resolving that kind of deadlock: It's called "voting."

Specifically, the delegates are only "bound" to vote as they were elected to vote on the first ballot. After that, the game is afoot. Campaigns scramble to sway delegates to their side. Party leaders push for a consensus candidate. Sometimes new candidates are introduced as potential consensus choices (that's where the term "dark horse candidate" emerged). Eventually, after several ballots, one candidate begins to look like the winner, and on the next ballot he wins.

You don't need superdelegates to break a deadlock. You just need further ballots. If a party wants elected party elders to play a role in the process, then all it has to do is encourage elected party elders to run as delegates in their hometowns. Again, just like parties used to do for most of American history. This really isn't rocket science: "resolve elections by voting" wouldn't seem to be so hard to understand that anyone would need to reach for superdelegates or any other antidemocratic solution.

- rhubarbs

February 15, 2008 at 11:29am

dianakunkel, thanks for pointing out the Times graphic--that was an eye-opener.  

- cspencef

February 15, 2008 at 11:41am

"don't you find it a tad pathetic that Hillary has to rely on less educated, less internet savvy, old line voters to win the nomination"

Exhibit A in the contemptuous mindset that McCain will exploit ruthlessly if the Dems are stupid enough to give the nomination to a guy who can't win anyone but blacks and arrogant liberals.

- jmkerr

February 15, 2008 at 12:47pm

yes, rhubarbs, I get it.  My only point is that in the event of an open convention where delegates are no longer bound, it is useful to the party to have a good number of professional politicians, people who have actually run for office and gotten elected, amongst the delegates.  Not as super-delegates, just as delegates.  If you have never run for office, believe me, you do not know what it is like.  The perspective of people who have done so succesffuly would, in my opinion, be valuable if the primary system has not reached a conclusion.

That's all.  It certainly is not rocket science.

- roidubouloi

February 15, 2008 at 1:26pm

According to my calculations, had it been winner-take-all, Obama's pledged-delegate lead would have been a mere six (1078 to Clinton's 1072) as of 2/15/08

- warrenthorpe

February 15, 2008 at 1:37pm

Hillary's been labeled a real-life Tracy Flick. But Obama is Tracy Flick, too. So, for that matter, is Mitt Romney. Apart from the gender difference, of course.

Coming from humbler beginnings -- divorced parents, etc. -- Obama actually is nearer to Tracy Flick than the other two.

Still, the identity of gender, and the blond hair, make the similarity with Flick more plausible to attach to Hillary than to Obama, regardless of the reality.

- FBC

February 15, 2008 at 2:52pm

jmkerr, that comment was in response to another poster who is supporting Hillary, that Obama does better with educated voters and Hillary does better with blue collar voters. Is that true or not? As I said, I am perfectly happy if McCain wins. I am a swing voter. I will never vote for Hillary. I will vote for McCain over her, but Obama over McCain. Someone like you has to vote for Obama (if you are a Democratic base voter) or turn the country over to McCain. Fine by me if you want to spite Obama by voting for McCain. I win. Fine by me if you stay home. My vote for Obama makes up for your nonvote. So I win. And being that the swing voters decide the election, my vote for McCain over Hillary is the far more important one. So I win again.

What insane math leads you to believe Hillary can win without blacks, independents, and no Republicans. Now if you are a McCain supporter, then just cop to it, and I have no argument with pushing Hillary as she is far easier to beat.

- blackton

February 15, 2008 at 6:45pm