The End of Hillary’s Victory Celebration

Why She Lost

Hillary lost because she was trying to have a victory celebration instead of a campaign.
It wasn’t because of media bias. It wasn’t because of antifeminism. And indeed, it was not, at least not entirely, Obama’s oratory skill and personality. No, Hillary lost because she went into the campaign like a victory celebration and not a battle. Now, instead of being swept into the presidency with a grand flourish, she has endured accusations of playing the spoiler and now has been forced to accept the reality that her bid for the presidency is over. She had underestimated the fight she had ahead and paid the price.

Then again however, her initial actions were understandable given the situation she faced at the time. She’s been waiting for so long for this type of political fulfillment. Now that the day’s finally here, why not celebrate a little? Why not reward those who had been with her all those long years that, through her and her supporters’ blood, sweat, and tears, had finally culminated to this—the presidency?

The Victory Party

She was the inevitable nominee. The Republican Party was down and out, with President Bush dragging the entire Grand Old Ship down with him. Her competitors were either impressive but unknown, wonky and strange, or with buzz but untested in national politics.

With so little uncertainty in her inevitability, it was an easy decision at the time to fill her campaign not with the best staff and strategists, but the ones who had been the greatest loyalists to the Clinton name. After all, in the victory party, your guests of honor are the ones who had helped you the most along the way.

Unfortunately for Clinton, the actual voting landscape was very different from what she thought was the voting landscape. What she didn’t see—and what her loyalist campaign staff couldn’t tell her—was that the very reason why a Democratic Party candidate could be so certain of the nomination had also changed the rules of the game.

After eight long years of blatant partisan politics by President Bush, and a parade of scandals that the media, but not the people, had quickly forgotten, voters were ready for a fresh face. That competitor with a bit of buzz but little experience turned out to be one that was able to harness the force of voters’ desires. Mrs Clinton did not expect this. Mrs Clinton did not expect the phenomenon (or, as she prefers, “trends”) that brought Barack Obama into the national spotlight. And into the nominee position that she should have had.

But even now, in the twilight of her candidacy, it isn’t easy for supporters to see where she went wrong. It’s far easier to blame media bias, antifeminism, or any score of issues than it is to admit that their icon had declared victory far too soon.

Why it Wasn’t Media Bias

After all, near the end, the media, eager to show their chops as just as likely to bite into all candidates equitably, focused on Obama with vigor. What would have been relatively minor issues, such as Obama’s “bitter white voters” became major news stories run over and over again, attempting to fill in for the fact that Obama simply was, as a private individual, a very boring unscandalous person. Flag pins, arugula, and swiss instead of American cheese became the major “scandals” of his nomination bid. Reverend Wright ended up being a godsend for the media (without any puns intended), being a controversial figure who, while not as tightly bound to Obama as the media might like, could serve as proxy to Obama. As such, the media followed every word that Wright said for a period of time and aired his comments over and over again. However, Wright, no matter how inflammatory, was still not Obama. He was merely the best swing they could take.

For Clinton, on the other hand, bafflingly, the Bosnian “sniper fire” incident became hot news for a few days, at most, and quickly became an issue that only niche news sources even seemed to be aware about. The incident marked the beginning of the media fixing their guns on Obama instead, though to less avail than Clinton supporters would prefer. But that, however, was more a function of Obama than it was media unwillingness to engage against him.

Why It Wasn’t Anti-Feminism

As for antifeminism, the vote among feminists is split. Some, usually older feminists, declare it as yet another case of the glass ceiling and discrimination against women in America. On the other hand, quite a few younger feminists favor Obama. Upon inspection, it isn’t terribly difficult to see where this conflict arises. Clinton is a woman, but is also one that likes to portray herself as strong in national defense (positioning herself in the Armed Forces Committee to do so), and a partisan fighter—a strong woman, yes, but with a certain forced masculinity. Obama is a dove with the most liberal voting record in the Senate, and one who has consistently supported woman’s rights. On top of that, he is, quite unmistakably, black. He isn’t exactly the darling of typical bull-headed antifeminists—or likely even subtle antifeminists. And with the split in the movement itself between generations, the water becomes even murkier and makes it even more unlikely to be a function of “antifeminism.” Michelle Goldberg has an excellent article at The New Republic that goes into this conflict within feminism over Clinton versus Obama in even greater detail.

It Wasn’t Obama

Finally, it wasn’t Obama’s golden tongue that drove him ahead of her. As the debates aptly showed, and ironically, her concession speech as well, Clinton was not Obama’s lesser in the art of oratory. She had always been able to capture a room just as completely with her presence as Obama. The only problem was she only did so when pressed and when she absolutely needed to.

On the political trail, she didn’t use grand oratory. She used details, numbers, and specific policy proposals. Again, given the conditions at the time, this didn’t seem to be a problem. Democracies, for all their vaunted, well, democracy, generally elect as their leaders not the most popular candidates but the ones backed by the most enthusiastic minorities. The other voters are generally too apathetic to spend the time necessary to make their voices heard, or even to cast a vote.

Given the context, it made sense for Mrs Clinton to shop talk policy. The blue collar workers, desperate and feeling disenfranchised by the new global economy, lapped up her focused technical details. Unfortunately for Clinton, those who didn’t face such dire straits, simply did not. But again, this was expected—since those other voters generally never even show up to the voting booth, its a logical strategy, one tried and true in the past, and one well-known by her last era staff.

The End

Well-known or not though, the voting environment had changed. Her staff was not expecting the record turnouts that occurred, or the sudden crossover of moderates and even Republicans into the Democratic Party. While some of it was Barack Obama, a good deal of it was actually George W. Bush—many crossed to see the alternatives they had to the party of the unpopular president. Those newcomers didn’t come to hear details and history that only devoted, long-time followers and members of the party could digest. They wanted to understand. Even more, they wanted to believe. Obama provided it.

It again falls ultimately upon her staff, who, transplanted from a previous age, could not comprehend the crossover, and even more were left baffled by the participation of young voters (who were a phenomenon driven by both Obama and Bush—it was Obama who called them, but it was Bush who gave them a reason to listen). In a staff made up more by favoritism than meritocracy, there was not enough room to maneuver. Her campaign couldn’t adapt fast enough. And when Clinton tried to make the adjustments to allow her quickly sinking campaign to revive, her replacement staffers came in too few and too late.