The lessons of Hillary's Obama myopia

Remember this?

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and former President Bill Clinton are making very direct arguments to Democratic superdelegates, starkly insisting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., cannot win a general election against presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., prior to the Governor's endorsement of Obama say she told him flatly, "He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."

Oops!

The lesson here is that even very smart politicians like Bill and Hillary Clinton have a hard time extrapolating beyond their own circumstances. The Clintons' formative political experiences took place in contexts (Arkansas and the 1992 election) where a liberal black candidate was not likely to win. So it probably seemed obvious to the Clintons that Obama could not win a general election against a white war hero and supposed "maverick." But America has changed and the public mood seems more hostile to conservatism than at any point since the aftermath of Watergate. In addition, politicians frequently don't recognize how little candidates seem to matter. People tend to attribute Clintons' victories to political skill, but the main reason he won is that the political fundamentals favored him in 1992 and 1996. Similarly, while Obama is a skilled politician, I tend to believe that almost any Democrat would be winning in this context.

Comments

[Rob]

There's a tiny little flaw in your logic. You attribute to the Clintons the belief that Obama couldn't win the general election, based on what they argued to the superdelegates. But has it occurred to you that politicians have been known to say things they don't really believe? And that the Clintons in particular have a reputation for saying anything that will achieve their desired end?

Certainly there was a belief among many that Obama couldn't win the general election, so your major point remains legitimate. But whether the Clintons shared that view is anybody's guess.

[hermano]

i think the race wouldve been much much closer had mccain not picked palin and said a bunch of stupid shit throughout the campaign.

mccain somehow desperately needed the right wing base when a lieberman or a romney would still keep him in the race. heck, if he really needed the right wingers, he couldve picked huckabee who's a more legitimate governor than palin. plus, huckabee is one funny guy. i love him (but i dont love his politics).

[Ben]

Brendan,

Doesn't fundraising matter, though? Not being a political scientist, I don't know the answer to this question. But it seems to me that the intrinsic qualities of Obama the Candidate were the key to his unprecedented fundraising advantage over McCain. Are you aware of any research that evaluates the importance of the fundraising advantage? If fundraising levels (or if you prefer, the size of the donor base) have any predictive value in Presidential contests, it would seem clear that the candidate matters.

[Jinchi]

I agree with Rob. You can't simply take every argument a candidate makes during the campaign and assume they actually believe it. The Clinton team made a number of claims during the primary that were completely self-serving, sometimes contradictory and that they almost certainly couldn't have actually believed. The most obvious being that Obama couldn't win states in the general election that he had lost to Clinton in the primaries

"But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan … And we've got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma." -HRC

The idea that any Democrat was going to lose Massachusetts, New York or California against a Republican in 2008 was simply never believable and the Clintons aren't idiots. It was a desperation argument that failed to convince anybody.

[Sean-B]

I don't think you can really read the Clinton's minds about what they thought. Agreeing with other comments here, the Clintons were trying to persuade superdelegates when the Obama campaign had already beat them to the punch. They had no
factual basis to make their claims.

I'm not a Roger Simon fan, but his reporting about the superdelegate strategy of the Obama campaign is compelling:

http://www.politico.com/relentless/relentless.pdf