Letters to the Editor
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Mark Penn - This Season's Dick Morris
Look, no one runs a campaign on their own - Clinton bears much of the blame for bringing in Mark Penn to begin with, but he is just one of many on her team clearly giving out terrible advice and resorting to fury and backlash tactics.
Going into this race, Clinton had the potential to run on a similar message of optimism, fair play, etc. etc. as Obama has. It's something she field tested early on when her victory was presumed a more sure thing and Obama was deemed making a first try.
When things got rough, I sincerely question if she by herself would have resorted to the scorhed earth methods and, worst of all, praising McCain in relation to Obama. These are things which typify many on her team, some of which go back to Bill Clinton and his embrace of Dick Morris. Everyone likes to pretend Morris was some mutant statter who answered to no one but the Clintons and was aligned only with them, but come on. He had been part of their campaigns off and on for years.
More importantly, if you examine the takedown of Howard Dean when he was an upstart candidate in the primaries, that did not occur spontaneously. Consultants and spin doctors helped it along and most of those weren't Republicans.
Now, I was reluctant to vote for Clinton because these people were involved in her campaign - and I don't want them in the white house. But I don't hate her, I don't think she's evil and I sure don't think all of her policies are bad. Ultimately I voted for Obama because the two seem very similar and he backed a good local candidate.
I think Clinton would be in a stronger position had she continued to go positive - possibly more positive than Obama, or at least emphasized her own good qualities more than going negative. More importantly, if she had to go negative, why not get aggressive on the Republicans and Bush and McCain? The American people want someone with a spine, they want someone who dares to point out the flaws of years of Republican majorities in Congress.
Or hey, how about vowing to not use signing statements to subvert the law anymore? Oops, only McCain has done that, and he kisses up to Bush in every other way.
Instead she's praised McCain, giving an already biased media an excuse to go even easier on the guy.
I don't have any fantasies about President Clinton bringing up John Yoo on war crimes charges, but had she given the impression she might at least make one speech condemning the endless malfeasance of the current administration, I think a lot of people might have said "I'd like some strength with my hope."
Instead were stuck with two candidates who come off as sending concilatory messages to Republicans when the GOP did no such thing to them and has exploited every bipartisan move to sabatoge efforts. Obama has had harsh words at times, Clinton occasionally, but both are coming off as ineffectual on this point. And that's because the consultants behind them are somewhat neutral schemers, always thinking about future connections and thus reluctant to piss off anyone they might need to suck up to.
Clinton definitely chose the worst of this consulting lot and for that she's either going to lose or limp into the White House when she could have lost or won with dignity.