Why Clinton lost

kc — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:30:21 -0700

With Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign all but over, the postmortem analysis has begun. There are a lot of things to look at, but the one that sticks in my mind is her Bush-like tendency to surround herself with loyalists instead of people who are competent. At the top of that list is Mark Penn, the highest-paid campaign consultant this cycle. And what did he do to earn that money? Not alot:

As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?" And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee.

Penn showed his stupidity throughout the campaign. The Clintons should ask for their money back. If Obama's main guy David Axelrod had been on Clinton's side, she'd be the nominee.

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Why Clinton lost