The Clintons' future
Posted: Monday, June 09, 2008 9:19 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The
New York Times: “Bill and Hillary Clinton have stirred virulent passions in their nearly two decades in the national spotlight. They have been known as many things, good and bad -- brilliant policy analysts, manipulators of facts and friends, tireless campaigners, skillful political tacticians, monumentally self-absorbed baby boomers. But most of all they were known as winners. Until now. While the Clintons will almost certainly play a continuing role in national politics, and while Mrs. Clinton could yet emerge as this year’s vice-presidential nominee, a major chapter in their vertiginous public biography was closed when Mrs. Clinton conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Senator Barack Obama on Saturday. The Clintons’ complicated legacy is all the more complicated now.”
Former Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn penned an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times. Penn defends the message (or messages) and Bill Clinton and lays blame on superdelegates and money. “Are there a lot of other things the campaign could have done differently? Of course. We should have taken on Mr. Obama more directly and much earlier, and we needed a different kind of operation to win caucuses and to retain the support of superdelegates. From more aggressively courting young people earlier to mobilizing the full power of women, there are things that could have been done differently.”
“While everyone loves to talk about the message, campaigns are equally about money and organization. Having raised more than $100 million in 2007, the Clinton campaign found itself without adequate money at the beginning of 2008, and without organizations in a lot of states as a result. Given her successes in high-turnout primary elections and defeats in low-turnout caucuses, that simple fact may just have had a lot more to do with who won than anyone imagines. And sometimes your opponent just runs a good campaign.”
The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the VERY short list of potential women presidential candidates in the future. Then again, four years ago, did anyone imagine there would be a black nominee of a major party by 2008?
Some of the coverage of Clinton’s withdrawal from the race… “Some of her thousands of die-hard fans in the audience booed - demonstrating the hard feelings that will be difficult to soothe,” the New York Daily News writes, adding, “Her bittersweet finale came after 498 days of an epic, history-making quest for the White House that fell a few hundred delegates short.” What did those die-hard supporters think? “ ‘We're here to support Hillary,’ said Bettyjean Kling of Franklin County, Pa., who vowed to fight until it's Clinton who accepts the party crown in August. ‘I sent an e-mail to 5,000 people asking them to bow their heads for a moment of silence. Hillary was forced to do this, but we don't have to go along. Why should she play second fiddle to that flimflam man?"
“Others crushed by Clinton's departure were already starting to take a longer view. ‘People will rally, no matter how they feel now,’ said Maggie Koziol of Omaha. ‘I don't think any of the people who say they're going to [vote for John] McCain will really do that.’”
“The scene of the concession -- the National Building Museum in Washington -- had special poignancy for Clinton, as the place where she and her husband danced at their inaugural balls in 1993 and 1997,” the New York Post writes. “Thousands of supporters packed the balconies of the building alongside giant marbled columns and lined the streets outside as the campaign blasted affirming pop tunes by female divas.”
