Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will endorse Senator Barack Obama on Saturday, bringing a close to her campaign for the White House, aides said. Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama.
Mrs. Clinton's aides said she would "express her support for Senator Obama and party unity" at an event in Washington, D.C., that day. One adviser said that Mrs. Clinton would concede defeat, congratulate Mr. Obama and proclaim him the party's nominee, while pledging to do what was needed to assure his victory.
Her decision came after a day of conversations with supporters on Capitol Hill about her future now that Mr. Obama had clinched the nomination. Mrs. Clinton had, in a speech after Tuesday night's primaries, suggested she wanted to wait before deciding about her future, but in conversations throughout the day Wednesday, her aides said, she was urged to step aside.
There's really nothing to do but concede. Barack has the number of delegates that are needed to clinch the nomination. "Staying" in the race isn't going to accomplish anything.
However, let's take a look at where Hillary's campaign went wrong.
She assumed:
She assumed, and I think we all assumed, that Hillary was going to be the nominee. Simply put, she thought she was basically entitled to the "Clinton dynasty" and didn't plan on any type of something going wrong. She thought it would be wrapped up by Februrary, and then she could concentrate on fund raising and bashing John McCain until the elections. When that didn't happen, she was caught with her proverbial pants down.
She misjudged:
Through her actions and statements, she thought that the voters were upset with Republicans. That doesn't appear to be the case. From what I have seen, it appears that voters are upset with Washington DC politics as usual. Hillary SCREAMS "politics as usual" just with a nice pantsuit.
She played by old rules:
Hillary is an old school politician. She's used to tactics that have worked for decades. Unfortunately for her and other politicians of her era, the internet has created a public forum for people to think, work, and share information about anything. When someone tells a lie, it's usually proven to be a lie by someone who found a photo, video, or interview a few years back.
She used race/religion as a scare tactic:
Scare tactics are something that her and other Democrats chide the Bush administration for. Then, she turns around uses the same tactics. We all remember "I don't know that Obama is a Muslim....as far as I know." It was a carefully crafted wording of that sentence that was designed to put doubt into the minds of voters. Like it or not, Muslims are looked upon with distrust right now because of terrorism, and their lack of outright, public rejection of terrorism.
With regards to Obama's church, Hillary was presented with a golden opprotunity to slam Obama back to levels that would have made him drop out of the race. She fumbled the ball. She should have pointed out that he's known this man for 20+ years, and could not possibly have not known his venomous speeches. She could have called into question his judgement as a parent for allowing his children to be around such a prick, and his judgement to be around people that "blame America first" for the worlds ills. She could have pointed out that as President, blaming America first isn't the answer to everything. It was an opprotunity wasted.
She thought Bill could help:
Bill Clinton used to be the Democratic golden boy. A well rounded speaker with a lot of personal charm, at first, he could only be seen as an asset to her campaign. But when things turned sour, so did Bill. It turned a lot of people off. Many have proclaimed Bill Clinton an "honorary black man", but when voters turned out for Obama in record numbers, Bill spewed out his frustrations for the world to see. Bad move when you're still vying for votes.
She mismanaged her money:
Hillary's "loan" of $5 million to her campaign was trumpeted around the world. It showed that she couldn't reign in spending in her own camp, and with the country $9 trillion in debt, it was a knock against her ability to reign in spending at the federal level. Couple that with her wide variety of expensive plans with no indication of how she would cut spending elsewhere, it was one more thing against her.
These various things that Hillary did in of themselves weren't fatal, but couple them together, and you have yourself a recipe for a failed campaign.
Travis
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