Why Hillary Lost

Here are the six reasons Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic nomination went from an expected inevitable coronation to a tantalizingly close second-place finish. Five reasons are to be found in the campaign itself. The sixth was simply, for her, the luck of the draw.

She ran on experience in a change year. This was her first and greatest mistake, a strategic misjudgment of the mood of the Democratic primary electorate after seven years of the Bush Administration. This wasn't rectified until Pennsylvania, where Hillary finally caught her stride as the feisty tribune of blue collar America. By then it was too late.

She didn't organize strongly in caucus states. These were the states where Obama gathered most of his majority. It doesn't matter whether this was because of incompetence or overconfidence. A tight campaign leaves nothing to chance and competes everywhere delegates are to be selected. It assumes the race will be close and that no fish are too small to fry. A few thousand voters could have completely turned states like Kansas, Alaska and Nebraska around. Hillary's campaign didn't have enough boots on the ground ringing doorbells and setting up carpools in such places. It was death by a thousand pinpricks.

Her fundraising plan didn't understand the internet. Her bundlers did a great job, raising the second most funds ever for a primary campaign. But the tremendous donor list compiled by the Clintons over the years was tapped out at the maximum of $2300 each, halfway into the contest. Obama's internet-driven fund base of smaller donors giving more often was the gift that kept on giving. His team learned the lesson first demonstrated by the 2004 Dean campaign. Hers did not.

Her campaign did not anticipate having to run after Super Tuesday (February 5). It therefore was beaten to the punch in organization, fundraising and media in most of the states after that. The Clinton campaign would set up shop in places like Virginia and find the Obama forces already there in strength with a month-long head start.

There was division within the Clinton campaign's senior leadership. Penn, Solis, Williams, McCauliffe and husband Bill were often at odds. Authority and responsibilties were not clearly delineated and turf was battled over. Consequently, strategy and message kept changing.

Finally, she had bad luck. Despite all these deficiencies, Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign raised more money and won more votes than any other in history--except one. It was her bad luck that a charismatic opponent would emerge and run a nearly flawless race, besting hers in all five areas mentioned above. The Obama campaign was marred principally only by its initial mishandling of the incendiary remarks of the candidate's pastor, a storm that came late in the process and was dealt with at least well enough to prevent implosion. Mistakes and misjudgments made earlier were too much to overcome, resulting in an effort that was still almost good enough--but not quite.