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The worst defeat in history?

Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 07:42AM

Now that Barack Obama has officially secured the Democratic nomination for President, it’s time to put Hillary Clinton’s defeat in historical context.

The simple verdict: This may very well go down as the worst failure in presidential history. And that includes both general election and primary campaigns.

It’s hard to remember a primary candidate having more advantages than Hillary Clinton and failing to secure the nomination. This time a year ago, hardly anyone gave Barack Obama – or anyone else in the field for that matter – a snowball’s chance of defeating Hillary.

She was light-years ahead in name recognition, fund-raising, organization, endorsements, superdelegate support, and even experience. She was more vetted – and battle tested – than any of her opponents, and she knew exactly what it took to win the White House, having seen it up close.

It was practically a foregone conclusion that Hillary would be the Democratic nominee; it was simply a matter of who would be her opponent. In fact, her strategy at the time was to run as a quasi-incumbent – which in hindsight seems laughably off-base given the Democrat’s mood for change.

But she compounded her strategy mistake by failing to organize beyond Super Tuesday or in the caucus states, and essentially ceded the 11 contests between February 5^th and March 4^th. It allowed Obama to build-up an insurmountable delegate lead, and more importantly re-cast the election with him as the frontrunner.

In sports terms, this was Buster Douglass knocking out Mike Tyson, or the Red Sox overcoming a 3-0 deficit to beat the Yankees. It is an epic loss – one for the ages.

To be sure, there have been other front-runners who have stumbled on their way to the victory line: Howard Dean looked like a sure bet until he screamed his way to oblivion, and Senator Phil Grimm was the conservative’s early choice in ’96, raising loads of money and fielding a huge organization, before flopping in Iowa.

Gary Hart would probably have been the Democratic nominee in ’88 had he not been caught monkeying around. And it’s easy to forget that John Connelly was the “establishment” Republican choice in 1980 – having raised more money than Ronald Reagan and appearing on the cover of Time Magazine – but he never got out of the starting blocks, and netted exactly 1 delegate with his $11 million war chest.

And then there was Senator Ed Muskie, probably the biggest primary loser of them all after Hillary. As Hubert Humphrey’s running-mate in ’68, he came within one percent of defeating Nixon-Agnew, and was considered the prohibitive favorite heading into ’72.

Like Hillary, he led in name recognition, money, and organization, but unlike Hillary his tears in New Hampshire – which came during an impassioned defense of his wife outside a local newspaper – came off as weak and un-presidential. It gave little known Senator George McGovern an opening and resulted in one of the worst landslides in history.

It could be argued that Rudy Giuliani’s failed bid ranks alongside Hillary’s, but America’s Mayor – even with his high name recognition and formidable fund-raising – was always swimming against the current in the Republican primary; his moderate social positions were never going to jibe with the conservative faithful.

Even when compared to the general election campaigns, it still ranks among the worst all-time failures.

Sam Tilden had the election of 1876 stolen from him in Congress, having defeated Rutherford B. Hayes by a whopping 4 points, and William Howard Taft had to deal with Teddy Roosevelt’s third party candidacy in 1912.

Thomas Dewey’s loss to Truman in ‘48 probably ranks alongside Hillary’s defeat for sheer ineptitude. The New York Governor held a commanding lead in all the polls – so much so that the Gallup organization simply stopped polling in mid-October. Thinking it in the bag, Dewey barely campaigned over the last month, while Truman criss-crossed the country on his “give ‘em hell, Harry” whistle-stop tour. The outcome: Truman defeated him handily by four points.

But perhaps even Hillary doesn’t rate with Al Gore’s failure in 2000, however. Florida recount notwithstanding, there was no reason that a sitting Vice President should have lost to an inexperienced G overnor during a time of peace and prosperity, except that he ran an awful campaign. Gore spent most of the election inventing and re-inventing himself, and performed miserably in the debates. He came off as stiff and humorless, and failed to connect with the President Clinton’s voters.

Time will tell where this leaves Senator Clinton politically. There may still be another chapter left, depending on what happens this November. But for the time being, her campaign ranks among the all-time losers.

Nick Ragone |

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this rather awful photo of clinton is symbolic of how she and herr advisers ran her campaign. i still remember her kick off campaign moment,where an internet video of her by her fireplace talked about now is the time for her and her supporters to start a dialogue, to join her on a movement.

Instead,her dialogue delivered the wrong message at the wrong time to many olf the wrong people. Her dialogue was more off-key than the first person ever kicked out of American Idol.

Her campaign's utter failure when she was essentially assumed to be the nominee will own a unique place in future history books that are written.

June 7, 2008 |

Mitch

Hillary going down brought back some fine memories of Tom Ragone in your living room during the Tyson Douglass fight.

October 28, 2008 |

J Zaetz

Wow Fred, I hope I went down a little more gracefully than Hillary did.

October 28, 2008 |

Tom Ragone

You went down like a champion.

November 7, 2008 |

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