How Clinton Lost Her Invincibility

Time ^ | Dec. 23, 2007 | Jay Newton-Small

[COUNTrecount]

When Hillary Clinton launched her campaign nearly a year ago, the media buzz deemed it near impossible for the likes of Barack Obama and John Edwards to overcome her daunting campaign machine. The endorsements, the money, and the cream-of-the-crop strategists combined with the former First Lady�s incumbent image to make her the clear-cut choice of the Democratic Party establishment.

But the onset of the Iowa caucuses finds Clinton aides racing to lower expectations, bracing for a possible loss there and contemplating a dwindling lead in the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina. So, what has stripped the mighty Clinton campaign juggernaut of its image of invincibility?

For one thing, it has been a victim of the media hype it helped create. The campaign�s warnings that Iowa was going to be a tough state for Clinton fell mostly on deaf ears. "Iowa was always going to be a challenge and we consistently said that," says Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson. "Nobody hands anyone a presidential nomination." But her campaign also failed to invest in Iowa until it was nearly too late. While Obama and Edwards spent the better part of the year moving in hundreds of staff and building relationships with grassroots Democratic constituencies, Clinton in the last month belatedly added a hundred staffers.

[COUNTrecount]

Clinton has also shaken up her message in recent weeks, trying on different hats: angry Hilary; warm-and-fuzzy mommy Hillary; commander-in-chief Hillary; insurgent change-candidate Hillary. "It's a very close race in Iowa, and quite naturally, the Clinton campaign has decided to throw in everything it's got, plus the kitchen sink," says Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia�s Center for Politics. "She�s both the candidate of change and the candidate of experience, the candidate with a hard side and a soft side, and the candidate of the establishment past and the progressive future. Maybe voters are getting confused, or maybe she's patching together just enough voters to win or tie. We'll all find out together on January 3rd."

[Sacajaweau]

When Obama started raising a lot of money...things changed. She was certain and probably still is...that she will cop his bucks in the end.

Except, he has raised A LOT OF MONEY...and he's not going to give it up easily.

Marcy Park may be in his future!

[Grampa Dave]

"P-S-S-S-S-S-T-T-T-T!! Did you hear about Johnny Edwards' love child...
Did you know that Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the MUSLIM smoked pot and took drugs?"

How dare you Blacks call this liberal a Racist!

Forty percent of Americans say they would vote to keep Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from winning the presidency, more than twice the total for their No. 2 "anti-" pick, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

In a new Fox 5-The Washington Times-Rasmussen Reports survey, 64 percent of Republicans, 42 percent of third-party or independent voters, and 17 percent of Democrats said the candidate they most want to keep from the White House is Mrs. Clinton.

"Hillary Clinton is better known than any [other] presidential candidate on either side. She has a lot of people who love her and a lot of people who hate her," said Scott Rasmussen, who conducted the poll.

While Mrs. Clinton performed poorly among most demographics, younger male voters were particularly cold. More than half of the adult men younger than 40 said they would use their vote to keep Mrs. Clinton from returning to the White House.

Afterwards, Big Brown delivers the Sad Hill in her big brown and ugly pant suit to light up a meeting for her in Gilford, NH!

Then the Hill lights up the Gilford, NH Meeting with her charm and energy!

Hopefully the scenes below will happen early next year.

[Cicero]

Clinton has also shaken up her message in recent weeks, trying on different hats: angry Hilary; warm-and-fuzzy mommy Hillary; commander-in-chief Hillary; insurgent change-candidate Hillary.

Reminds me of a great website, no longer extant, back in the early 90s, which showed hillary's changing designer hair styles. More than a hundred of them, within the course of a year or two.

[freekitty]

She’s a crook. It was bound to happen.

[socialismisinsidious]

Maybe voters are getting confused

Yeah that's it, the voters are confused. The stupid hapless voters who need for the Nannyist to take care of them are confused. It's not that they have come to realize that Hillary is full of shit and that she will say and do anything to get elected. Nope not that.

[potlatch]

HOW CLINTON LOST HER IN IBILITY

[ASA Vet]

[NonValueAdded]

I can see her losing to Obama but to Johnny Edwards??? That’s gotta sting, big time.

[outofstyle]

- Forty percent of Americans say they would vote to keep Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from winning the presidency

- 64 percent of Republicans, 42 percent of third-party or independent voters, and 17 percent of Democrats said the candidate they most want to keep from the White House is Mrs. Clinton.

- More than half of the adult men younger than 40 said they would use their vote to keep Mrs. Clinton from returning to the White House.

Her profoundly high negatives have been obvious from the beginning. The possibility of Edwards winning the nomination disturbs me.

[Teacher317]

Yes, she's not invincible, nor a looming tyrant to fear. Noooo, she's soft and vulnerable like a little kitten. Come and love and adore her. Did you hear? She's a FEMALE! And they say she's the smartest woman in the world! We must come to her rescue and support her now! NOT because she is inevitable (which Americans hate, which means that this year's Super Bowl will have some really poor ratings, to the Pats' and network's chagrin), but because she's now a near underdog! (Americans LOVE the underdog!)

Cute spin, Team Hillary, but not one that most folks will buy.

[Grampa Dave]

Edwards is another mystery for Republicans. He is a super elite lying sob, yet he has a following from the so called poor.

[Grampa Dave]

I have added this to my collage. Thanks

[yldstrk]

Poor Hillary never became a person. She is a construct of the opinion polls and her ambition.

[UCANSEE2]

“”Iowa was always going to be a challenge and we consistently said that,” says Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson. “Nobody hands anyone a presidential nomination.”

(sarc) If you want it, you have to lie, cheat and steal to get it, and nobody knows how to do that better than we do.

(/sarc)

[hflynn]

She wrecked her campaign by answering 1 question with an unscripted answer. What will happen when she answers 10 more without a script? I wonder if she will leave the Senate when she loses the nomination?

[george76]

Hillary! Uncensored

[Grampa Dave]

If she loses the nomination, she will stay in the $inate and become even more filled with hatred towards America and us.

[UCANSEE2]

Merry Christmas to you, family, and friends!!!

Did I give you a present yet?

If not, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_NSJhBa5a0

[TomGuy]

...trying on different hats: angry Hilary; warm-and-fuzzy mommy Hillary; commander-in-chief Hillary; insurgent change-candidate Hillary.

Shades of Al Gore and John Kerry re-introducing and re-inventing themselves during their campaigns.

If they don't know who they are when they start their campaign, why do they think the public is going to buy their changing themselves time and again during the campaign?