Clinton’s mistake
Monday May 12th, 2008 @ 9:45 pm by frogThe Nation has an interesting article on Hillary Clinton’s floundering nomination campaign, arguing that the mistake she made was not a tactical or strategic one. It wasn’t that she picked the wrong states to focus on, or threw everything into her knock-out punch or fundraised poorly. It was a policy mistake:
The biggest factor that doomed Clinton, from day one, was Iraq. Her vote for the war and subsequent lack of apology cost her the support of a huge segment of the party that flocked to Obama (and, early on, Edwards) and tarnished her brand from the very beginning…
Obama was able to convincingly argue, “When I’m your nominee, my opponent won’t be able to say that I supported this war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran.
The rest of the world’s view of the US election is often skewed by the importance we place on foreign policy compared to Americans’ obvious emphasis on domestic policy. So it is fascinating to read that a principled stand against war could have played a key role in Obama’s seemly unassailable lead in the democratic primary.
I like to think it is an endorsement for politicians taking a stand based on firmly held principles, rather than triangulating their way towards the middle ground. At the time Obama became famous for opposing the war it was still a risky political position, but it was the right one. Others who took the same stand were squashed under the criticism. It will be interesting to see if the same momentum for peace continues when the election become a true presidential election rather than just a democratic primary.

