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  The Autopsy Report - Exploring the political reasons for Hillary Clinton's defeat
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Last EditedRP  May 21, 2008 07:09pm
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CategoryAnalysis
MediaWeekly News Magazine - New Republic, The
News DateThursday, May 22, 2008 01:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionFor Obama, the question will be how to capture enough of these white working class voters in November to defeat Republican John McCain. For Hillary Clinton, the remaining question is retrospective. Her success in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky only puts into relief the question of why--after having been the prohibitive favorite to capture the nomination--she had already lost the nomination to Obama by the time she had begun to articulate her own message of change.

A big part of the reason, extensively reported by my colleague Michelle Cottle, is that she and her campaign made glaring organizational errors. Clinton wasn't prepared for a protracted nomination battle; and when it became apparent that her staff wasn't either, she didn't act quickly enough to replace them (as Ronald Reagan did in 1980). But another part of the reason for Clinton's failure is political: how she ran initially, and how she ran against Obama.

Critics within the campaign have singled out Clinton's decision to run in 2007 as the heir apparent. That was important, but nothing compared to the way she handled the issue of the Iraq war and the possibility of war with Iran. During the campaign's first year--before the Iowa caucus in January--the principal, and perhaps only, way that her opponents (particularly Obama) could undercut her candidacy was through criticizing her support of the resolution authorizing the Bush administration to use force against Iraq.
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