Two post-mortum accounts of how/why Clinton managed to lose the nomination.

The New Republic
The Autopsy Report by John B. Judis
Exploring the political reasons for Hillary Clinton's defeat.
Post Date Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Tuesday's results replicated much of the Democratic race during the last two months. Hillary Clinton once more showed her strength and Barack Obama's weakness among white working class voters in Midwestern swing states, while Obama proved his hold on young and college-educated voters in states where a new post-industrial economy has developed, and where college-educated voters make up about half of the Democratic electorate.

For 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.

much more at:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=f1281d27-d950-4dfd-a59b-66e905918d20

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The New Republic
What Went Wrong? by Michelle Cottle
The exclusive story of Hillary's fall, as told by the high-level advisors, staffers, fundraisers, and on-the-ground organizers who lived it.
Post Date Friday, May 16, 2008

Endings are rarely as joyous as beginnings--and in the case of a long, wearing, and ultimately disappointing campaign, they can be downright brutal. But they also have the potential to be educational, for participants and gawkers alike. So it is that we asked (begged, really) a range of Hillarylanders for their up-close and personal lists of "What Went Wrong?" Not everyone wanted to play. Many stubbornly pointed out that their candidate is not yet dead. But, on the condition of total anonymity, a fairly broad cross-section of her staff responded--more than a dozen members all told, from high-level advisors to grunt-level assistants, from money men to on-the-ground organizers.

Many answers fell into a handful of broad themes we've been hearing for months now. (She shouldn't have run as an incumbent. She should have paid more attention to caucus states. She should have kept Bill chained in the basement at Whitehaven with a case of cheese curls and a stack of dirty movies.) Others had a distinct score-settling flavor. One respondent sent in a list of Top 25 screw ups, the first three being:

1. Patti
2. Solis
3. Doyle

While from another corner came another list, reading:

1. Mark Penn
2. Mark Penn
3. Mark Penn

Much more at:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=f7a4a380-c4a4-4f84-b653-f252e8569915

And those screwed over Democrats - including many of us Dem VOTERS - were not going to let the Clintons strangle the party in their death grip any longer.

If not, then Hillary hasn't lost yet.

and there are still 'undecideds' from Illinois and Hawaii plus the Pelosi Delegates plus 21 Add on Delegates from Obama states plus pledged delegates from Montana and S Dakota and Puerto Rico plus Obama continues to take more super delegates but other than that your right.

who were/are a part of her campaign.

It was also revealing how many of her supporters were willing to talk so candidly about
the problems and screw-ups.

I suppose people will be writing about this for years, as this is such an unprecedented
historic primary for Dems this time around.

That's one of their big mistakes..arrogantly thinking they had the primary sewn up and politics as usual.


"John Edwards, who had actually been a member in absentia of the Intelligence Committee and had acted far more irresponsibly than Clinton, cut off criticism of himself by apologizing for his vote in favor of the resolution. But Clinton--looking ahead, perhaps, to the general election--refused to apologize. That reinforced an impression that, on an issue as central as the war, she was willing to put politics before principle, and, in so doing, she sustained Obama's campaign at a time when he was making little headway in national polls."

She was too hilary..

"None of this is to say that Hillary Clinton should have refrained from criticizing Obama. They had genuine disagreements, for instance, on healthcare. But if Clinton had stuck to these kind of differences, while making a case for herself as the only challenge-ready candidate in the field and without treating Obama disrespectfully, she might have been able to sustain the lead that she gained after New Hampshire. Instead, her political errors, compounded by her organizational failures, knocked her campaign off balance. By the time, it began to right itself in Ohio in March, it was already too late."

Sportswise, we sure as hell don't look at it that way.