The incompetent Clinton campaign

It is a marvel to see how Hillary (and Bill) Clinton could somehow have turned such massive power, money, strategic and tactical advantages it possessed into one of the most inept, incompetent presidential campaigns in the history of U.S. politics.

Time has obviously passed by all the assembled Clinton hands that were so successful in Bill's two presidential campaigns, despite his personal escapades. The old magic, such a hit in the late 1980s and 1990s, has obviously escaped from the bottle. The Hillary Clinton version is a top down operation, with few troops on the ground in most primary states, and the early money advantage was squandered on an expensive headquarters full of bureaucrats, so that few funds were left for advertising buys in the crucial primary states.

Hillary and Bill used their power to crank the maximum donation out of all their friends from years past on the front end, with little effort made to raise smaller contributions, particularly on the web in the internet age. When they'd blown all the resulting gold, their best financial backers couldn't give any more, as they were maxxed out under the law. Obama had a powerful web-based effort to raise small donations. Every time he needs money, he just goes back to them for more, as few are maxxed out.

Hillary's major miscalculation was establishing a sense of inevitability to her winning the Democratic nomination. People don't like to be told what's inevitable. Hillary and her palace guard were flatfooted when it came to drawing up new plans, once it was proven the old ones wouldn't fly. Her major tout has been "experience," but in truth she has less time in public office than Obama has. Simply flying around on Air Force One and living in the White House with Bill really isn't experience at actually being president, which the voting public has figured out.

Arranging a graceful exit is probably not in the Clinton lexion, so things could get ugly by the time the Denver convention rolls around. We conservatives can only hope that Hillary stays in that long, mucking things up for the fall Obama campaign.