Clinton and the Womens' Vote

I found this latest article from Women's Wear Daily to be particularly insightful into the arrogance and frontrunner mentality of the Clinton campaign in thinking that it was the inevitable winner of the Democratic Primary.

The original deal, she said, included an interview with Clinton and a Leibovitz photo shoot for the December 2007 issue at the Clintons' Chappaqua, N.Y., home. After thinking everything was set, Reed months later was informed the deal was off. She said she was told, "We already have the women's vote in the bag," and that Wolfson said, '"We thought we were going to be in a bigger dogfight. We don't need you anymore.' This was right before Iowa. What an idiot!"

The women's vote in the bag? Before a single primary election had occurred? Astounding. It appears that Obama is thawing the Clinton freeze on her most adamant supporters, but I hope that stories like this continue to make their way out into the mainstream media--mainly, because it will help all the die-hards blaming external factors for Clinton's loss to realize that she had possibly the worst-run campaign possible during the first half of the primary season.

Every election year there are candidates whose arrogance or lack of leadership or organization cost them the chance to win election--and most of the time, these people are men given the skewing of gender in election politics. It should be a mark of feminism and equality to be able to say that a woman is as likely to screw up her campaign for the same reasons as a man, and accept it and move on to a stronger candidate the next time around.

If you're looking for a conspiracy for why Clinton lost, I would argue that it was a Conspiracy of Dunces in her campaign (Wolfson, Penn, etc.) that undermined the potentially groundbreaking campaign of Hillary Clinton.