Can anyone find one positive thing to say about the Clinton campaign? You know, something admirable or smart or good for the country, that they did? Something in their strategy? Or their message? Or their choice of advisers? How they educated the public about a key issue? I’m willing to listen.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
It’s in its last throes?
In it’s last “irrelevance.”
That’s a really tough question now. If I had been asked this back in November or so, I would have said something about how she was an inspiration to young women and how her maternal instincts might be just what’s needed in our foreign policy… or something like that.
But that was then. Looking back, it all just seems so disingenuous now. How many times has she shifted into a whole different political “product” over the course of this campaign as she learns the last one wasn’t selling?
I was in New Jersey for a week and it was a relief to be away from the campaign. Not really. I was with my very reactionary 82 year-old mom. I was away from politics for the last week except when my mom waxed fondly about that young man John McCain. The only thing I heard was when I had NPR on and there was a long segment about Clinton. It all had to do with touchy-feely stuff, like women who wanted a woman in the White House.
The choice to have Hillary show emotion between Iowa and New Hampshire was smart, I guess.
That’s a good question Booman, and I can’t give you an answer. The Clinton campaign sucks, wall to wall.
One of the most painful things about this primary process is that it’s made me aware of how estranged I am from much of the Democratic Party. I’m having a hard time visualizing that wonderful kumbayah moment when we put this campaign behind us and unite under the same banner.
I’m with you eagleye. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the Democrats from the republicans. Just for the record-I don’t care which one of them wins as long as it’s not mccain!!!!
The Clinton campaign makes Obama look good?
She is, as promised, vetting Obama, and he is a stronger candidate for the competition. It’s too bad she has crossed the line into legitimizing bogus GOP talking points.
Furthermore, she has thusfar avoided pinching the squid. As far as I know!
She hasn’t shot a lawyer in the face.
Point well made. All I’ve heard is what she won’t apologise for, what can’t be done with healthcare, what she was privately against while publicly for it, all the foreign policy disputes she settled that no one remembers the same way, that Obama is all talk and she’s experienced at something or other, etc.
Oh and she’s going to create 10 million jobs, which she only brought up in Rust Belt states.
I can’t think of a single policy she proposed that came before another candidate proposed it. Including healthcare, though she has had 13 years to come up with a better plan. And Edwards beat her to a proposal on that and offered a better plan.
Wait – she did teach me that the phone in the White House rings at 3 am a lot.
The thing I like the best about the Clinton’s campaign is the comedy stylings of Ickes & Penn. My favorite part is when they let Wolfson guest star in the skits.
Comedy gold.
Ickes and Penn….
I’d much prefer Penn and Teller – if only because one of them generally doesn’t talk…
They have taught me to appreciate lost opportunities more. Why didn’t we draft Barbara Jordan after Watergate? Or Ann Richards?
Well, I’d kinda lost track of Geraldine Ferraro.
In another life, I had friends who were well-to-do Republicans who “knew someone who knew someone.” At an annual dinner, they explained that Hillary was Bill’s “mother,” always tolerating his failings and cleaning up after him.
I’ve seen the same thing in her campaign. She seems to hang with the good old boys, tolerate their failings, and then clean up after them. (E.G. the budget mess.)
Good thing about the campaign? Only the policy papers, which are mostly hers and hers alone.
On second thought, the best thing about her campaign is the death of the DLC.
They wiped out any lingering suspicion I had that they were competent. Now I see they’re just standard-issue, dumber-than-bricks politicians who got lucky.
It will soon(I pray) be over.
Yes, She can. gimme ten years….I know, I know…
on “The Tonight Show” Hillary made joke of her Bosnia lies…ya know, “pinned down under sniper fire, had to duck.”
I say her campaign has been pinned down by Clinton fatigue.
As former governor Jesse Ventura pointed out, just think: since Bush…H.W. Bush as VP; then 4 years as President; followed by 8 yrs of Clinton; then 8 yrs of W. Bush. Gawd, we’ve been governed by the Bush – Clinton dynasty for 24 years…that fucked up America.
Jeez, I started out hoping to write something positive.
there’s nothing remotely redeeming. after 24 years of devastation, it’s gonna be hard to put right.
Pity the next president.
Clinton Denies Obama Electability Remark
The Clinton Campaign Train

So, she’s definitely not denying she said it?
Well, they don’t specifically state the question in this article to which she replied “that’s a no”, but the implication is that it was in reference to the Richardson conversation. But later the backpedaling began and it becomes murky as to what her “no” was in reference to. Later on the “no” was characterized as a response to whether she would discuss the private conversation with Richardson, though it doesn’t appear in the article that that was the way the question was framed.
So once again it seems to be one of those “hey I was tired”, “I talk to a lot of people every day”, “who can possibly remember every single word that was said” kind of thing.
So, hey, your guess is as good as mine.
Love that photo!
Amazing what you can find on “The Google”.
A little off-topic: Gone for a week and I clicked on The Left Coaster this a.m. to find out something positive about Clinton’s campaign and got something called The California Newsladder. Did they change or sell to someone else.
The Clintons are running the same standard campaign that all politicians have run for a long, long time.
Obama is running a totally different campaign. Part is b/c he has a lot of true believers. Part is his parallel campaign setup. The rest ?? I dunno, but he is a great orator, thinks well on his feet, writes his own speeches, he actually has a brain.
Clinton’s campaign has educated me substantially. At the start of this season I was an enthusiastic Clinton supporter, and now I know better. I wouldn’t vote for her with a ten foot pole.
what if she’s the nominee?
That is a valid question. Whether I vote for Clinton or “None of the Above” would depend on whether I am mature enough to move past her recent behavior. Chances are that I would vote for her, but I can’t see myself giving money or campaigning for her (I would give money to Obama and even consider volunteering for the campaign, which I haven’t done since 1992 when B. Clinton ran).
I am mourning more than I am angry. I’ll spare you the tale of my personal journey but losing confidence in H. Clinton did not come easily for me.
One more thing. When I made my initial snarky comment I had not intended to sidetrack this to a slam Clinton thread, and I’m sorry for that. There are already plenty of those out there. I am also interested in the original question of what she has done during this campaign that is positive.
She did make a crack in the glass ceiling if not break through. She’s made it easier for a woman candidate (please God a better one) in the future.