Does the WSJ's choice of 'bumbler of the year' signal Rupert Murdoch's love affiar with Hillary is over?
The ‘Bumbler of the Year’ Award, wsj.com, Dec 31, 2008
Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.
The convergence of the holiday season of goodwill and the end of the year produces a bias toward the sunny side. Hence, the emphasis on annual awards that celebrate the triumphs and accomplishments of the past year.
Time Magazine annually picks its person of the year, honoring the man or woman who had the most impact on the world during that year.
It generally goes to someone who had a positive effect on things, but not always since Adolph Hitler, who was certainly famous but not celebrated, once won it.
But how about those who were spectacular failures?
That’s why I have decided to offer a “bumbler of the year” award to the person in the public eye who most royally screwed up to their own detriment in the past 12 months.
It’s too easy to find a bad guy or gal who hurt others. Bernie Madoff, who bilked so many out of so much, would be the runaway winner for 2008.
A Massive, Self-Inflicted Wound
No, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to qualify for the “bumbler.” To win, someone has to suffer from a massive self-inflicted wound that by its nature would be a product of ego.
Time’s venerable award dates back to 1927 and has gone to every U.S. president since 1932 except for the (unelected) Gerald Ford. That’s why, to the surprise of no one this side of Pluto, the magazine this year picked President-elect Barack Obama.
By contrast, the inaugural “bumbler” goes to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. Her name is unlikely to appear in any other sentence in the coming weeks with the word inaugural, although it didn’t have to be that way.
Now, let’s not shed too many tears for Mrs. Clinton. After all, she is going to be our next secretary of state. All in all, not a bad gig.
Lots of travel and perks. And a serious bureaucracy to cater to her every whim.
Yet, she wins the “bumbler” hands down.
That’s because if she had not forgotten that February had 29 days in 2008–not just the five for which her campaign planned–she, not Mr. Obama, would almost certainly be taking the presidential oath of office on Jan. 20.
A Favorite to Win in November
In this period of “Obamamania,” it is easy to forget that a year ago, the president-elect was a long shot for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. Clinton was a huge favorite to win both the nomination and the November election.
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” whose humor generally works well because it reflects the popular view, referred to her in its skits as the “inevitable” next president.
How she lost the nomination and her shot at becoming the nation’s first female president will go down in political history as one of the great campaign screw-ups of all time.
To be fair, President-elect Obama’s campaign was extremely well-run and better funded than anyone could have possibly imagined. He smartly saw that the caucus states offered him a special opportunity for convention delegates that did not exist in the primaries where Sen. Clinton’s name recognition and support of the party establishment was a much bigger plus.
But if the Clinton campaign had done sufficient planning and staffing for the states that voted in the three weeks after the Feb. 5 “Super Duper Tuesday” primaries and caucuses, all of his work probably would have gone for naught.
The Clinton strategy had been to clinch the nomination on Feb. 5, when 22 states held Democratic primaries and caucuses. And that day, like most of the other Tuesdays during the winter and spring, they basically wrote off the caucus states.
Fighting to a Virtual Draw
Sen. Clinton - and basically everyone else - expected her strong name identification and favorable image among Democratic activists, combined with a presumed (incorrectly it turned out) money advantage would deliver her the nomination that day. But Mr. Obama fought her to a virtual draw on Feb. 5, when almost 40% of the delegates were decided. He took the more numerous smaller primaries and caucus states, while she was winning the handful of big prizes — New York, New Jersey and California.
He, however, had planned and budgeted for the 11 contests during the rest of February. She had not - a victim of her campaign believing its own hype about inevitability.
President-elect Obama won all 11 primaries and caucuses by big margins the rest of the month and rolled up a 125-delegate advantage during that period. But just as important as the delegate numbers was that his winning streak made him the favorite. That, as much as anything, prevented a Clinton comeback.
By then the Democratic delegate allocation rules that govern the primaries and caucuses took over. They are much more generous to second-place finishers than in the Republican process; that allowed him to stay ahead even though Sen. Clinton won major contests in March and April, including Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In the end, President-elect Obama won the nomination by more than 125 delegates, but that was only after all those “superdelegates” who could support whomever they wanted did the math and realized he could not be stopped.
If Sen. Clinton had just broken even in those 11 post-Feb. 5 contests, she very likely would have won the nomination. Her primary victory would have come in a year when the Wall Street meltdown meant that most any Democratic nominee would win the November election.
And that makes her the biggest bumbler of 2008.
Write to Peter Brown at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu.
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Comment by appalledanddismayed - December 31, 2008 at 8:16 am
--Just proves that the “smarter than anyone else” Clinton machine wasn’t so smart after all. Apparently, Hiliary couldn’t muster the brain power that got Bill elected. Now, we’ll have to live with the corrupt, and yes smart, Chicago political machine backed by unions and special interest lobbyist. And who says the Presidency isn’t for sale?
Comment by Ray - December 31, 2008 at 9:10 am
--As a Native NY’er. (Adirondack Mountains)It cut’s me deep when you ref Hill Clint as being ‘of NY’…she’s not.
Comment by Jethro - December 31, 2008 at 9:17 am
--It also helps that Obama had an adoring press who spun his every mistake as gold, and amplified any mistake (or, more likely, the made up mistakes reported, such as buying into the “Clintons are racist” meme put out by the Obama camp).
Don’t forget the whole Florida and Michigan fiasco, brought to you by the DNC (where they selectively applied their rules), and where 81,000 people in Michigan actually had their votes stolen and given to Obama, when he never earned them, and in fact, he himself denied people the opportunity to vote for him when he made the choice to remove his name from the ballot when he did not have to.
Welcome to 2009 - where the Democrats are as crooked as the Republicans and will also steal your vote.
Comment by JB - December 31, 2008 at 9:38 am
--Sure, Hillary has an ego. She’s Richard Nixon in a pantsuit.
But when it comes to chutzpah, ego, and self-inflicted career-suicide, how can we forget about Elliot Spitzer or Blago when making this decision?
Comment by Sum Dood - December 31, 2008 at 9:50 am
--Hillary won the popular vote in the primaries.
The democrats need to do away with caucuses, which are anything but democratic.
Did Hillary make mistakes? Yes. But the Media went over board with their Obama love affair.
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