Hillary's Premature Triangulation

Robert Novak says that Hillary isn't conquering Iowa because of a possibly fatal error: premature triangulation.

He writes:

Sen. Hillary Clinton faces tonight's Iowa caucuses not as the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee but seriously challenged by Sen. Barack Obama, thanks in no small part to committing a strategic error: premature triangulation. The problem is reflected in what happened to a proposal for a simplified, though far-reaching, health-care plan.

One longtime Democratic consultant, not involved in any campaign this time, suggested that Clinton propose a genuine universal health-care scheme. Everybody would be covered by Medicare, except people who chose to retain their private health insurance plans. The consultant gave the idea to somebody close to the senator, but the intermediary refused to pass it on to the candidate. He said it would never get beyond Mark Penn and his strategy of triangulation.

Penn, a professional pollster who was political adviser to President Bill Clinton, is chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's campaign. He has embraced the triangulation -- coming across as a third force somewhere between the liberal and conservative poles -- that characterized Bill Clinton's politics after 1994, based on advice from Dick Morris. To many Democratic operatives, Penn's triangulation prematurely introduced a general election strategy when in fact the party nomination was still in doubt.

...Penn's strategy from the start was predicated on the inevitability of Clinton's nomination, so the real concern was to position her to run against the Republicans by making clear that she was no more a hard leftist than her husband had been. Iowa, whose passionately liberal caucusgoers are not suited to triangulation, always was a problem for Clinton. Early polls there gave the lead to John Edwards, who has run on a class-warfare, populist platform.

But Edwards, an unlikely threat beyond Iowa, did not worry the Clinton camp. His lead was considered a holdover from his strong second-place showing there in 2004. Clinton's concern soon became the unexpected rise of Obama.

...The threat of Obama winning in Iowa makes it white-knuckle time for Clinton. With Obama ahead in some New Hampshire polls, a double loss for Clinton in the first two tests of 2008 would raise the specter of Howard Dean's collapse four years ago after losing in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Hillary Clinton is surely no Howard Dean. Furthermore, Michael Dukakis finished third in Iowa in 1988 and went on to be nominated (on the Republican side, both Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 got the nomination after losing Iowa). But an Obama victory in Iowa could be fatal for Clinton. It is believed in Democratic circles that Mark Penn, as the advocate of triangulation, would be the scapegoat, with Bill Clinton leading the trashing of the strategy that helped make him president.

I think it's premature to be predicting Hillary's demise because of some strategical errors.

However, if Hillary does bomb out, I don't think it will be because she miscalculated triangulation time. I think it will be because Dem voters, like Republican voters, don't want her to be president.

She's not a strong candidate. She's not experienced. She's not smart. She's not likable. She doesn't connect well with people.

Obama may be more likable and, using his favorite stump phrase, able to "fire up" some voters. But he's too green.

It's understandable that political observers are now questioning the inevitability of Hillary, something that seemed unimaginable just a couple of months ago. It's a real possibility that Hillary won't be the Democrat nominee.

This bigger picture demands that the inevitability of the Dems in 2008 be called into question.