As 2016 Nears, Hillary Clinton Keeps in Mind Mistakes of 2008 Campaign
Damon Winter/The New York Times Hillary Clinton at a League of Conservation Voters event in New York on Dec 1. Her circle of advisers is beginning to draft a blueprint for a different kind of campaign.
During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized her strength and experience over her softer, more relatable side. Today, she gushes about having that grandmother glow.
As she lost the nomination to President Obama, Mrs. Clinton was accused of being wooden and overly shielded by staff members. Last month, she mingled casually at an Upper West Side apartment, greeting donors and shunning a podium and rope line.
And in 2008, Mrs. Clintons best asset, her husband, Bill Clinton, became an albatross. Today, the former president has a tough-minded chief of staff from Mrs. Clintons world who tries to keep close control over his events and his occasional off-script remarks.
Little by little, Mrs. Clinton is taking steps that suggest she has learned from the mistakes, both tactical and personal, of her failed candidacy. After more than six years of pundits dissecting what went wrong in 2008, her circle of advisers is beginning to draft a blueprint for a different kind of campaign. And although Mrs. Clinton has since bolstered her public image while serving as secretary of state, her next campaign will in part be assessed by her ability to avoid the errors of the last one.
Was it the best managed campaign? Of course not, they lost, the Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said of 2008. But what lessons will they apply to the future if she decides to run?
Some things have clearly changed: Those close to Mrs. Clinton now embrace a view that her gender can be more of an asset than a liability. But familiar hazards remain, especially the air of inevitability that seems to surround the Clinton camp, along with the lack of a broader rationale for her candidacy.
Inevitability is not a message, said Terry Shumaker, a prominent New Hampshire Democrat and former United States ambassador. Its not something you can run on, he added.
These topics are being quietly discussed at private dinners with donors, at strategy talks hosted by an outside super PAC and in casual conversation as Mrs. Clinton greets friends at holiday parties and a Clinton Foundation fund-raiser in New York.
If she runs, it will be different, said Mrs. Clintons spokesman, Nick Merrill.
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As 2016 Nears, Hillary Clinton Keeps in Mind Mistakes of 2008 Campaign