Hillary Clinton’s decision to try to clear the Democratic presidential field this far out from Election Day was widely viewed as her best chance to win the nomination. The drawback, however, was that she would put herself immediately under the glare of the media she so overtly detests.
But maybe that’s also a benefit. Hillary’s sense of entitlement and combative, defensive, accusatory nature was always going to result in a series of gaffes and missteps. If this week was any indication, Clinton will try to get them all out of the way long before the “official” campaign begins. Perhaps by the time the real campaign rolls around, they will be long forgotten. Clinton can take solace in the fact that the 24-hour news cycle means the two and a half years until the election constitute a lifetime in politics.
But the real question is whether Clinton will learn from these early mistakes or repeat them. On Monday, Clinton was under fire for claiming–absurdly–that she was broke leaving the White House. Her former spokeswoman defended her by explaining that, well, broke is kind of a relative term, especially for a family like the Clintons. Clinton’s mistake here was thinking that Democrats are being honest when they demonize wealth, when in reality they celebrate making money if you’re getting paid to demonize the wealth of others. Lesson learned?
On Tuesday, Clinton dealt with the fallout from her absolutely horrendous answer on her culpability for the tragedy in Benghazi: “I take responsibility, but I was not making security decisions.” The Washington Post’s media writer took note of the disastrous portion of the interview:
Another telling moment came when Sawyer placed before Clinton all the warnings that bad things were afoot in Benghazi. “Did you miss it? Did you miss the moment to prevent this from happening?” Sawyer asked. Clinton’s response started with these two words: “No, but …”
The lesson here seems to be that Clinton bought into the left’s idea that Benghazi is a silly controversy and there’s nothing left to answer for. That’s not remotely true, as Diane Sawyer showed when she pressed Clinton to offer more than a canned one-line dismissal and actually answer detailed questions about what went wrong.
Yesterday, Clinton had yet another difficult interview, this one about her flip-flop on gay marriage. When gay marriage was unpopular, Clinton was opposed. Once it was advantageous in a Democratic primary to support it, that’s where she found herself. It’s a reminder that Clinton is a walking focus group. (Her “memoir has the cautious, polished, poll-tested feel of a campaign speech,” complains the Economist.)
Here’s Politico on Clinton’s interview with NPR:
NPR’s Terry Gross was interviewing Clinton about her newly released memoir, “Hard Choices.” She repeatedly asked the former secretary of state whether her opinion on gay marriage had changed, or whether the political dynamics had shifted enough that she could express her opinion.
“I have to say, I think you are being very persistent, but you are playing with my words and playing with what is such an important issue,” Clinton said.“I’m just trying to clarify so I can understand …” Gross said.
“No, I don’t think you are trying to clarify,” Clinton snapped back. “I think you’re trying to say I used to be opposed and now I’m in favor and I did it for political reasons, and that’s just flat wrong. So let me just state what I feel like you are implying and repudiate it. I have a strong record, I have a great commitment to this issue, and I am proud of what I’ve done and the progress we’re making.”
There’s more, but that’s probably the worst of it. The lesson here would be that it’s OK with Democrats to have flip-flopped on this. They’ll say you “evolved,” as long as you offer some kind of plausible explanation. Clinton doesn’t have to shy away from her hypocrisy, but she has to avoid getting so defensive that she gives the impression she has something to hide.
Will she learn the lessons of her disastrous week, and get the hang of campaigning? The silver lining for Clinton is that regardless of the answer to that question, this week’s missteps are sure to be ancient history in 2016.