HRC had all the right tools for caucus success in Iowa, yet was overwhelmed by Obama. What went wrong? Hillary should be running scared

NASHUA, N.H. — If Hillary Clinton had done something terribly wrong in Iowa, she would be better off in New Hampshire.

If she had lost the Iowa caucuses because she hadn’t spent enough time or money or because she had a lousy field staff, she could correct that.


But Clinton spent a lot of time and money in Iowa, and she had a terrific field staff. And she still got blown out of the water by Barack Obama.

So what went wrong?

Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, Mark Penn, put his finger on it during the flight from Iowa to New Hampshire Thursday night.

“This has been very much a referendum on her,” he said.

Duh. You think? And you think maybe, like, that is the problem?

There is a risk, by the way, in having your pollster also be your top strategist: There is a natural tendency for someone who holds both positions to say the strategy can’t be wrong because the polling can’t be wrong.

And sometimes you need a strategist who is willing to say, “I don’t care what the damn polling says, we need to try something different.”

That time may be now for the Clinton campaign.

Her failure in Iowa was not about what percentage of women she lost or what percentage of young people she lost or what percentage of union households she lost.

Her failure in Iowa was a failure to connect with voters on a human, emotional and inspirational level.

Her husband had that skill when he ran for president, and Barack Obama has it now.

Hillary Clinton has a different skill: She connects with voters on a logical level.

She has a common-sense approach to running for president, and she make a common-sense deal with voters: During her speeches she lists a vast array of issues, describes her considerable experience, and then invites voters to make the logical choice and vote for her.

Inspiration? Emotion? Passion? That’s what the other guy has.

In New Hampshire on Friday, Clinton offered only more calibration in an already highly calibrated campaign.

She said at a rally here: “This is especially about all of the young people in New Hampshire who need a president who won’t just call for change, or a president who won’t just demand change, but a president who will produce change, just like I’ve been doing for 35 years.”

Which is her same old stump speech, the one that didn’t work in Iowa. But to her, it all makes sense. To her, it is the logical, sensible reason she is better than the hopeful Obama (call for change) and the confrontational John Edwards (demand for change.)

She added the bit about “all of the young people in New Hampshire” only because Obama beat her among young voters in Iowa and her campaign has now calculated that this is what she needs in New Hampshire to win the primary Tuesday.

But she may need something more.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush got clobbered in the Iowa caucuses, coming in third. With the New Hampshire primary just eight days away, Bush could have stuck with his game plan.

Instead, he retooled his entire image. He took off his coat and tie and put on a parka and a green-and-white baseball cap from East Coast Lumber and went to the Cuzzin Ritchie’s Truck Stop in Hampstead, N.H. He drove an 18-wheel Mack truck, had a friendly snowball fight with reporters and transformed his image from that of a privileged preppie “wimp” to that of a regular guy.

Sure, people made fun of it. Johnny Carson said in his monologue: “He went into a truck stop wearing a pair of overalls, but he had a little alligator sewn over the pocket.”

And the press asked if there was something behind Bush’s sudden transformation.

“Hell, yeah,” said Bush’s press secretary, Pete Teeley. “We’re running scared.”

George H.W. Bush won New Hampshire, the nomination and the presidency.

Does Hillary Clinton need a retooling? Apparently not.

“Listen, Hillary is going to be the nominee,” her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, told reporters late Friday afternoon. “There’s no question.”

But maybe she ought to consider running scared. Just a little.