some recommended reading

here are some things to read in order to understand why barack obama is beating hillary clinton, and how bad the situation has gotten for her campaign.

1) inside the clinton shake-up, by joshua green, at theatlantic.com - this first article goes in detail about how the clinton campaign has been mismanaged and how people at the top were selected for being loyal or being people hillary knew for a long time rather than for merit or qualifications (very similar to how president bush operates)

2) is it too late for hillary?, by karen tumulty, at time.com - this second article talks about all of the infighting inside the hillary clinton campaign and how the campaign never really had a coherent winning strategy, and were basically disorganized and lacked any leadership

3) howard's end, by josh marshall, at talkingpointsmemo.com - this third article is about a tv appearance by pundit howard fineman and an analysis he did that says that it is almost impossible for hillary clinton to win the pledged delegates now, and it has a youtube video of this, and also links to a discussion thread where people comment in more detail on how hillary clinton is doomed

4) rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll, at rasmussenreports.com - according to the latest poll, done on february 14, 2008, barack obama has the support of 49% of likely democratic primary voters, compared to 37% for hillary clinton. obama would beat mccain 46% to 42% in a general election, while mccain would beat clinton 48% to 41% in a general election. among likely voters nationwide, obama is viewed favorably by 55% and unfavorably by 43%, mccain is viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by 47%, and clinton is viewed favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 53%.

so if you look at those 4 links you can see pretty clearly what is wrong with the hillary clinton campaign, how she completely screwed up an election she was supposed to win very easily, and how now she has almost no chance of winning because the people in her campaign have screwed things up so badly with their mismanagement. and if she cannot even manage the relatively small group of people who are in charge of a campaign, how on earth could she manage the entire federal government? she did not demand accountability from those working for her in the campaign until it was too late and the damage was already done. sure, hillary clinton did not know about the money problems that former campaign manager patti solis doyle was dishonestly hiding from her. but hillary clinton put her blind trust in patti solis doyle, and turned out to be a bad judge of character. if you remember, back in the 1990s, hillary clinton insisted that bill clinton hire dick morris as a top political advisor. dick morris was already known to be a staunch republican political operative with very shaky morals, a machiavellian karl-rove-type character with no loyalty to anyone. hillary clinton convinced her husband bill clinton to hire dick morris, who ended up running the successful 1996 re-election campaign against bob dole. but at what cost? dick morris invented “triangulation”, the technique both clintons have used to stab liberals in the back in order to appeal to centrists and even conservatives in general elections. triangulation is a fundamental betrayal of the principles true democrats believe in, and it is capitulation to republican demands before the battle even starts. some examples? the v-chip bill clinton had put into television sets. bill clinton signing into law the “welfare reform” bill of the republicans and then pretending the whole thing was his idea in the first place. hillary clinton, as senator, voting in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. hillary clinton giving some doublespeak on the issue of abortion, paying lip service to abortion opponents without changing her position in favor of abortion. triangulation does not work, because it alienates your party’s base, and then there will be nobody left to support you in a primary. triangulation only worked for bill clinton because when a president is up for re-election, there are never any credible primary challengers, and only the general election matters. but it was hillary clinton who originally had dick morris hired, and he has made a career out of clinton-bashing since 1997, a year after bill clinton fired him for having sex with prostitutes. and remember that hillary clinton said she believed bill clinton when he said he did not have sexual relations with monica lewinsky. she was the only person in the entire country who believed bill clinton. the point is, hillary clinton is not a good judge of character and cannot tell when people are lying or telling the truth, and this makes her bad at managing people. she blindly puts her trust into people who do not deserve it, and suffers negative consequences, yet never seems to learn from this, no matter how many times it happens to her. and that is why her campaign is doing so badly. and do not forget that george w. bush has this same problem, and it is why his administration has been full of incompetent cronies and lackeys that he gives his complete support to, no matter how badly they screw things up. of course john mccain also was surrounded by incompetents, but he fired them all last summer and replaced them with more competent people. barack obama does not seem to have had any problems in this regard. several months ago, a few of his staffers did a ridiculous hit piece on hillary clinton, and as soon as he found out, barack obama put a stop to it and told them to never make another hit piece again. and they stopped. he seems to actually have control over his campaign, which is why he is winning. if hillary clinton were actually in charge of her own campaign in a hands-on way instead of delegating everything to incompetent hacks, she could have easily won the democratic nomination by now. barack obama is winning mainly because of the dysfunctional chaotic nature of the clinton campaign. former president clinton repeatedly spouting nonsense that gets his wife in trouble in the press is only a symptom of this problem, not the root cause. the root cause: nobody is really in charge of hillary clinton’s campaign, and everyone inside the campaign is fighting with each other and doing different things without any centrally coordinated strategy.