For two weeks in February, Hillary Clinton’s campaign appeared on the brink of falling into an all-too-familiar pattern.
But within weeks, she started opening a delegate lead that would never close. After victories March 15 in Florida, Ohio and three other States, aides celebrated at the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters.
Shedding the ghostsFor Ms. Clinton, those were the moments when she finally shed the ghosts of her failed first White House run in 2008.
In many ways, Ms. Clinton’s 2016 success was a redemption storyNearly two years before announcing her candidacy, Ms. Clinton commissioned an extensive evaluation from a team of Democratic consultants. The consultants from Dewey Square Group made the following recommendations:
Ms. Clinton would have to run a more disciplined, frugal operation one not poisoned by the in-fighting and free spending that defined her first bid. She’d need to focus far more on winning delegates than voters. And she would have to overcome questions about her authenticity to connect with voters.
On two of those three fronts, Ms. Clinton found a winning formula. Robby Mook, her campaign manager, prided himself on thriftiness.
Mastering delegate mathAides say Ms. Clinton was fixated on the campaign’s delegate operation, desperate to avoid one of the most glaring mistakes from 2008. While she captured more votes than Barack Obama in that race, his operation mastered the complex delegate allocation process that ultimately gave him the edge. So Ms. Clinton hired the man who built the system that defeated her, delegate guru Jeff Berman. Last summer, Mr. Berman began locking down crucial super-delegates for Ms. Clinton. By November, Ms. Clinton had public support from nearly half the super-delegates.
As Ms. Clinton closed in on the nomination, her efforts appeared to resonate with her supporters. Karen Finney, a campaign spokeswoman, said Ms. Clinton “had a real vision about how she wanted to do the campaign and what works best for her”. — AP
