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What Clinton's Gaffe Says About Her Campaign

It is hard to exaggerate the reaction in the media and among presidential contenders to Hillary Clinton's debate gaffe Tuesday night. Everyone, it seems, has been waiting since about the time Barack Obama joined the race (in January) for something, anything, to jolt the stagnant Democratic field. Everyone of course, except Hillary Clinton.

So kudos to Chris Dodd, who in the final 10 minutes of a two-hour debate was paying enough attention to raise his hand as the sole opponent of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. By doing so, Dodd kept the issue going much longer than the allotted 30-seconds, and he kept Clinton talking.

Which was important, because it was Clinton, not Dodd, or John Edwards, or Barack Obama, who called herself out on her own obfuscation. While Dodd was talking, Clinton interrupted to correct him on his point that she supported Spitzer's plan. She didn't, she said.

Finally, like a clap of thunder during the so-called "lightning round," there it was: something new. Moderator Tim Russert, who until that moment appeared content to let Clinton get away with her peevish first answer, pounced like a good journalist. And so, before a bored audience knew what had happened, there was suddenly life in the Democratic presidential race.

But let's not get too caught up in the hype, much of which can be explained by the simple fact that Clinton's answer has been the only somewhat consequential thing to happen in this race in a while. Nevertheless, the excitement coming from the Edwards and Obama camps following the debate is justified, if only because it's Clinton's first big mistake.

More significant, however, is what the gaffe has revealed about Clinton and her campaign. Following Russert's second attempt at an answer, Clinton appeared visibly annoyed and began by talking about "gotcha politics." And as her voice rose, rival campaign strategists' eyebrows rose in unison: If you corner her, they must have been thinking, she loses a lot of her grace.

This may sound like psycho-babble, but a very important objective of the Clinton campaign all year has been to soften Hillary's image. It's worked, too. Her high negative ratings, once the reason pundits said Democrats would never trust her with the nomination, have been going down recently. But for a brief moment Tuesday night, the veil dropped ever so slightly and threatened to unravel months of public-image building.

For candidates like Obama and Edwards, the key is not so much to show all the ways Clinton isn't a good liberal on matters of foreign-policy. The key is to show voters that behind the focus-grouped façade, there remains a Clinton -- untrustworthy and ambition-oriented. It is easier to make the case that the country should move beyond Bush-Clinton if you can strip Hillary of the packaging designed to make you think she resembles "change." But since Clinton is unlikely to make the same mistake again, the campaigns will have to get creative. The weakness, however, has been revealed.

Just as significantly, Clinton's annoyance carried over into her campaign following the debate. First, the campaign started out blaming Russert, not only for the driver's license question, but also the question about Clinton's files held in the National Archives.

In a conference call Wednesday, The Hill reported that chief campaign strategist Mark Penn and chief pollster Jonathan Mantz "and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert." Said Penn, "The other candidates were asked questions like, 'Is there life in outer space?'" One Clinton supporter on the call said that Russert "should be shot."

The campaign also quickly released a YouTube video called "The Politics of Pile On," showing the other Democratic candidates invoking Clinton's name at every turn of the debate, as if to show that Clinton was the target of obsessive criticism. But of course pity is not an admirable quality. The video cries out for a snarky retort from one of the rival campaigns.

The revelation? The candidate could be rattled, the campaign could be rattled, and suddenly the behemoth that is Team Hillary wasn't as sure-footed as it appeared. But it's the campaign's first, and this week's events, and the campaign's response to them, were in the end probably a good thing for it. Knowing your vulnerabilities is more important than thinking you have none at all. Which, come to think of it, might explain why Clinton and her campaign reacted the way they did in the first place.

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Related Topics: clinton | election 2008 |

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