There are likely more postmortems on the way that will confirm there was never any rationale for Clinton’s candidacy beyond her feeling that it was her turn and voters would want to elect a woman. Her campaign mulled 85 slogans before she landed on being a “champion for everyday Americans,” then switched to “breaking down barriers,” and finally switched to “stronger together.” In an email published by WikiLeaks, pollster Joel Benenson asked campaign chairman John Podesta: “Do we have any sense from her what she believes or wants her core message to be?” Sadly, “Shattered” reveals even Clinton knew she was a candidate out of touch, as she told longtime aide Minyon Moore, “I don’t understand what’s happening in the country. I can’t get my arms around it.”
After her sit-down with Kristof, Vanity Fair’s “Inside Clinton’s Plan to Come Out of the Woods” made clear that her comeback, as befits her whole life, is being carefully calculated and calibrated. “She’s trying to navigate what’s appropriate,” a source close to the Clintons told Vanity Fair of her mission to “resurrect” her image and her name. “If you move too quickly, you look political. You lose your stature as an elder statesman. You look like a chronic politician. If you move a bit more strategically — target your appearances, target your messages at your appearances, craft your messages appropriately for your appearances — you can keep on an elder stateswoman status. … That’s her challenge, to re-emerge as a stateswoman, an important commentator and activist without looking self-serving or without looking political. Not easy to do.”
That’s a lot of targeting and crafting, and no, it won’t be easy for Clinton to do much without looking self-serving, or bitter.
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