Wall Street Journal
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Democrats awoke Wednesday with a thought usually reserved for Republicans: Hillary Clinton is a disaster. The marvel is that she fooled them for so long. Picture Bernie Sanders as a small child in the court of Empress Clinton, and you have a modern twist on Hans Christian Andersen. The adoring Democratic townspeople oohed and aahed over their “tough” and “experienced” and “masterful” leader, the anointed heir to the Clinton throne. Then Bernie murmured what was obvious, and the crowd looked again.
What they saw in New Hampshire was a dour, 68-year-old woman, shouting at her audience in her best impression of emotion. They saw a gaunt former president, rambling to half-empty forums, grumping about his wife’s political opponent. They saw the candidate’s surrogates try to snag the votes of young women by threatening them with eternal damnation. They saw a campaign in disarray, dragging carload upon carload of ethical baggage. They saw that the empress has no (or very few) clothes.
No one knows whether Bernie Sanders can pull off a nomination. But what everyone does know now is that Hillary has (and is) a problem either way. Let’s dispense with some spin: Bernie never had a lock on the Granite State. New Hampshire had stepped up for the Clintons twice before, in 1992 and 2008. This year Hillary went into the contest with endorsements, a huge operation and plenty of money.
What she didn’t have was the interest of voters. They’d had their eyes opened, and they chose to use their primary to highlight Mrs. Clinton’s many and obvious political weaknesses. She may still be the favorite to hold her party’s banner, but the mantle of inevitability has been stripped away.
New Hampshire exposed again what a wooden candidate Hillary is. Mr. Sanders strolls on stage and makes his audience sing and cheer. Mrs. Clinton’s events begin with propaganda videos about her past, followed by a tutorial on why she deserves this. They are heavy, and droning.
She cannot do uplifting. She had the same likability problem in her 2000 race for the Senate, when she had to spend a fortune to beat an unknown Republican in liberal New York. The same problem popped up in 2008, against Barack Obama. Why anyone thought she would improve on a third go is a mystery.
New Hampshire also uncovered the mismanagement that always attends the Clintons. Hillary wakes up every day with a new campaign. She ignores Mr. Sanders. Then she runs left. Then she attacks him. Then she softens. Her staff has endless debates, which always end up leaked to the press, about whether she needs to appear “stronger,” or more “human,” or “sharper,” or “softer,” or more “pragmatic,” or more “lofty.”
She has a habit of unceremoniously firing campaign teams. And this scattershot approach comes from a woman who has been plotting to be president for at least a decade? All this shifting may be another reason why the public sees her as “untrustworthy.”
To that point, New Hampshire proved that concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s ethics aren’t merely a right-wing talking point. They’ve permeated the electorate. Some stunning numbers: Among the one-third of Democratic primary voters who said “honesty” was the top quality they wanted in a nominee, Mr. Sanders won 91%. Among the quarter who said they focused on a candidate who “cares about people like me,” Mr. Sanders won 82%.
Finally, New Hampshire exposed how out of touch the Clinton machine is with the modern liberal movement. Mrs. Clinton based her campaign on the tropes of a fading Democratic establishment. She figured that women would vote for her simply because she had the right anatomy. She figured that college grads and wealthier Democrats would vote for her because she had more pragmatic policies. She figured that the bulk of voters still viewed the Clinton operation as a sure ticket to the White House. In fairness, she won her age group—those 65 or older, who grew up with the Clintons. But she lost everyone else: women, men, college grads, blue-collar workers. She lost every income level except those making more than $200,000. She lost liberals. And moderates. What makes Mrs. Clinton’s miscalculation notable is that the party’s shift was on full, neon view before she even entered the race. It was walking around in the form of Elizabeth Warren. The worry for Mrs. Clinton is that she might be unable to heal the rifts. Barack Obama’s soaring rhetoric was able to reunite his party in 2008. Hillary doesn’t have his skills.
