Why Hillary Could Not Persuade - Part 4

In the fourth part of our series on why Hillary Clinton could not persuade, we will examine Hillary Clinton's strategy of attacking the press. Although this worked a little before the Ohio and Texas primaries, on the whole, it made her look desperate.

When a candidate is loosing and turns to attacking the press, it looks very desperate. Moreover, it only makes the press hate the candidate more and engenders negative articles about the candidate. Consider the following Washington Post article entitled Team Clinton: Down, and Out of Touch, which arose when Clinton campaign officials lashed out at reporters, displaying shocking arrogance.

They are in the last throes, if you will.

As Vice President Cheney knows, such predictions can be perilous. Still, there was no mistaking a certain flailing, a lashing-out, as two Clinton advisers sat down for a bacon-and-eggs session yesterday at the St. Regis Hotel.

The Christian Science Monitor had assembled the éminences grises of the Washington press corps -- among them David Broder of The Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and columnist Mark Shields -- for what turned out to be a fascinating tour of an alternate universe.

First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects that severed all ties with reality. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down," he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction.

But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip.

"I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign." He went on to chide the journalists for their "woefully inadequate" coverage of Obama, "a point that has been certainly backed up by the 'Saturday Night Live' skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to."

The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton's campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning over Obama.

Consider the following from CNN on Feb 26:

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton lashed out at the media Monday for what he described as a double standard in the way the press covers the two Democratic White House hopefuls.

On a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon, Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson maintained Barack Obama is running a negative campaign, and said the press largely praises him for doing so.

“I think it is true that every time the Obama campaign in this campaign has attacked Sen. Clinton in the worst kind of personal ways, attacked her veracity, attacked her credibility, said that she would say or do anything to get elected, the press has largely applauded him," Wolfson said. (source)