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"It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This!"

In the 2008 nomination process early on the press and pundits agreed that Hillary Clinton was the clear front runner candidate of the Democratic Party. Her credentials are unmatched by any other candidate, just by the simple fact that she was a former first lady for eight years and a senator for the state of New York for the past seven years. Another factor that played as a role to her automatic front runner status is former president Bill Clinton, and his political machine for generating enthusiasm to get out the vote.

We are now near the half way point through the Democratic nomination process and surprisingly Hillary Clinton hasn't won the nomination and hasn't generated momentum toward securing her party's nomination. Instead a little known senator from Illinois have slowed the Clinton machine to a stand still and is poised to take over the front runner status of the Democratic Party. The Question to ask right now is, "what happen it wasn't supposed to be like this?"

One factor into this tight Democratic nomination was a miscalculation of strategy by Hillary Clinton campaign to win the nomination by Super Tuesday. Hillary hedged all of her bets on the fact that her political machine would topple Obama and she could cruise to Denver, Colorado as her party's nominee. Well after Super Tuesday it was clear that Barak Obama wasn't a fairytale candidate and he had enough resources to stay in the race for the long haul.

Another factor was the strategy of Barak was to focus on smaller states that hold caucuses. In stark contrast Hillary put all of her resources into bigger states with more delegates and super delegates. Well this strategy backfired because Hillary didn't win more states than Barak and she lost the popular vote in the process. The process should have been winning as many states as you can than just focusing on the big prizes. As a result of Hillary's strategy blunder,it allowed Barak to surge past her and gained what seems to be unstoppable momentum to the nomination.

It seems to me that the final factor of Hillary's stalled campaign, was obvious blunder that was she under estimated her opponent. Bill Clinton during the New Hampshire primary had a Freudian slip when he referred to Barak's vote on the Iraq war as a "fairy tale!" The question every intelligent person should ask is why he used the word "Fairy tale" to criticize Obama's anti- Iraq war vote. We cannot predict what Bill Clinton actually meant but we can summarize his statement as a point of public frustration by his wife's campaign. Let's face the harsh reality Hillary wasn't prepared for a challenge to win the democratic nomination. Four years ago when it was apparent that senator John Kerry was to win the Democratic nomination, many party insiders ask senator Hillary Clinton to run for president but she declined, because it wasn't the right time for her candidacy. Fast forward to 2008, Hillary Clinton coming into the Democratic nomination was not only the front runner but the odds on favorite to win the nomination. Presently Hillary has to recalibrate her campaign strategy that has to involve focusing on bigger states with more "super" delegates. It is also clear that if Hillary or Barak doesn't have the necessary delegate count to secure the nomination then the Clinton campaign might asks that Michigan and Florida delegates be counted to break the dead lock. Whatever happens from here on out it is clear that Hillary is on the ropes and if she doesn't watch out, what was a "fairy tale", can become a harsh reality!

Learn more about this author, Ahmer Byrd.
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