WurfWhile

I like Matt’s take on this:

“Whether or not you think the more ’seasoned’ candidate ought to win presidential elections, it seems to me that any campaign staffer who could be genuinely ‘baffled’ by experience not proving to be a winning issue is demonstrating a scary ignorance of how things work. Is [Hillary Clinton’s] staff baffled that Joe Biden didn’t win the nomination?”

What Hillary Clinton had, beyond obvious political experience, was an aura of inevitability. That “inevitability” argument was a combination of name/legacy recognition, known access to a ton of money, and a strong national political network (including key gender ties as America’s first competitive female presidential candidate). What Barack Obama has done thus far is decimate Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” argument. He’s overcome her name recognition advantage, overwhelmed her money raising, and effectively organized his own national political network while neutralizing, converting or working around her network. The experience argument, as a practical matter, was really just polite short-hand for Hillary’s numerous real political advantages. Hillary backers now pitching “experience” are not, by and large, ex-Bill Richardson supporters, or Ex-Chris Dodd supporters or Ex-Joe Biden Supporters or even arguably ex-Dennis Kucinich supporters. It was never about political “experience” - it was about Hillary Clinton’s “experience.”