Markos Moulitsas: Clinton needs a new plan

In the third quarter of this year, Hillary Clinton enjoyed another strong fundraising quarter, raising $28 million to likely lead all presidential contenders, irrespective of party. Yet it wasn’t a Republican in second place. Rather, it was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who came up just shy of the Democratic front-runner’s total with his own impressive $26 million.

The Clinton camp could be forgiven a sense of déjà vu; her formidable fundraising abilities were matched and ultimately exceeded by then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s insurgent campaign in the 2008 cycle. Yet what can’t be forgiven is the Clinton camp’s apparent
inability to adjust its tactics for this new world. 

{mosads}In addition to raising a great deal of money, Sanders is now within spitting distance of the former first lady in Iowa and has led her in the last eight polls of New Hampshire. In national surveys, what was a 50- to 60-point gap in April is now an 18-point gap in the Huffington Post polling aggregate. Furthermore, he has accomplished all this without a single debate, nor any television spending. He is mostly ignored by the media. And his campaign burn rate is about half of Clinton’s, which at 90 percent this past quarter was exceedingly high.

Sanders has accomplished all of this without attending a slew of fundraisers in the homes of well-heeled benefactors. He has moved his poll numbers and boosted his fundraising with one simple formula: spend as much time as possible in front of potential supporters. 

While Sanders’s campaign has been marked by endless public rallies and appearances, Clinton’s has been marked by endless big-dollar fundraisers. It’s an old-school way of approaching politics: raise money from the big donors early, then plow into television time shortly before voters hit the polls. Yet this isn’t the ’90s, or even the late ’00s, when a similar strategy led to her defeat at the hands of Obama. Today, technology enables one-to-one communication with regular voters, and if you can motivate and excite them, it enables access to enthusiastic ground troops, social media coverage and, of course, money. 

Apparently no one at Clinton headquarters learned anything from Howard Dean’s fundraising success over a decade ago, or Obama’s fundraising and electoral success in 2008. And their adherence to an outmoded form of campaign has left her supporters adrift, demotivated and demobilized. 

So sure, she can still raise money from hedge fund managers like the best of them, but how is that helpful with her broader electoral goals? 

The former secretary of State’s dominant name ID is still likely to win her the nomination, but that is only part of the battle, and winning next November will require a highly motivated corp of supporters. All the television ads in the world won’t change a single mind. There isn’t a single Democrat who will decide to vote Republican because of a TV ad, and not a single conservative who will see a Clinton ad and change teams. Hundreds of millions will be spent on an air war that won’t change a single vote. 

So what’s left? Supporter intensity. Clinton must abandon her current self-destructive path, become more visible and spend more time talking to regular voters instead of wasting time at intimate fundraising gatherings with the best-heeled. She needs to connect and inspire and offer liberals the kind of vision that is driving the Sanders movement. 

She pulls that off, and she’ll have all the money those Wall Street tycoons could’ve offered and more, and she will have an army of supporters ready to walk over hot coals for her. 

Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.