They Learn Nothing. They Forget Nothing.

Dick Morris, who knows the Clintons pretty well after working in the Clinton White House, has a piece today on why the Clinton campaign has failed so badly:

Whether one likes, dislikes, loves, hates, admires, fears, despises, or envies them, every Clinton watcher has this in common: They are dumbfounded both by the incompetence with which Hillary has run for president and her intransigence at sticking to a failed message. In a demonstration of inability and inflexibility reminiscent of her healthcare debacle of 1993-94, Mrs. Clinton seems destined to fulfill Voltaire's description of the Bourbon kings of France: "They learn nothing. They forget nothing."

Even now, with her back against the wall, fighting for her political career, Hillary, presumably with Bill's acquiescence, insists on making the same mistakes that landed her in the soup. No new tactics, no new strategy, no new message emerges.
Incredibly, both Clintons are harping, once more, on the theme of experience to carry the day. No matter that it hasn't worked since before Iowa; they repeat the same mantra endlessly -- that Hillary can "hit the ground running" on "Day One." Will they ever realize that voters grasp two essential facts:

(a) That Hillary's experience is derivative of Bill's and her claims to his achievements are largely invented and spurious, and

(b) That the real edge she has in experience is her ability to repeat the strategies, tactics, message, fundraising models and campaign style of the 1990s, something modern voters reject emphatically?

Why, after losing 24 states, do Hillary and Bill fail to get these messages? Are they saving up these insights for their memoirs?

And why do the Clintons persist in running a negative campaign even when they can't find anything to be negative about? Alienating voters with their abrasive attacks without attracting them with their content, they throw pitty-pat punches accusing Obama one day of plagiarism for borrowing speech lines from his close and consenting friend and the next day for accurately describing Hillary's healthcare plan as requiring sanctions to make those who do not wish to sign up do so against their will (albeit for policies Mrs. Clinton deems to be "affordable").

If you are going to pay the price of going negative, throw real punches. Hit Obama with big negatives. You take the backlash for going negative in order to pass the lethal message on to the voters. But if you don't have any negatives to throw and your detectives have, indeed, come up empty, then stop trying to go negative. Stop alienating people to no purpose.

But as obvious as these observations are, they seem to be lost on Bill and Hillary and the geniuses who are running her campaign. Despite defeat after defeat, we still hear about experience and still get a daily dose of so-what attacks on Obama.

I think we'll find out on Tuesday just how badly the Clintons have messed up this campaign. Not long ago Hillary had a sizeable double-digit lead in Ohio and was leading strongly in Texas. Now the polls are collapsing with Obama showing a lead in Texas and the race very close in Ohio. Although you can credit the Obama campaign for some of those changes, you can also give a large amount of credit to the Clinton's mishandling of their campaign. Hillary and her staff's inability to control Bill during the early primaries (especially South Carolina) dug a hole for them that they've never been able to climb out of.