Clinton's couldas, shouldas, wouldas

This was not a friendly primary calendar to Clinton, nor were the rules themselves particularly friendly (see Florida and Michigan).

Clinton may have lost this fight as early as Feb. ’05 with the election of Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Dean’s election was a clear break from the past, and from the Clinton way of running the DNC. In hindsight, it was a mistake for a political family which believed it controlled the Democratic Party to have allowed Dean and his grassroots followers to take over.

Perhaps the Clintons believed they couldn’t stop Dean, but this early sign of weakness led to an unfriendly primary calendar. And that included the punishment of Florida and Michigan and the decision to put South Carolina and Nevada before Clinton’s preferred early states of Alabama and Arizona.

While tiny decisions at the time, all resulted in huge ramifications for Clinton’s candidacy.

The '06 factor
One other factor folks may overlook in the Clinton obits is the role of ‘06 Democratic successes in the downfall of the Clintons.

The midterm elections taught many Democratic activists (including those superdelegates) that they didn’t need the Clintons to win elections anymore.

The Democrats won Congress and a majority of governorships without substantial help from the Clintons. Sure the two raised money for the party and for candidates whenever asked, but it wasn’t Clintonistas or Clinton’s Democratic philosophy or ideology that was helping these candidates win.

Video Chuck Todd’s veepstakes guidelines June 5: NBC Political Director Chuck Todd serves up his thoughts on the current veepstakes. He sheds light on the strategy that goes into selecting a vice president, saying that the focus should be on winning four or five swing states. Morning Joe

There was a whole new crew of staff and candidates winning these races.

As for message, consider the fact that Democrats won back Congress in ’06 with a majority of candidates opposing a war Hillary Clinton voted to authorize.

Yet Democrats finding their non-Clinton voice was not the only impediment to the campaign. The biggest stumbling block ended up being one person in particular: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For whatever reason, Clinton and Pelosi have a strained relationship. On the surface it strikes me as Pelosi having a beef with Clinton rather than vice versa.

Maybe there's a reason. Maybe Clinton didn’t pay the expected homage to Speaker Pelosi when the California Democrat took the gavel.

I don’t see this in terms of a rivalry between two strong personalities in the party; both would publicly say there’s room for each of them.

This is something else. And that something else cost Clinton dearly.

From keeping superdelegates from endorsing her, to helping lobby key activists against climbing aboard the Clinton inevitability train, the rise of Nancy Pelosi played a much greater role in the eventual defeat of Clinton than one could have imagined.

Finally, no “coulda, shoulda, woulda” analysis would be complete without addressing Clinton's strained relationship with the media.

The distrust Clinton has for the media dates back to the ’92 campaign. She has simply never liked us.

Campaign bubble
If any of us were the subject of so many investigative and innuendo pieces over the course of a decade, perhaps we’d have the same contempt. However I’d argue her contempt for the press was passed down to her campaign staff leading to a bubble being erected around her camp.

This did nothing to allow Clinton to break out of the controlling, cautious and impersonal stereotype.

Imagine if she launched her campaign with a promise of media access and openness that was akin to what John McCain did. It would have forced Obama to do the same.

One of the under-written stories of this campaign is the lack of access to Obama. But because access to Clinton was even harder to come by, it never became an issue.

Openness to the media might have gone a long way to thaw some of those negative stereotypes.

Clinton supporters may read that last statement and say, “Aha! See, there is your evidence of anti-Clinton bias!”

But it is not bias, it is reality. She can’t expect the media to change its narrative of her if she doesn’t give them an alternative.

By staying inaccessible, by running for Bill Clinton’s third term, by keeping her tax returns and the donors to her husband’s library secret, her actions only fed preconceived notions. It was in her power to change this relationship with the media yet she chose not to.

So a summary of Hillary Clinton’s “coulda, shoulda, wouldas?”

• She shoulda run as a woman from the beginning;

• She shoulda gotten over her disdain for the media;

• She shoulda played the inside game a lot better post '04;

• She shoulda made sure she had more advocates at the DNC;

• She shoulda built a stronger relationship with Nancy Pelosi.

Had she done these "shouldas" she "coulda" been a movement and "woulda" been the Democratic nominee.

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