I remember the exact moment Hillary Clinton lost
the 2012 presidential nomination. It was at approximately 9:25 AM on February 7, 2006,
a little less than a year before she announced her presidential
run in January of 2007. Clinton sabotaged her campaign before it
started by choosing to speak at the funeral of our revered first
lady of African America, civil rights advocate Coretta Scott
King. There Clinton made the fatal error of following her
husband, former President Bill Clinton, on one of the best
speeches to the African American community anyone in history has
ever given. President Clinton was nothing short of luminous, the
highlight of the homegoing celebration. The goodwill flooding on
the former president was assigned by proxy to Senator Hillary
Clinton, who was surely going to run for the White House and
who, to that moment, had the black vote in her pocket.
President Clinton had said all that could or should possibly be
said about the late civil rights leader. All Hillary needed to
do was smile, wave, and sit down. I firmly believe, had she done
that, she would be president of the United States as I write
these words. Instead, she decided to take the stage herself,
following her husband’s over-long but deeply moving speech. And
the worst thing happened that could possibly have happened to
her: Black America realized, for the first time, that Hillary
was not Bill.
Which is not to say her speech was not appropriate or was not
good. It was fine. But she was not Bill. That single opportunity
released Black America from what had, to that very moment, been
a kind of spell—assurance of locked-in brand loyalty. Hillary
Was Not Bill, which made it all right for us to consider
alternatives, something I myself had not actively done before
the King funeral. This is not something ever talked about in
mainstream political shows, many of them desperate to fill hours
with blather from various talking heads.
In many ways, Hillary Clinton made Barack Obama (and, by that
logic, Sarah Palin) possible. George
W. Bush’s presidency was such a historical disgrace and
unprecedented disaster that it was unlikely a Republican would
be elected to follow him. The more credible Hillary seemed, the
less far-fetched the much-ignored run of a first-term black
senator seemed. America, black and white, were not paying a lot
of attention to Barack Obama back in 2006. His campaign seemed
like a trial run for a 2012 or 2016 bid, which may have been why
Hillary warmly embraced him early on. But the worse GOP
frontrunner Senator John McCain seemed, the more viable Hillary
seemed. The more viable Hillary seemed, the more likely it
seemed that the gender barrier to the White House may finally
break. 2008 began to shape up as a historic election teeming
with possibility.
What Hillary Clinton’s advisors may not have adequately factored
in: the more reasonable a woman candidate seemed, the more
reasonable a black candidate seemed. In other words, the more
successful Hillary was, the less absurd Obama as president
seemed. America began to adjust and prepare for a historic
election. Once that happened, it mattered not which barrier was
broken.
All of which is to speculate that Barack Obama walked boldly through doors Hillary Clinton opened. Clinton was the precedent-shatterer whose qualifications and experience meant she could not be denied equal footing in the presidential race. But her core constituency—Black America—moved to Obama the more credible the Illinois senator’s campaign became, which wounded Clinton in a big way. As we rewind the tape and reexamine the numbers and review the polls, I remain absolutely convinced the turning point, for Black America, was the King funeral and Mrs. Clinton’s flat, pedestrian, politically opportunist speech following her husband’s barn burner. That and the seeming inappropriateness of Hillary standing, as either a U.S. Senator, former First Lady or both, in the arena of presidents current and former. She should not have spoken. A wave, a smile, and I am convinced she would be president today.
