One of the themes I visit over and over again is the difference between tactics and strategy. I keep ringing this bell because the two ideas aren’t particularly well understood in the political realm.
I suspect this misunderstanding is largely based on two quirks of politics. The first is that very few politicians ever bother to think strategically. Pols tend to be such short-term thinkers that they’re all tactics, all the time. They want to finesse this vote or win that news cycle; they’re rarely playing a long game.
The second reason is that the politician with the tactical advantage is almost always the politician with the strategic advantage, too. In politics, if you’re better than your opponent at one mode of thinking, you’re usually better at the other mode, as well.
Think about the last three presidents. Obama, Bush, and Clinton were all better tactical politicians—better speakers, better at retail politics—than their various opponents. But they were all better strategic actors, too: They (or their campaigns) held smarter strategic views of the elections and what needed to be done to win them.
Once again, 2016 is the exception that proves the rule. Hillary Clinton is a terrible tactical candidate. She struggles to exhibit humanoid qualities in any setting. In debates she is inauthentic and plodding. She’s slow on her feet (both metaphorically and literally). She can’t even give a good speech. Which is amazing, if you think about it. Giving a set-piece speech is the easiest and most coachable candidate skill. It’s the political equivalent of shooting a free throw. Yet 30 years into her political career, Clinton is still awful at it.
Yet she’s a very smart strategic thinker. By most accounts, Hillary Clinton was the person in the White House during impeachment who understood that if Bill Clinton doubled down, refused to resign, and counter-attacked Republicans, eventually he would grind his opponents into dust. She was correct.
In the 2008 campaign, Clinton watched as Barack Obama stole her coalition of upscale white liberals and African-Americans. She then assembled—on the fly—a brand new coalition of women and downscale white centrists. This group of supporters was so formidable that Clinton actually won more primary votes than Obama, only to be denied the nomination because of a … wait for it … rigged system of superdelegates.
In the 2016 primaries, Clinton was faced with a candidate in Bernie Sanders who almost won both Iowa and New Hampshire. Yet instead of panicking, she took her lumps. She understood that Sanders would bog down in racially heterogeneous states and that she could grind her way to the nomination so long as she just stayed the course. She was right.
And here she is, after spending eight years planning for trench warfare against a generic Republican, and instead she finds herself in a race against a celebrity candidate who’s running a populist/nationalist campaign. Clinton is caught in an asymmetric conflict against a figure who is unique in American political history. Yet even though Trump is an unconventional foe who is both more charismatic and nimble on the stump than she is, Clinton has figured out how to how to box him in.
That’s why the last eight days should have surprised no one. In the beginning of September I wrote:
I’m not patting myself on the back here—I’m merely pointing out that Trump’s meltdown at the debate and the ensuing week of tax return drama, late-night Twitter wars with Alicia Machado, and general chaos were all totally predictable if you’ve spent the least bit of time observing the two campaigns.
Trump is all tactics and no strategy. Clinton is all strategy and no tactics. You should know which side usually wins that fight.
One final note: The clock is the other strategic factor at play the race. Clinton understands that, and knows how much time is on it. Trump, obviously, does not. As of today there are 33 days left in the race and early voting is well underway. One candidate has a solid, if modest, lead. The incumbent president from that candidate’s party has an approval rating over 50 percent.
The opposing candidate not only hasn’t ever polled over 46 percent nationally, but also, after a year of campaigning, has yet to convince more than 45 percent of the electorate that he is minimally qualified to be president.
Strip away the party labels and the personalities: Those are the fundamental facts of the environment. What does that tell you about the race?
Probably the same thing it tells me.
