Hillary Clinton could hardly have hoped for more reverent and dedicated coverage of her long-expected announcement Sunday that she is running for president, but her candidacy has also induced groans from reporters with years or decades of experience with the often inaccessible and “secretive” former first lady.
For some, the thought of retracing the former New York senator’s failed 2008 White House bid induces what is being called “Clinton fatigue,” a malady that was already pronounced among reporters seven years ago and remains acute even though Clinton’s path to the nomination is expected to be much smoother in 2016.
New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin wrote Sunday that the former secretary of state’s greatest challenge will be to convince both media and voters that she is not, in fact, tired and boring.
“The real issue is Clinton fatigue, a national exhaustion from having been-there-done-that too many times,” he wrote. “Her husband’s popularity counts for something, but she’s already milked that cow dry. She’s got to make a case that goes beyond just wanting the Oval Office.”
Recent symptoms of journalistic ennui had already been noted many times before Clinton’s announcement.
Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente griped in a February article, titled “Why I already have Hillary fatigue,” that Clinton “has no gift for inspiring or moving people, and if she has any ideas beyond the utterly banal, she has yet to express them.”
After the conclusion of Hillary Clinton’s “disastrous” 2014 book tour, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd said in an interview that the press was bored with Clinton.
“I don’t know if the grassroots Democrats [have ‘Clinton fatigue’]; eight years ago they did, which is why they looked to Obama,” Todd said. “People had Hillary fatigue — really Clinton fatigue — and were looking for a new direction…Hillary fatigue in the press corps is going to be a challenge.”
Back in 2013, Slate chief political correspondent John Dickerson noted, in an article titled “The Danger of Clinton Fatigue,” that the former senator “invites drama, even when she does nothing at all,” asking later if anyone will have the patience or stamina to deal with all that in 2016.
This week a handful of media figures stepped forward to indicate that they too are suffering from Clinton fatigue, a condition seemingly exacerbated by having to spend an early spring Sunday waiting around while Clinton’s surprise-free announcement dragged its slow length along.
“Seems appropriate that Clinton ’16 starts with them seemingly messing with the press just for fun,” Sabato’s Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik said Sunday on Twitter as reporters everywhere sat glued to their computer screens awaiting her announcement.
Referring to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who was criticized last week for his combative interview style, Bloomberg News’ Dave Weigel said of Clinton’s aforementioned inaccessibility, “My guess is that we’ll look back fondly on Rand’s ‘prickly but available to talk’ strategy after a week of Hillary’s campaign.”
Clinton’s 2008 determination to stay in the race long after press preference for then-Sen. Barack Obama tried the patience of many media outlets. Her campaign was the subject of negative coverage from CBS, New York Magazine, Wonkette, the U.K. Telegraph, Slate, Mother Jones, Politico, Time and many others.
The Week’s Ryan Cooper wrote in March that Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, both have a “closemouthed and paranoid personal style, the hallmarks of which are violent distrust of the media and prizing personal loyalty and secrecy.” The resulting lack of trust from the media is something Clinton will need to change immediately if she wants to win the White House in 2016.
At Fox News, media critic Howard Kurtz described Clinton’s supposed “animosity toward the media” as having its origins in the “Whitewater/Travelgate/Filegate era.”
Team Clinton is working to correct some of the errors of her failed 2008 bid. This time around, Clinton — whom some reporters describe as having a personal charm that can be easy to miss in public settings — is making a concerted effort to “woo” reporters, including hosting top journalists at private, off-the-record dinners, according to Politico.
