Tea Bird

Clinton • media coverage • politics

Memoir of a Hill Embed Alum

By matt carter ⋅ June 6, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Athena Jones gives her rundown of 5,000+ hours covering Hillary:

I covered the once-”inevitable” nominee from September to late April, when I was reassigned to Obama’s plane. What follows is this embedded reporter’s take on the best, and only, political story I’ve ever followed on such a massive, exhausting, exhilarating, demanding scale — a close-up view of the unique form of life-giving, yet life-consuming, submersion that has come to define modern-day political campaigns.

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold…
Among the lessons learned over these many months: One, whatever the final judgment on Bill Clinton’s effect on this race, which by most accounts was Hillary’s to lose, and the value of his brand, one thing is sure, he is no longer the much-loved, well-respected king of the party in many people’s eyes. (Nor is he likely to be referred to again as “the first black president,” even in jest.) Two, as much as the media’s hunger for metaphors may at times overreach, it turns out that a campaign’s organization or lack thereof is a good indicator of the candidate’s ability to win.

Tags: Clinton, democratic primary, Democrats, media coverage