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"Despite the engaging view from my room at Rome&amp;#x27;s Hotel de Russie--of a cherub statue overlooking a church dome topped by a life-size stone Virgin Mary--I am distracted by the ticker headline on the English-language news channel: &amp;quot;Ragged Clinton campaign braces for more poll misery.&amp;quot; Ragged? Misery? Despite global bad news, the channel&amp;#x27;s most dire words are saved for Hillary&amp;#x27;s campaign. Frankly, I appreciate this European forthrightness. To be sure, in the 10 days before last week&amp;#x27;s Super Tuesday, Hillary embarrassingly went from double digit leads in some states to squeaker wins or even double digit losses. But there was one candidate last week who did worse than Hillary: Mitt. Take note, poli sci students, of these two perfect examples of how to lose an election in 10 days or less. First, use your limited face time with voters to emphasize the dullest, least identifiable aspect of your resume--such as being a workhorse (Hillary) or your experience as a CEO making money in the venture capital arena (Mitt). Second, guilt voters with generic references to value systems you know many of us are loyal to, but that you may not actually embody, like feminism (Hillary) and conservatism (Mitt). Third, lie to us by flip-flopping as often as you can - from driver&amp;#x27;s licenses for illegal aliens and the war in Iraq (Hillary) to well, everything (Mitt on abortion rights, gay marriage, and much more). Fourth, spend your own money. Hillary loaned $5 million of her own funds to her campaign, and Mitt famously squandered over $30 million of his fortune. Nothing shows weakness in politics more than the appearance that you can fundraise only from yourself. Fifth, and this step is a little redundant since your loss is somewhat cemented at this point, scapegoat. Say you were expecting to lose (Hillary). Or, passively, and against the spirit of feminism (see above), blame your otherwise very capable campaign manager by firing her (Hillary again). Perhaps bizarrely claim to be stepping down in deference to the country being at &amp;quot;war&amp;quot; and that your campaign is helping the terrorists--a war that, true to your flip-flopping form, was not enough of a concern to keep you from joining the race a year ago (Mitt). Do you agree with me that Hillary has lost? Is she still a contender? --Asma"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/glamocracy/2008/02/how-to-lose-an-election-in-10>