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Analyzing the Clinton defeat
by Guest Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:14 pm
“They are saying they did nothing wrong, which is ridiculous,” said one Clinton surrogate. “She was the wrong messenger and everyone misjudged how pissed working class people were.”
As the reality of a Trump presidency began to set in on Thursday, there was a growing sick sense among longtime Clinton allies and advisers that the aide who long ago advised the former secretary of state against mounting a second presidential bid, Cheryl Mills, may have been right....
“She got this gift of this complete idiot who says bizarre things and hates women and she still lost,” said one longtime Clinton ally and fundraiser. “They lost in a race they obviously should have won. They need to take some blame.”
Clinton’s advisers have explained to the stunned candidate that she lost the race of her life in large part due to Comey’s October Surprise — they said their plan of winning college-educated white voters and turning out record levels of Latinos was working until Republican-leaning supporters shifted back to Trump in the wake of Comey’s bombshell letter, 11 days before the election, and the necessary enthusiasm among Latinos and African-Americans could not hold. By the time he released his clearance letter on the Sunday before the election, it was too late to re-energize voters.
Most Clinton supporters agreed that was part of it. But it wasn’t just that.
So much of the campaign’s energy was spent explaining inherited issues, they said, like the paid speeches Clinton delivered to Wall Street banks, pay-to-play accusations about the Clinton Foundation, and fallout of Clinton’s decision to set up a private email server at the State Department. “They spent their time protecting her, explaining her, defending her, with all these issues, the speeches, the Foundation, the emails — that became the energy of the campaign,” sighed one longtime Clinton confidante.
The paid speeches and the glitzy fundraisers, they said, did not paint a picture of a woman connected to the real suffering in the country. But that, they said, was just who Clinton was after so many years in the spotlight. “Her outlook is, ‘I get whacked no matter what, so screw it,’” explained one longtime confidant. “I’ve been out here killing myself for years and years and if I want to give the same speech everyone else does, I will.”
There was little the Clinton operatives could do about the “scandals” they inherited when they signed up to work for the former secretary of state. But Clinton allies are also faulting the campaign for failing to develop a credible message for downscale white voters, arguing she could have won by a larger margin on the economy...
And some began pointing fingers at the young campaign manager, Robby Mook, who spearheaded a strategy supported by the senior campaign team that included only limited outreach to those voters — a theory of the case that Bill Clinton had railed against for months, wondering aloud at meetings why the campaign was not making more of an attempt to even ask that population for its votes...
But in general, Bill Clinton’s viewpoint of fighting for the working class white voters was often dismissed with a hand wave by senior members of the team as a personal vendetta to win back the voters who elected him, from a talented but aging politician who simply refused to accept the new Democratic map. At a meeting ahead of the convention at which aides presented to both Clintons the “Stronger Together” framework for the general election, senior strategist Joel Benenson told the former president bluntly that the voters from West Virginia were never coming back to his party.
Clinton’s closing message in the final weeks of her campaign was focused on Trump’s temperament, and the fact that he was unfit for office. But the campaign’s theory that simply making Trump unacceptable was enough to win turned out to be wrong because of the unique factor that both candidates were so widely disliked by the public. “They lost the reality of what their opponent was doing,” said one longtime Clinton adviser. “They went for a target and they got their target, which was too narrow.” The closing picture of the campaign was an image of Clinton sharing a stage with two presidents at a rally in Philadelphia. The message was about continuity, not change....
Others blamed a grab bag of marginal problems that depleted a candidate who had no wiggle room for error: The soaring Obamacare premiums announced last month hurt Clinton, some said; others questioned the campaign’s decision to try and expand the map into red Arizona rather than simply defend the most likely, narrow paths to 270 electoral votes; others blamed Bernie Sanders for “poisoning” millennial voters who never came back on board....
The sense inside Clinton headquarters on Thursday, as aides packed up their desks and munched on free tacos and brownies, was that the Democratic nominee did not deserve to lose to a man that only 30 percent of the country thought was qualified to be president and that it ultimately came down to white working class voters rejecting her because she was a woman.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-aides-loss-blame-231215
As the reality of a Trump presidency began to set in on Thursday, there was a growing sick sense among longtime Clinton allies and advisers that the aide who long ago advised the former secretary of state against mounting a second presidential bid, Cheryl Mills, may have been right....
“She got this gift of this complete idiot who says bizarre things and hates women and she still lost,” said one longtime Clinton ally and fundraiser. “They lost in a race they obviously should have won. They need to take some blame.”
Clinton’s advisers have explained to the stunned candidate that she lost the race of her life in large part due to Comey’s October Surprise — they said their plan of winning college-educated white voters and turning out record levels of Latinos was working until Republican-leaning supporters shifted back to Trump in the wake of Comey’s bombshell letter, 11 days before the election, and the necessary enthusiasm among Latinos and African-Americans could not hold. By the time he released his clearance letter on the Sunday before the election, it was too late to re-energize voters.
Most Clinton supporters agreed that was part of it. But it wasn’t just that.
So much of the campaign’s energy was spent explaining inherited issues, they said, like the paid speeches Clinton delivered to Wall Street banks, pay-to-play accusations about the Clinton Foundation, and fallout of Clinton’s decision to set up a private email server at the State Department. “They spent their time protecting her, explaining her, defending her, with all these issues, the speeches, the Foundation, the emails — that became the energy of the campaign,” sighed one longtime Clinton confidante.
The paid speeches and the glitzy fundraisers, they said, did not paint a picture of a woman connected to the real suffering in the country. But that, they said, was just who Clinton was after so many years in the spotlight. “Her outlook is, ‘I get whacked no matter what, so screw it,’” explained one longtime confidant. “I’ve been out here killing myself for years and years and if I want to give the same speech everyone else does, I will.”
There was little the Clinton operatives could do about the “scandals” they inherited when they signed up to work for the former secretary of state. But Clinton allies are also faulting the campaign for failing to develop a credible message for downscale white voters, arguing she could have won by a larger margin on the economy...
And some began pointing fingers at the young campaign manager, Robby Mook, who spearheaded a strategy supported by the senior campaign team that included only limited outreach to those voters — a theory of the case that Bill Clinton had railed against for months, wondering aloud at meetings why the campaign was not making more of an attempt to even ask that population for its votes...
But in general, Bill Clinton’s viewpoint of fighting for the working class white voters was often dismissed with a hand wave by senior members of the team as a personal vendetta to win back the voters who elected him, from a talented but aging politician who simply refused to accept the new Democratic map. At a meeting ahead of the convention at which aides presented to both Clintons the “Stronger Together” framework for the general election, senior strategist Joel Benenson told the former president bluntly that the voters from West Virginia were never coming back to his party.
Clinton’s closing message in the final weeks of her campaign was focused on Trump’s temperament, and the fact that he was unfit for office. But the campaign’s theory that simply making Trump unacceptable was enough to win turned out to be wrong because of the unique factor that both candidates were so widely disliked by the public. “They lost the reality of what their opponent was doing,” said one longtime Clinton adviser. “They went for a target and they got their target, which was too narrow.” The closing picture of the campaign was an image of Clinton sharing a stage with two presidents at a rally in Philadelphia. The message was about continuity, not change....
Others blamed a grab bag of marginal problems that depleted a candidate who had no wiggle room for error: The soaring Obamacare premiums announced last month hurt Clinton, some said; others questioned the campaign’s decision to try and expand the map into red Arizona rather than simply defend the most likely, narrow paths to 270 electoral votes; others blamed Bernie Sanders for “poisoning” millennial voters who never came back on board....
The sense inside Clinton headquarters on Thursday, as aides packed up their desks and munched on free tacos and brownies, was that the Democratic nominee did not deserve to lose to a man that only 30 percent of the country thought was qualified to be president and that it ultimately came down to white working class voters rejecting her because she was a woman.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-aides-loss-blame-231215
Guest- Guest
Re: Analyzing the Clinton defeat
by Guest Fri Nov 11, 2016 1:21 am
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/09/how-clinton-lost-blue-wall-states-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin/93572020/
Guest- Guest
Re: Analyzing the Clinton defeat
by Guest Fri Nov 11, 2016 1:23 am
Exit polls in Wisconsin showed that 63% of voters had a negative opinion of Trump, but 21% of those who viewed him unfavorably still voted for him. That was a testament to two things: their desire to shake things up and their distaste for Clinton.
“It was: ‘We know his temperament. We know all of that. None of that mattered. He’s different,” said Bader.
“It was: ‘We know his temperament. We know all of that. None of that mattered. He’s different,” said Bader.
Guest- Guest
Re: Analyzing the Clinton defeat
by Guest Sat Nov 12, 2016 9:59 am
Just days before the election, after weeks believing that Michigan was safely blue, the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Priorities USA polled voters there — only to discover that it was a one-point race.
The group quickly poured a whopping $5 million into the state. The Clinton campaign did similarly, and on the eve of the election, aides sent in Clinton herself, as well as her top surrogate, President Obama.
It was too late.
Clinton’s failure to attract enough supporters in Michigan and its Rust Belt neighbors Wisconsin and Pennsylvania cost her the election — and shocked the world. And while many reasons have been offered up, both inside and outside the campaign, one reality has emerged in the days since Clinton’s stunning loss, according to many Democrats interviewed for this article: a series of strategic mistakes, including some made in the final two weeks, probably sealed the deal...
Another problem, some said, was to devote resources in states Clinton did not need to win — notably Arizona — instead of shoring up support in deep-blue states, notably the Rust Belt, that she did need.
“Why go to Arizona? Who the hell needs Arizona?” said Lou D’Allesandro, a state senator and Clinton supporter from New Hampshire, where Clinton appears to have narrowly prevailed Tuesday. “You go to Michigan. You go to Pennsylvania. You play to your strengths in this business.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-series-of-strategic-mistakes-likely-sealed-clintons-fate/2016/11/11/82f3fcc0-a840-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_clintonmistakes-1010pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
The group quickly poured a whopping $5 million into the state. The Clinton campaign did similarly, and on the eve of the election, aides sent in Clinton herself, as well as her top surrogate, President Obama.
It was too late.
Clinton’s failure to attract enough supporters in Michigan and its Rust Belt neighbors Wisconsin and Pennsylvania cost her the election — and shocked the world. And while many reasons have been offered up, both inside and outside the campaign, one reality has emerged in the days since Clinton’s stunning loss, according to many Democrats interviewed for this article: a series of strategic mistakes, including some made in the final two weeks, probably sealed the deal...
Another problem, some said, was to devote resources in states Clinton did not need to win — notably Arizona — instead of shoring up support in deep-blue states, notably the Rust Belt, that she did need.
“Why go to Arizona? Who the hell needs Arizona?” said Lou D’Allesandro, a state senator and Clinton supporter from New Hampshire, where Clinton appears to have narrowly prevailed Tuesday. “You go to Michigan. You go to Pennsylvania. You play to your strengths in this business.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-series-of-strategic-mistakes-likely-sealed-clintons-fate/2016/11/11/82f3fcc0-a840-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_clintonmistakes-1010pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Guest- Guest
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