2. The system selected Pennsylvania as an important target.
3. They expended lots of effort there -- and still lost it.
I don't see how it is the computer's fault. Even if the system predicted the results exactly, you still need to do something about it.
Trump ran as the face of rural voters - every attack Clinton made became an attack on people who agreed with him. Perhaps not agreeing with every single outrage, but general statements such as "he's just a racist" were something that the rural voter had heard over and over again as a way to dismiss them. Trump turned the attacks into a provocation of his base.
It was all about race and gender. Well guess what? Most people didn't vote based on gender and race issues. They voted on economy and corruption (which is related to the economy one) issues.
Meanwhile, Clinton's entire campaign was about how much of a bigot Trump was, while half of the country earns less than $30,000 a year.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/25/1-in-2-working-americans-m...
Who campaigned for this half of America? Well, it wasn't Clinton. She campaigned on "4 more years of Obama" and "not rocking the boat or changing much." Those would be pipe dreams, after all.
Only Trump and Sanders did, and Sanders they cheated out of the election in a multitude of ways, including by spreading the Democratic establishment propaganda that Clinton was the "more electable" one because she was "battle tested" (she didn't do so well in the last battle, though). But she couldn't cheat Trump out of the election, so he won.
The worst thing about this is that the Democratic establishment don't even want to accept the blame for the complete and utter loss of all branches of the government. They want to coronate Tim Kaine at the next election - the guy that nobody knows anything about, except that for some reason Clinton picked him, and also part of the same team that has just lost. Great strategy. I can already see all the people that didn't go vote for Clinton not come to vote for Kaine in even greater numbers!
1. Her policies were less vivid and memorable. Her tax policy versus Trump's belligerence at trade partners Mexico and China where the factory work moved.
2. Her credibility regarding her ability to actually bring about change. I think Bill Clinton tried to address this in his speeches, but she is part of the establishment and therefore expected to continue the status quo.
This is apart from her health, which I think affected her ability to fight the media war, and being a woman, which makes her an icon for social issues whether or not she wants to be -- those maybe a factor but they are outside her control.
Apparently it wasn't the choice of PA as an "important" target, but overfit of its importance to that of other key states (e.g. in the rust belt) which may have been at fault. Like the article says:
But it appears that the importance of other states Clinton would lose — including Michigan and Wisconsin — never became fully apparent or that it was too late once it did.