Comment by rgbrenner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rgbrenner | Hacker News Reader

"how Russia used it during the election to elect Trump"

"while the ads may have only reached a small group of people, Trump won the electoral college by a small number of votes, too."

Russia interfered (and we should definitely do something about that)... but Clinton ran a badly managed campaign, and that's why she lost.

First major party nominee to never step foot in Wisconsin since 1972? Clinton [0]

SEIU says to Clinton campaign that they are moving their staff to Michigan toward the end of the campaign (like they wanted to from the beginning).. Clinton's response: turn the bus around and go back to Iowa[1]

Michigan operatives relay stories like one about an older woman in Flint who showed up at a Clinton campaign office, asking for a lawn sign and offering to canvass, being told these were not “scientifically” significant ways of increasing the vote, and leaving, never to return. A crew of building trade workers showed up at another office looking to canvass, but, confused after being told there was no literature to hand out like in most campaigns, also left and never looked back.[1]

I mean come on... how can she expect to win Wisconsin when she never even stepped foot in the state?

0. http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/hil...

1. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/michigan-hillary-clint...

Yep exactly - an awful candidate with an awful campaign. The lack of campaigning in key states like Wisconsin. The nauseating cult of personality around her. Dismissing the Bernie Sanders voters as "Bernie Bros" (despite the large number of young women who supported him). The tone-deaf "America is already great" slogan which existed in complete ignorance of the poor. Her awkward inability to appear like a human being (google "I'm just chillin' in cedar rapids!" and cringe). Her inability to come out in favour of a $15 minimum wage. The fact that the Clinton family are scandal-ridden even before the emails, and so obviously in the pocket of big business. We could go on all day. In my opinion Trump is far worse, but it seems that many Democrat voters didn't "defect" and vote Republican (GOP votes were pretty steady from '08, '12 and '16) ... they just didn't turn out for Hillary. I don't blame them. What an awful choice to be forced to make - Trump or Hillary.

I'm only talking about her campaign and the decisions that were made.

People will agree and disagree about her vs Sanders, policies, etc. And they have varying opinions of Clinton, and she can't do much to change that because of how long she's been in the public eye. But how she ran her campaign was entirely up to her.

True - I went a little off-piste there :-)

speaking of cringeworthy Hillary videos, I saw this the other day while catching up older Broad City episodes: https://youtu.be/lJgM4_C3gvE?t=43s

It wasn't just Clinton's campaign that was awfully run, it was the whole DNC who screwed up by conspiring to make her the candidate.

Let's not forget the role "political data science" played, as well. You have an unlikable candidate in Clinton, a campaign strategy based on voting against Trump, voters debating whether to commit against Trump or to cast a protest vote lest Clinton gets a strong mandate...

...and the NYT and other newspapers run front-pages saying "Clinton 85% likely to win". I can't imagine a better recipe for fostering voter apathy and absenteeism.

Exactly. I keep saying the only person Trump could have beaten was Hillary. Unfortunately, she was the only other choice.

> awful candidate

less awful than the winner, so I doubt this is why she lost.

As a candidate she was more awful; while she had slighty lower unfavorables, they were much firmer.

Yes, she'd be far better actually doing the job, but it was clear to anyone with any knowledge of politics that she was the worst major party candidate, as a candidate, in a very long time.

I'm fairly certain that Sanders would have won against Trump.

Wisconsin would not have been sufficient. Neither would Wisconsin + Michigan.

Also, her victory was so overdetermined that about five things had to go wrong for her to lose. (Email investigation, flawed campaign, the last-minute Comey letter, probably Bernie making trouble for months after he was statistically eliminated but that's hard to tell, Russia intervention, bad electoral college distribution, probably some others I'm forgetting right now)

It's interesting that you refer to Bernie refusing to clear a path for her as "things going wrong". As if her coronation was expected and the path was supposed to be free of competition.

I think tough primary competition should be the norm, and she should have faced more than one strong challenger.

When you keep running without a path to victory you hurt the party. That was a fact when Hillary did it in 08 and a fact when Bernie did it in 16.

It hurt further because Bernie had an absurd cult of personality that Clinton did not have in 2016

Hillary rigged the DNC and tried to force herself on the American people, essentially leaving them with very little choice. I blame her for Trump more than anyone else.

There was a lawsuit against the DNC for their actions, unfortunately they were able to get the lawsuit dismissed by successfully arguing that they were within their rights to internally choose their own candidate regardless of their own election systems.

http://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wass...

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