Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

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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.

> 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.

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.

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