For those hoping to understand why a seasoned political veteran like Hillary Clinton lost to a real estate mogul and reality TV star with little political experience, look no further than political reporters Jonathan Allen (Sidewire and Roll Call) and Amie Parnes (Hill Magazine) superb, well sourced, “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.”
Though there will always be serious questions raised if Vladimir Putin, WikiLeaks, and former FBI Director James Comey obstructed Hillary’s seemingly clear path to the White House, Allen and Parnes, after talking to a number of people with keen insight into Clinton’s campaign (almost exclusively on background) show that the former Secretary of State’s stunning loss could be attributed to her own self-inflicted errors, namely, putting her name to the Clinton Foundation, and making speeches to Wall Street Banks during a time of rising populism when her Republican opponent was promising to burn down the house or drain the swamp.
Most damaging of all, of course, were those “damn emails’’ and her home brewed private server, which raised serious (bordering on criminal) questions whether she was sharing classified government information on her private email account; an issue that dogged her right up until Election Day.
Beyond the self-inflicted wounds, Allen and Parnes make a convincing case that the Clinton campaign was never able to advance a compelling narrative over why she was running for president. “Hillary’s speeches,” the authors write, “lacked a connection to an idea higher than herself.”
The other malfunction in her campaign centered on a dysfunctional campaign staff with no clear ring leader like a James Carville or David Axelrod. There were competing factions within her campaign, all trying to win her favor (to secure their position in her administration) instead of trying to win an election and offering constructive tough love, which made Robby Mook’s (Hillary’s campaign manager) task that much tougher.
Arguably, the biggest oversight, which crippled her campaign was in the midst of gathering African American, Latinos, college educated whites, and women into her camp, she forgot about the working class whites in the suburbs and rural counties, who still felt the painful brunt of the Great Recession, which President Obama never resolved, making them feel alienated from her crusade.
White non-Hispanic voters preferred Trump over Clinton by 21 percentage points (58 percent to 37 percent), according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool.
Among whites, moreover, Trump won an overwhelming share of those without a college degree. According to the Pew Research Center, two-thirds (67 percent) of non-college whites cast their vote for Trump, compared with just 28 percent who supported Clinton, resulting in a 39-point advantage for Trump among this group.
Unquestionably, Bernie chipping away at her problematic ties to Wall Street (in a rigged system) and Comey with his hurricane like revelations of unfinished email investigations, inflicted a great deal of damaging scar tissue on the Democratic nominee.
Still, the authors make a point of noting that Hillary blamed Russia and Comey most of all for her loss, but would never take a hard look at herself and conclude her biggest failing: she never developed a narrative on why she should be president, other than it was her turn in line.
She was always too afraid to distance herself from Obama for fear of losing what was to her eyes--a rock solid coalition: African-Americans, Latinos, and women, leaving Sander's young idealistic progressives and working class whites in the dust.
--Bill Lucey
June 3, 2017
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