Clinton Ran A Good Campaign

Clinton Ran A Good Campaign

This will most likely be the most unpopular article I have ever written. Something I pride myself on though is being able to look at an event as objectively as I possibly can so that we can draw the proper lessons from it. Punditry has been unified in their opinion that Clinton ran a terrible campaign. I disagree. I think that Clinton maximized every single advantage she had. There were some things she could have done better but she was limited by other factors as well. The current groupthink only emerges because Clinton lost. If the reverse happened then they would all be saying Clinton ran a wonderful campaign and Trump a terrible one.

Loser

This brings us to the first point we have to address. If she ran such a good campaign then why did she lose? As a gamer (both computer and LCG/CCG) I know first hand that you can be a good player and have a good deck and still lose. In life there are times when you lose because the other player is just better. Clinton may have run a good campaign but Trump ran one of the best campaigns I have ever seen. Simple repeatable messages. Excellent branding of both himself and the opponent. Lastly marginalizing tactics his opponents could use against him. After all if you already know the mainstream media is biased against you then you call them fake news to turn people against them.

No Message

When you ask why Hillary Clinton was a failure the first answer people will give you is that her campaign had no message. What critics don't understand is that this is a feature not a bug. Hillary Clinton ran as the establishment candidate to the radical change presented by Trump. The establishment candidate is not supposed to have a revolutionary message. They are supposed to say that things are going fine and that the other guy is crazy for proposing the changes that he wants done. Which is exactly what her message was.

Hillary Clinton being who she was could not run as anything but the establishment candidate. To do otherwise would be like getting a card pool filled with burn spells but making a control deck out of it or running a control character like a tank in Dota. It just would not work. One of the most important things in a candidate is knowing what you can do well and what you cannot do well.

First you had her history and connections all over the political world. People would scream fake if she was presented as the change candidate. Second she was running as the third term of Obama. If she were to be a change candidate then she would have to criticize policies enacted by Obama. Anything she said in that regard would just be used by Trump who was running against Obama just as much as he was against Clinton. More importantly the liberal media just made the case for the past 8 years that anyone who dared criticize Obama was a racist. Clinton would have difficulty doing this.

Funding

Being the establishment candidate Clinton had an easier time raising funds than Trump did. She milked this advantage for all it was worth. At the end of the process Team Clinton was able to raise 1.6 billion dollars for her election while Team Trump only raised something like 600-700 million. I cannot recall any other presidential election in recent memory where one candidate had a 2:1 advantage over the other in funding. It is true that one party will usually have the advantage over the other like with Obama outraising Romney, but never to this extent.

People have tried to say this did not matter as all the media coverage Trump got gave him something like 9 billion in free advertising. What they do not say is that of his coverage multiple studies show that over 90% was negative. If you want to consider negative advertising as money raised for the candidate then anytime someone runs an attack ad the money used for that should be considered spent by his opponent.

Political Connections

Clinton also maximized her political connections. Lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, overwhelmingly wanted Clinton to win. This meant that major political figures did not attend the Republican National Convention or get involved in the Trump campaign. More importantly it also meant that they were able to threaten staff who used to help run Republican campaigns with being black listed for working with the campaign forcing Trump to rely on people who had gotten their experience in other countries like Manafort.

Beyond neutrality members of the Republican establishment even went over and above to help Clinton win. The Bush clan let it slip towards the end of the campaign that they would not be voting for Trump. The libertarian vice presidential candidate Weld went out and said he would only campaign in states that Trump was strong in like Georgia. Places which coincidentally the Clinton camp was trying to snipe. Most amazingly, the Republicans even ran a spoiler candidate in Mcmullin against their own guy.

Very few other candidates would have been able to achieve this much.

Last Word

I am not saying that Clinton made no mistakes. I think that she could have treated her left wing supporters better as she was trying to attract the center voters for example. While she did make mistakes she maximized every advantage that she could in ways no other establishment candidate was able to in the past.

If we are to learn anything from the 2016 election we have to give credit where credit is due. That is true for both Clinton and Trump.

 

The reason that Hillary lost isn't because she failed to get her message out.

She lost because she did.

 

I think at the opposite that she lost an easy campaign, if Trump was very popular among many people, he attracted a lot of antipathy. Clinton could have won in 2004 or 2008, but it seems that american people are tired of old politician.

 

Loser- Clinton lost because she didn't visit the rust belt states and showed a clear disregard for the white middle class.

No Message- You may be right. She didn't even try to create an original message though

funding- this actually hurts your argument the most, She had 2:1 advantage in money and still managed to loose

political connections- Republican lawmakers were less supportive of Hillary and more just anti-Trump. Again this also undermines your argument, if Clinton had both parties on her side, she should have easily won

 

its because trump ran an even better campaign that he was able to overcome.

If hillary had a **** campaign she would not be able to generate those advantages.

 

I'm not sure why people feel the need to keep rehashing the election. Hillary lost because the electoral system is rigged in favor of red, it's like she was playing a Standad deck against Trump's Modern deck.

Allan Lichtman, the history prof who predicted Trump's win when everyone thought that Hillary had it in the bag, was actually right for the wrong reason. His 13 questions predict the popular winner, and the questions simply assume that the popular winner will also be the electoral winner. But Hillary won the popular vote by millions, which means that she beat the odds -- just not by enough. I find it strange how rarely this gets pointed out -- even she's too busy taking responsibility for her loss to mention that she actually won the nation's support.

Sadly, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

 

Yup, based on the people I know who voted for Trump, there are two major reasons--1) that Trump is at least somewhat pro-life and 2) the deplorables comment. This election was Clinton's to lose, and she lost it. Trump didn't win so much as Hillary lost.

 

Oh please. The electoral system is rigged in favor of red? The 55 electoral votes from California are given over to the Dems automagically. That is a given. And the reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote? That's right: California. If California is allowed to decide things for the nation, we will never again have even the possibility of a Republican president. Thank God for the electoral system.

Agreed. The woman is exactly that bad, that she couldn't win even with the overwhelming support of a sitting president, the mainstream media, the Hollywood crowd, and the powerful Clinton political machine.

 

If only. No, without the electoral system the Republican party would simply moderate itself -- more catering to independents and the middle of the political spectrum, less pandering to the increasingly rabid right extreme of the nation. You know, like the Democrats do, and like the centrist political process which our Founding Fathers intended.

So yes, and you're welcome. The voting power of smaller usually-red states is out of proportion with their population, and the more prevalent gerrymandering in red states gives any Republican candidate for the White House a distinct advantage. The game is rigged in their favor, the field is tilted away from their endzone, whatever metaphor you prefer.

It's no coincidence that twice now in the past 5 elections, a Republican has lost the popular vote but won the White House thanks to our rigged system.

I can't imagine how all this fantasizing about Hillary being so terribad that she lost the electoral college reconciles with the fact that she did in fact win the voters' support.

Oh well, haters gonna hate.

 

You want to discuss the rigging of the system? How about having the census, the basis on which our representation is determined, counting people in the country illegally when performing that function? Yeah, the game is being rigged all right, and in ways you'd prefer not be discussed. No coincidence that California wants to attract as many illegals into the state to bolster its status as a Dem stronghold, and provide those who enjoy insisting that the views of a state like California are the only legitimate views in the United States. As a CBS News article states: Clinton’s entire popular vote margin, for example, is less than her overall margin of victory in California (which she won by more than 4 million votes). So yeah, complain all you want about a candidate having to do well in portions of the country other than California. I say again: thank God for the electoral system.

 

All campaigns make mistakes. Clinton admits she did as well.

What most campaigns don't have to deal with is the following

Free Media coverage for the opponent...who was so outrageous that the "reality star" aspect pulled the media in...
Comey's letter right before the election
Russian /Facebook interference...which colored Clinton in a "vaguely" and dishonest light

Remove the Comey letter and the Russian/Facebook interference...and she probably DOES win

 

In what world is a campaign with no message a good campaign? That like a sailboat with no sail being called a well sailed ship.

 

The only stacked deck was the DNC primaries.

 

Clinton had plenty of "message". In fact it was generally so detailed that people clicked off. They like short pithy easily digested sound bites. Ya know like Trump's nonsense.

What you call "no message" was stuff YOU didn't want to hear and was too detailed for our "reality world" media

 

What was her message? All I heard was Trump's a monster, vote for me.

 

As they say in court... "Facts not in evidence". You might as well have said: "remove the illegal use of her private email service" or "remove the history of her making outlandish hateful disparaging comments about the little folk" or any number of other "if only Hillary didn't want to kill all puppies" comments.

Hillary, thankfully, never wins. She's the rube they throw out there because her ego and her hubris are so great she will fight away no matter how stupid it makes her look personally.

Listen to her interview from NPR. There were so many self contradictory comments as to make a schizophrenic's head spin.

 

Hillary ran a slightly below average campaign. What masked that fact are several variables:

1). She had an absolutely boatload of money.

2). She had the unquestioning alliance of the MSM, who even downplayed the DNCs rampant internal corruption evidenced by sabotaging Bernie Sanders (largely because internal DNC polling demonstrated that Sanders could not have beaten Trump regardless of the wailing heard from Sandies), and who looked the other way regarding her obvious health/mental issues.

3). DNC grassroots is stronger than than Trump's, partly due to the internal schism in the GOP regarding Trump getting the nomination.

She can never be considered to have run a good campaign, because a good campaign never takes things for granted with such wanton disregard as they did regarding Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

And - in fact - a bad candidate can run a good campaign and still lose. Hillary was a bad candidate; as bad as any I can remember or have read about.

 

ROFLCOPTERS.

You really know you're dealing with a prog when they complain that the MSM was in any way pro-Trump.

Own this: The MSM was historically in the bag for Hillary. The only reason that you can legitimately unfavorably compare Hillary's positive MSM coverage to any other DNC candidate is because Obama created goosebumps in MSM/leftist flesh in an unprecedented manner, but the fact is that Hillary had so many flaws that an MSM even forced to acknowledge any of them as a result of Trump's manipulation of the rent-free spaces in their heads made their coverage appear to be less favorable than Obama's.

But let's be real: the MSM was Hillary all the way.

 

So even by your estimation she ran a (roughly) average campaign...but lost the electoral college convincingly.

Something else clearly was going on...

 

That's what YOU heard

 

Clinton ran a horrible game. She didn't run as an establishment candidate. She just was the establishment candidate. She ran as the "It's my turn and I am smarter than you, so I don't really need to campaign and the only question is how big is my landslide going to be" candidate. She took narcissism to a new level with that one.

 

Thanks for the opinion of a Clinton hater

 

Apparently that's what most of America heard too. Clinton had two messages though in reality. Number one was Trump's bad vote for me. Number two was more of the same so the election in that sense was a referendum on Obama.

 

The campaign was against a private sector self-made successful person running against the democratic establishment wife of an ex-president. Hillary ran an effective campaign and almost won like many establishment candidates who coast to an easy victory. But when people asked themselves "Who is Hillary?" then she lost the important votes.

 

The Russian ATTEMPTS at interference were intentionally overlooked by President Obama and the Democrats called him out for it. If this Russia nonsense is true, then Obama is in a world of trouble. Hillary herself has been known to collude with Russia so none of that should come as a surprise to you.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/25/adam-schiff-obama-russian-hack-election-trump

Oh well, Hillary's gone and the dems have no leadership.