How Clinton lost Michigan and blew the election

[geek tragedy]

If one is looking for what the party needs to need better, this is a vital while also infuriating read.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/michigan-hillary-clinton-trump-232547

Everybody could see Hillary Clinton was cooked in Iowa. So when, a week-and-a-half out, the Service Employees International Union started hearing anxiety out of Michigan, union officials decided to reroute their volunteers, giving a desperate team on the ground around Detroit some hope.

They started prepping meals and organizing hotel rooms.

SEIU — which had wanted to go to Michigan from the beginning, but been ordered not to — dialed Clinton’s top campaign aides to tell them about the new plan. According to several people familiar with the call, Brooklyn was furious.

Turn that bus around, the Clinton team ordered SEIU. Those volunteers needed to stay in Iowa to fool Donald Trump into competing there, not drive to Michigan, where the Democrat’s models projected a 5-point win through the morning of Election Day.

More:

The anecdotes are different but the narrative is the same across battlegrounds, where Democratic operatives lament a one-size-fits-all approach drawn entirely from pre-selected data — operatives spit out “the model, the model,” as they complain about it — guiding Mook’s decisions on field, television, everything else. That’s the same data operation, of course, that predicted Clinton would win the Iowa caucuses by 6 percentage points (she scraped by with two-tenths of a point), and that predicted she’d beat Bernie Sanders in Michigan (he won by 1.5 points).

More:

Most importantly, multiple operatives said, the Clinton campaign dismissed what’s known as in-person “persuasion” — no one was knocking on doors trying to drum up support for the Democratic nominee, which also meant no one was hearing directly from voters aside from voters they’d already assumed were likely Clinton voters, no one tracking how feelings about the race and the candidates were evolving. This left no information to check the polling models against — which might have, for example, showed the campaign that some of the white male union members they had expected to be likely Clinton voters actually veering toward Trump — and no early warning system that the race was turning against them in ways that their daily tracking polls weren’t picking up.

More:

Nor did Brooklyn ask for help from some people who’d been expecting the call. Sanders threw himself into campaign appearances for Clinton throughout the fall, but familiar sources say the campaign never asked the Vermont senator’s campaign aides for help thinking through Michigan, Wisconsin or anywhere else where he had run strong.It was already November when the campaign finally reached out to the White House to get President Barack Obama into Michigan, a state that he’d worked hard and won by large margins in 2008 and 2012. On the Monday before Election Day, Obama added a stop in Ann Arbor, but that final weekend, the president had played golf on Saturday and made one stop in Orlando on Sunday, not having been asked to do anything else. Michigan senior adviser Steve Neuman had been asking for months to get Obama and the first lady on the ground there. People who asked for Vice President Joe Biden to come in were told that top Clinton aides weren’t clearing those trips.

[rzemanfl]

1. No. This.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bigger-than-watergate-concerns-grow-that-anti-clinton_us_5850bb12e4b0b662c2fddebc

[geek tragedy]

2. we can't learn from mistakes if we can't acknowledge them nt

[rzemanfl]

17. Can't win a batting title if the umpire calls balls strikes to help

someone else, no matter how good a hitter you might be.

[geek tragedy]

20. good hitters adjust to umpires' strike zones.

some things are in our control, others aren't

Clinton's campaign screwed up plenty that was in its control.

[stopbush]

38. Doesn't work if the pitch sails 10 feet over the backstop

and it's still called a strike.

[geek tragedy]

40. first step is always to do the best we can

Clinton was undone by a number of strategic failings, including an excessive reliance on data crunching without enough emphasis on collecting quality data, or in the actual human elements of campaigning.

They thought they could win the campaign from 36,000 feet in the air.

But for Comey et al, they still might have. But it's also true that this election was winnable even with Comey et al.

[zentrum]

97. That's exactly true.

Could have withstood Comey et al by having voter turn out if they'd run a better campaign.

Maybe Dean, or some one like him, would have been able to do a more insightful, closer to the ground, tuned-in, job.

[geek tragedy]

110. 2004 Howard Dean would have done a better job.

I think fresh, new leadership needs to be constantly rotating in from the grassroots, local level.

[zentrum]

136. Couldn't agree more.

Was just inwardly imagining how much better shape the DNC would be in if they'd let Dean run it since 2004 instead of acing him out.

We would have had 12 years of local year-round offices recruiting candidates and staying in touch with neighborhoods.

Dems have a real window of opportunity here if they will take the right lesson from this debacle. Need new faces and a new model.

[lapucelle]

191. Many Democrats were urging Obama to replace DWS as early as autumn 2015,

including the Clinton camp.

Obama's inaction this year on DWS, filling the vacant Supreme Court seat, and reigning in the politicized FBI has been damaging beyond measure.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/debbie-wasserman-schultz-dnc-226100

[zentrum]

197. Can't count the number

…..of times friends and I have talked late into the night trying to figure out many of Obama's decisions and non-decisions.

Really hope he takes some important Executive actions before leaving office including appointing Garland.

[rzemanfl]

152. Thank you for pointing that out so I didn't have to. n/t

[okieinpain]

45. thank you, when i heard that people were warning

them and were ignored that is a perfect storm to get your ass kicked.

[Lithos]

113. The old expression

"The harder I work, the luckier I am" applies well (and to your point).

But you also have to have humility to recognize you always need to keep pushing. Your OP suggests this was definitely missing in the campaign (note: I did not say anything about Hillary - just the campaign).

L-

[geek tragedy]

123. run/play like you're 20 points down seems to be a good rule

for most every competitive context.

[Demsrule86]

200. There is much evidence of cheating in Michigan...the election results are a mess and yet

you ignore that inconvenient fact in order to cast blame on Hillary who won the popular vote by about three millions...why?

[rzemanfl]

203. I don't think you are talking to me, but are addressing the OP. n/t

[exboyfil]

3. Still lost Pennsylvania as well

[geek tragedy]

6. I would bet many of the same failings from Michigan were replicated in PA and WI. nt

[dsc]

9. obama and Hillary went to PA over and over again

so they may have felt ignored but that would be like my feeling I look like Brad Pitt.

[geek tragedy]

12. they went to Philly and Pittsburgh, nt

[pstokely]

189. did they ever go outside of those places?

?

[geek tragedy]

195. not that I'm aware of, not with any frequency nt

[jalan48]

4. Oops. That didn't work out well.

[Botany]

5. No, having 150,000 votes taken away from Clinton lost Michigan

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512655215

[rurallib]

14. I'd put my money on that explanation.

[texasmomof3]

23. We can continue to scream....

that the election was stolen or we can sit back and digest what voters said out loud with their vote whether we agree with them or not. Once we understand why they voted that way it gives us the ability to start where they are an in once voice educate them over the next four years. We don't have to agree and we don't have to understand but we MUST know this.....they get to vote again in 4 years. Unless we give them answers to their frustrations (again whether we agree or not) the same thing will happen.

[Botany]

25. Bullshit. Count the vote and HRC won the electoral college too.

She is + 3 million in the popular vote and 3.8 million votes were ripped from her
nationally in targeted states. The other side had a huge % of their voters being
spoon fed "hillary/liberal hate" by Russia and its fake news operation.

[Yurovsky]

28. Show some proof... Team Hillary screwed the pooch...

thumbing your nose at the Midwest (and that's POC as well as white blue-collar folk) will guarantee Trump gets re-elected in 4 years, as much as that pains me to say it.

It wasn't a conspiracy. It wasn't Putin or the Easter Bunny or Fake News or Comey.

Team Clinton didn't tend their garden in the Midwest & PA. Making excuses is for losers. Fixmwhats broken& kick ass in 2018 & 2020. Or continue to point fingers, cry, and bemoan the unfairness of it all. I say fuck that shit and let's get busy winning, because losing sucks.

[Botany]

30. here you go

Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.

The system, called Crosscheck, is detailed in my Rolling Stone report,
“The GOP’s Stealth War on Voters,” 8/24/2016.

Crosscheck in action:
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922

Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257
Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824

Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393

On Tuesday, we saw Crosscheck elect a Republican Senate and as President, Donald Trump. The electoral putsch was aided by nine other methods of attacking the right to vote of Black, Latino and Asian-American voters, methods detailed in my book and film, including “Caging,” “purging,” blocking legitimate registrations, and wrongly shunting millions to “provisional” ballots that will never be counted.

Trump signaled the use of “Crosscheck” when he claimed the election is “rigged” because “people are voting many, many times.” His operative Kobach, who also advised Trump on building a wall on the southern border, devised a list of 7.2 million “potential” double voters—1.1 million of which were removed from the voter rolls by Tuesday. The list is loaded overwhelmingly with voters of color and the poor.

******
BTW I worked for HRC in OH so the idea she thumbed her nose at the Midwest is bullshit

[jonno99]

59. Interesting. Have you seen any reports of voters whose name was purged and were unable to vote? nt

[Botany]

66. One of the sick things behind "cross check" was that in some cases people could vote

.... but they didn't know that their vote would not be counted.

[jonno99]

70. How would that happen? If I go down to vote, they check that my name is on the registration

roles, and if it is, I get my ballot.

If my name was cross-checked off the registration roles, I would expect that that I would NOT get a ballot.

At that point I might pitch a fit, but in the end I re-register and vote.

I'm curious how often it happened - how often did someone show up to vote only to find that they were no longer registered?

[Botany]

90. If your name was removed from the poll book you would get a provisional ballot ....

.... and not unless your were told and then you did the follow up work that ballot would
not be counted but you would think that you voted.

Beth Clarkson has done some very good work showing that machines and tabulators
have been dumping votes as a function of population size for years.

BTW you can not re-register to vote on election day or weeks before the elections.

In OH I have seen cases of long time voters who have voted for years at the same
precinct and lived in their same home for years show up and their name has been
removed from the voter roles (rolls?).

[LovingA2andMI]

137. Umm...

Michigan had it's nose thumbed at point...blank....period as it was assumed she would win the state by 5 points. And Clinton did not visit or host a rally in Detroit the three weeks prior to election day. We live in Michigan and volunteered -- so we know.

Election issues aside in Michigan and there were many, she should have worked the ground HARDER HERE, period.

[Yurovsky]

196. Thank you...

I think they could have won Michigan by 100,000 if they'd not wasted time and money in states they didn't need.

And for the record, the Trump camp let it be known that the Midwest was their target to win the EC. so why not work the Midwest and turn out your base? Just because the Democrats had won WI, PA, & MI for multiple GE cycles was no guarantee they'd win it again. But the arrogance of people like Robby Mook - who believed he was smarter than Bill Clinton - led the Democrats right over the damn cliff and got Trump elected. I don't give 2 shits about winning the popular vote. It means nothing if you don't win the 270 required electoral votes.

And Trump's brain trust figured this out and beat Team Hillary on half the budget. That might be the worst example of a campaign team shitting the bed in my lifetime. I don't want excuses, I want results. Losers make excuses, winners get inaugurated. And I'll be damned if I'm going to watch another Democratic presidential campaign team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory due to their own arrogance and stupidity. I'm not going to play nice with the idiots that screwed this up, I want them held accountable. If we don't, we can expect this nightmare to recur every 4 years until we clean house.

[LovingA2andMI]

199. K/R!!!

As In This Right-On-Point Reply!!

[StevieM]

73. She campaigned regularly in Pennsylvania and Ohio. (eom)

[Botany]

174. i worked for Clinton in OH

Albeit on election day (election protection stuff) but I was in touch w/the
campaign and the idea that Hillary did not work in the midwest is pure
bullshit.

What did work for Trump was:

Cross Check

Russian hacking and fake news stories

Comey

and the media.

[texasmomof3]

165. You are missing the bigger picture...

Do we want to always be counting on the right electors in the right states or do we want to actually change minds so that we never have to count on recounts, courts, judges, electors etc ever again. Wouldn't it be great to outright win? The other thing you have missed is that it wasn't just that Hillary lost. In the last 8 years we have lost on every level from local to the white house. There is a problem. You can admit it and work towards it or you can continue to bitch about a vote count.

[Crunchy Frog]

198. Why isn't she fighting for the votes that were stolen from her?

That in itself is an indictment of her campaign.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

52. Let them vote against us again in 4 years

Incoming youth + outgoing elderly + No EMAILS, Comey (let's hope) + outreach to get people oppressed by voter restriction IDs/registered + Trump idiocracy = Election is a lock. We only lost the college by 85k

We don't need Trumps base. We don't want them.

[Crunchy Frog]

176. Elections are never a lock.

Without hard work and good strategizing, you can always manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. I just hope our party finally figures this out before it's too late.

And we should want any voters we can possibly get, without compromising our principles. There will likely be many disillusioned former Trump voters, and it would be the height of idiocy for the party to actively drive them away, or tell them we don't want them.

[uponit7771]

81. Your theory is a guess at best, Comey, Voter suppression and Russia are NOT guess's

[SunSeeker]

89. Exactly. nt

[texasmomof3]

166. Except that it isn't just a white house loss....

We have been loosing seats at every level from dog catcher to the white house for the last 8 years. I assure you that has very little to do with Comey, russians or voter suppression. There is a systematic problem with how were are framing our ideas. They are good ones. They just aren't being communicated as effectively as we clearly need then to be.

[okieinpain]

46. yeah but she only lost by 10,000 votes. that is something

she could have fixed but they ignored the warnings so they could play head games with kelly anne and bannon. guess who won that one.

[PoliticAverse]

56. How close the election actually was seems to not have been grokked by many posters...

in threads like this.

They seem fixated on "she won by so many votes" rather than the reality of she lost by so little
a small change in strategy could have made the difference.

[ZoomBubba]

127. That's how I've been seeing it too ...

In a couple of states it came to less than 10,000 votes. We should focus on what the small change needs to be as getting back 10,000 votes in Michigan is more important than 10,000 voters who may go Green in California because they don't like the small adjustment.

[bettyellen]

7. Someone sounds pissed they didn't ask Sanders opinion....

Lot of bruised ego in that piece.
Not using Obama as much as they could have? highly doubt that. Seems like people on the outside Monday morning quarterbacking.

[geek tragedy]

10. they didn't ask anyone's opinion

not even swing voters.

there is science showing in-person contact is the most effective means of persuasion in political campaigns.

So this is pure, arrogant incompetence:

Most importantly, multiple operatives said, the Clinton campaign dismissed what’s known as in-person “persuasion” — no one was knocking on doors trying to drum up support for the Democratic nominee, which also meant no one was hearing directly from voters aside from voters they’d already assumed were likely Clinton voters, no one tracking how feelings about the race and the candidates were evolving. This left no information to check the polling models against — which might have, for example, showed the campaign that some of the white male union members they had expected to be likely Clinton voters actually veering toward Trump — and no early warning system that the race was turning against them in ways that their daily tracking polls weren’t picking up.

[citood]

33. There were a few 'gotcha' videos

During the campaign, where a GOP operative would take a hidden camera into a campaign office. Ignoring the purpose of their video, I could not help but notice that these offices were not exactly 'bustling' with campaign activity.

My conclusion was that the campaign relied heavily on TV and radio advertising (she had a huge financial advantage here, so it would be a natural choice), but didn't seem to do as much 'in person' politicking as past campaigns.

[geek tragedy]

36. they fell in love with technology and data analysis without recognizing the inherent

limitations

[citood]

41. True...but...

I remember the pundits marveling in 2012 at how well data analysis had helped the campaign target its GOTV efforts in crucial counties in FL.

I can see why they had confidence in the concept.

But, having said that, I also remember Romney's GOTV software went FUBAR on election day...which should have been a red flag.

[geek tragedy]

43. Obama embraced the person to person contacts and persuasion

He won Michigan by fighting for it, not trying for a head fake.

Data can be a useful tool--Obama integrated it into his campaign. Clinton placed blind faith in it.

[HoneyBadger]

77. I campaigned for Hillary in Philly

Knocked on over 100 doors, spoke to to 30 families in the worst place that I have ever set foot in, and got them to vote. Not sure why this was not done everywhere. My brother, independent in NYC, got 3-4 phone bank calls a day from Trump and never anything from Hillary. The ground game baffles me.

[bettyellen]

134. I'd love to see stats on that, as I know people who knocked on doors and was asked to bus to a swing

State at least four weekends in a row to knock on doors. I did phone calls instead but I know it's a lie to say no one walked door to door.
I'd love some honest info o how it was different for past campaign but this piece isn't totally honest from what I can see.

[emulatorloo]

169. Agreed, that paragraph is total bullshit.

i wish every field coordinator and volunteer could see that paragraph. They would be furious at reading that nonsense, as I am now..

[emulatorloo]

167. I knocked doors in Iowa. As did many others. I call bullshit on this 'arrogant' article.

Lots of in person persuasion going on. Excellent field coordinator who knew exactly what she was doing.

Yes, I know this is anecdotal, but I believe this paragraph from the article is full of bullshit.

P.S. Comey effect. She was ahead. Comey letter took her down in the polls and she never recovered.

[mcar]

177. No one was knocking on doors?

I highly doubt that.

[pkdu]

53. ... THIS...

[guillaumeb]

8. I was listening to Greg Palast yesterday.

He talked about voting machines breaking down in Detroit and Flint, and the fact that many thousands of votes were not counted in Detroit and Flint.

He also talked about cross check and its effect.

This is simply in addition to what was pointed out here.

[Else You Are Mad]

11. Exactly.

Every critism of Hillary (that is not crackpot in nature) influenced why Hillary lost. It was her campaign's ignorance in how to compete against a populist, her alienating of working class voters, the fact to what Palast said yesterday about the election fraud. It was not just any one of them, it was the perfect storm of all aspects.

Every influence needs to be discussed, understood and not ignored.

[guillaumeb]

13. Exactly.

In the religion group, there was a recent post to the effect that Trump should thank Catholics for the election. As if Catholics were uniquely responsible for Clinton's loss.

[Else You Are Mad]

18. This Catholic voted for Hillary.

Catholics are usually Catholics in name only compared to the other Christian religions. I went through 16 years of Catholic education and there is an even split between liberals and conservatives because it is, from my personal experience, more of a cultural group then a religion for most of the Catholics I have met.

[guillaumeb]

44. And the split of voting echoes what you say here.

Trump won the Catholic vote 52-47. And that does not count the 41% who did not vote. Many subsets of voters seem to echo this split.

[ismnotwasm]

117. That is most likely single issue abortion voters

Hillary's loss had many factors including ground game mistakes. I ignore --mostly --any OP that dismisses that

[guillaumeb]

119. It could be. Catholics are divided on the question of abortion and contraception.

And agreed on the many factor argument.

It was not one factor, it was a combination of GOP tactics to suppress the vote, and divide the electorate, and non-participation, and combined these things allowed Trump to win just enough votes in just the right states to win. And I would argue that the just enough and the right states were caused by the GOP illegally changing and/or preventing the votes.

At JPR the focus is all on Clinton's message and what are described as her various fatal flaws, but her supposedly fatal flaws and deficient message would have won absent GOP lawbreaking.

[ismnotwasm]

122. Exactly

While I agree with analyzing--we do have a lot work to do, I tire of simplistic finger pointing, and I abhors anyone who dismisses so called "identity politics" i.e. Racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-senitism etc.

especially when "white rust belt voters" are as "identity politics" as you can get.

[guillaumeb]

125. Interesting also that what is called "identity politics"

seems to depend on promoting one particular identity to the exclusion of all others.

[ismnotwasm]

133. Yup

A sad, sorry state of affairs, although I see signs of claiming to be "anti-racist" coming back into vogue. Which kills me because it's not a damn fashion statement

[mtnsnake]

15. The fact that she lost to Bernie in Michigan should've thrown up a red flag the size of Texas

that was big enough for anyone in Brooklyn to see.

[jonno99]

63. +1 nt

[putitinD]

130. +2

[HoneyBadger]

80. No more Brooklyn

I think that whomever runs in 2020 needs their headquarters to be in a swing state. What exactly was the point of concentrating your talent where the outcome is certain?

[Ken Burch]

185. Excellent question.

n/t.

[Chitown Kev]

186. Depends on the swing state

Obama HQ was out of Chicago, which was ideal for working the Rust Belt and nearby from Minnesota to Missouri to Pennsylvania.

A Massachusetts HQ may not have been the best thing for Romney, though...so it all depends

[Midwestern Democrat]

193. Presidential candidates almost always have their headquarters in their home state - to do otherwise

looks very transparent and contrived and also gives off the appearance of ingratitude to the candidate's home state (in 2012, everybody laughed at Jon Huntsman first setting up his headquarters in Orlando, Florida and then moving it to Manchester, NH - how nakedly transparent is that?) All of the five previous Democratic nominees had their campaign headquarters in their home state:

1988 Dukakis Boston; 1992 Clinton Little Rock; 2000 Gore Nashville; 2004 Kerry Boston; 2008 Obama Chicago

[LovingA2andMI]

139. Exactly....

+3 --- Bernie worked the ground HARD in Michigan for his Primary win and Clinton should have done the same -- instead of ignoring the state in the last three weeks prior too election.

[ehrnst]

178. No one was more surprised than Bernie. He seemed confused by it.

However, at this point, we don't really know if Hillary actually lost Michigan.

Also, the 3 million that Bernie lost to Hillary by was more than a red flag.

[Baitball Blogger]

16. Note to the DNC.

Get the fucking election machines updated or upgraded in the battle states so we don't have to listen to the same fucking post-election laments!

[BobbyDrake]

19. Is this a serious post? For real?

The STATE controls the voting machines, not the DNC. For fuck's sake, this "blame the DNC for everything" mentality around here has officially jumped the shark!

[Baitball Blogger]

42. They can sue. Read the lawsuits in the Bush v Gore fiasco.

Gore got docked because he only asked for recounts in three counties. The legal reasoning was that he wasn't being fair by asking recounts in all of them. The ultimate logic was that voters weren't being treated equally. So you sue the states for disenfranchising voters because the states are knowingly running elections with faulty machines. And when the court ruling forces the state to update them, THAT's when the donation money collected by the DNC can be donated to protect Democratic votes in the precincts where we're losing Democratic votes due to the faulty machines.

BTW, we learned back in 2000 that, in Florida, the Democratic precincts were using older machines that have a higher percentage of errors, than the Republican precincts. Yes, they were using different technology. I don't know if that situation has changed, which means that Democratic precincts are still losing important votes in Florida.

So, I don't want to hear Democratic leaders lamenting the loss of an election by 20 or 30 thousand votes in a state we should have won, when they could have garnered a win if they had been proactive.

Think about this. Republicans are purging Democratic voters with little push back and we are losing votes because Democratic precincts have faulty machines. No offense, but I think we know who is at fault here.

[BobbyDrake]

55. Political parties don't provide voting machines. Anywhere. nt

[Baitball Blogger]

76. Omigod!

Last edited Wed Dec 14, 2016, 03:57 PM - Edit history (1)

I spell out the entire thing to you and you still refuse to see it. They can SUE for equality! When the State is forced by the courts to upgrade their machines they will probably yell poor mouth. The DNC can ensure that they do not avoid their responsibilities by donating the money!

Jesus. How much easier can this be. Maybe we're trapped in this cycle because nobody can think outside the box. SUE, SUE, SUE. The rest will become obvious.

[BobbyDrake]

98. And I've spelled out to you how parties don't pay for equipment.

Not sure why it's not sinking in yet. You just seem to want any excuse to blame the DNC somehow, which maybe makes you feel good but accomplishes nothing.

[Baitball Blogger]

155. The DNC is always collecting money for something. And when you finally contribute,

it goes into a kitty you weren't even aware was even proposed. For example, I donated just before the final election, thinking the ad was a generic kitty for commercials, and it ends up on my financial statement as Hillary Clinton's victory fund. How the hell did that happen.

Look it, unless you work for the DNC, your opinion is just an opinion.

If anyone wants to find an answer out of our predicament, my suggestion is to sue the states that are still using antiquated machines. If not the DNC, then someone who wants to take over the vacuum in leadership that we presently are experiencing.

[BobbyDrake]

158. Of course you have a great idea that just needs someone else to pay for it.

How stereotypically progressive of you.

[Baitball Blogger]

162. Excuse me? Did you fail to notice that I do contribute?

Of course you did, and by the way, this IS the 2016 Postmortem forum where progressives can discuss what went wrong during the 2016 election. I haven't said anything that would have alarmed another progressive, IMO.

As I pointed out, the problem is that the DNC has run out of ideas. If they are not willing to think outside the box, we need another organization to step up and try something new. Because, there is no reason for us to pump money into political campaigns for candidates who can't get elected based on the sloppy vote counting due to faulty machines.

Does that make sense to you? I'll break it down further, in case I'm going too fast: Why are we donating money into political campaigns, when votes our bleeding out at the election ballot level? You just don't send good money after bad.

[BobbyDrake]

164. More of the same "someone else has to do all the work for this idea I had!" claptrap.

The DNC may be flawed, but that's because it's made up of people. People aren't perfect, but most of us try our best, rather than standing on the sides, doing nothing and criticizing anyone else for trying. Whatever alternative organization you come up with (assuming you can stop telling everyone about how you know everything and must always be correct, absent any qualifying evidence, long enough to attract more support outside of your core Purity Circle and form it in the first place) is going to be flawed the same way, and for the same reason.

Because let's be honest: if you were going to do the hard work, you'd be doing it, instead of wasting time tearing down all the other Democrats who are doing the work. But you're not, so....

[Baitball Blogger]

171. If you want to waste your time with a system that has proven to be inefficient, that is your

calling. But think about what it is you are settling for. Democratic candidates have to sell themselves to the voters; they have to convince them that they are good managers and are capable of running an efficient organization. Do you think the DNC does that for them? Hell no. Quite the opposite. It always comes down to a few votes lost in a battle state that could have been won if it weren't for the bleed-out due to antiquated or faulty machines. If they were running a business, they wouldn't last long.

The same problem year after year. So, in sum, if the Democratic organizations showed more leadership, it wouldn't be difficult to find more bell ringers or phone bank callers.

[HoneyBadger]

83. The broken machine this is interesting since I doubt that they were working during the primaries

If they could be identified as broken months before, they can be fixed.

[former9thward]

54. Is your post serious?

The COUNTIES control voting machines not the State. Many counties, especially in the urban areas like Detroit, are controlled by Democrats. So yes, if there are issues, the DNC has a responsibility to act where they can.

[BobbyDrake]

58. Except the DNC doesn't control or direct county-level activity.

And certainly does not provide private funding for public equipment.

Another losing "blame the DNC (because even progressives need an "Other" to demonize, apparently)" argument.

[LovingA2andMI]

140. Actually, in Michigan...

The Secretary of State Control the Voting Machines with are distributed to County Clerks and then, Local Clerks. At that point, the Local Clerk is responsible for machines and collaborations of the machine, along with notifying the County and State if the Machines are having issues.

[Else You Are Mad]

21. Fuck getting them updated.

Let's get rid of every type of voting machines and go back to paper ballots only.

[jonno99]

68. This. I like the system we use in my precinct. We have a big stiff paper ballot where

will fill in the circles for the folks we're voting for. That paper gets scanned into a machine for easy counting - as well as storage & security. Then, if there is a question, it is easy enough to rescan the whole lot.

This election cycle has me baffled - it shouldn't be this hard. Not given the technology we have.

[Else You Are Mad]

72. It is intentionally hard.

And, it was made intentionally hard by the right wing. If any other nation had our utterly insane, state-by-state rules, the US would be calling for UN observers to ensure that there are no irregularities.

[Baitball Blogger]

79. This is the system the Republican counties use in Florida.

[jonno99]

82. The system I mentioned? Ok, but we are deep blue here in my area...nt

[TheFrenchRazor]

183. yep; there absolutely needs to be all paper ballots, all hand-counted. will never happen

though, because the PTB like it this way.

[BeyondGeography]

22. The defective machine was in Brooklyn

Major problem with the chief engineer as well.

[geek tragedy]

24. Plenty of blame to go around for this shitbacle.

Quite frankly, the Clinton campaign seemed less focused on a scientific approach as finding excuses to avoid the nitty-gritty, unglamorous aspects of running a campaign.

The below excerpts are really stunning--given that there's pretty good science that in-person contact is by far the most effective means of persuasion.

From the day Clinton released her launch video, the campaign knew she’d struggle with enthusiasm. Yet they didn’t do many of the things voters are used to seeing to give a sense of momentum, insisting that votes didn’t come from campaign literature, door knocking, commitment to vote cards or the standard program of sending absentee ballot applications to likely voters rather than just appealing to the people once they’d already ordered the ballots.

...

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

...

The only metric that people involved in the operations say they ever heard headquarters interested in was how many volunteer shifts had been signed up — though the volunteers were never given the now-standard handheld devices to input the responses they got in the field, and Brooklyn mandated that they not worry about data entry. Operatives watched packets of real-time voter information piled up in bins at the coordinated campaign headquarters. The sheets were updated only when they got ripped, or soaked with coffee. Existing packets with notes from the volunteers, including highlighting how much Trump inclination there was among some of the white male union members the Clinton campaign was sure would be with her, were tossed in the garbage.

...

Most importantly, multiple operatives said, the Clinton campaign dismissed what’s known as in-person “persuasion” — no one was knocking on doors trying to drum up support for the Democratic nominee, which also meant no one was hearing directly from voters aside from voters they’d already assumed were likely Clinton voters, no one tracking how feelings about the race and the candidates were evolving. This left no information to check the polling models against — which might have, for example, showed the campaign that some of the white male union members they had expected to be likely Clinton voters actually veering toward Trump — and no early warning system that the race was turning against them in ways that their daily tracking polls weren’t picking up.

[Boxerfan]

26. Your concern....

Is very concerning...

Too

Ridiculous

Out

Loud

Laughing

[geek tragedy]

27. some of us take winning elections as a very serious task that requires we do everything

we can to do the best job we can.

[Boxerfan]

32. Yes- Like ignoring the Russian hacks

And the obvious influence- Far more substantial than Michigan-and also ignore the voter role purges & no paper trail Diabold machines....

Blame the Hillary campaign.

No reality in your concern.

[geek tragedy]

34. Not about blame, it's about recognizing mistakes

so we can learn from them.

Do you think NFL teams spend hours reviewing video just looking for bad calls from the refs?

[Else You Are Mad]

51. Well, I hate to inform you.

The Hillary campaign lost due to their poor campaigning in swing states. If you think it was just the fault of the boogeyman Russians, you don't understand how poorly Hillary campaigned in the swing states she lost.

Did the Russians personally stop Hillary from campaigning in Michigan or did she decide that herself? Did the Russians go to every blue collar household that voted for Obama in 08 and 12 and blackmailed them to vote for Trump or did Hillary not win over their votes like Obama did?

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

61. t. He doesn't understand what information warfare is

Hindsight is 20/20. Hillary campaigned in Michigan. It just wasn't effective. Propaganda isn't something so easily cut through by a good public speaker. The "campaigning" our political arena was used to was a negative feedback loop and only fed Trump. "Get out and vote" initiatives ignited his base.

This election was out of control and couldn't be won by a politician or political campaign. It was a reality tv show. Hillary should've hired the Kardashian producer.

[Else You Are Mad]

74. Maybe we should hire Trump in 2020...

Because we all know he knows how to appeal to the dumb downed Americans and he has no morals, he just cares about money.

[HoneyBadger]

88. Are you saying that Hillary never could have won?

That seems wrong. How many endorsements were there, how much money, how many volunteers, how many buses? There were days when I would see 30-40 Hillary buses on the road. Trump funded his campaign with hats. He could barely get any GOP endorsements. A little tweaking would have made a difference. I think that having the campaign headquarters in Michigan would have made a difference.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

92. She could've won

But she by no means had a campaign that was lacking by our current standards. She had a great campaign. Sure she could've directly met with every single demographic that we lost in the 2016 election, but we had no way of knowing that we would lose them. The evidence is only glaring in hindsight.

[Midwestern Democrat]

194. Honestly, I think Trump is the only reason why we had any chance at all.

The Trump campaign was a chaotic mess and the candidate himself was a disgrace. I think if the nominee had been a more respectable GOP candidate (Romney, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio) with the full support of his party and a top of the line campaign operation, I think we would have been behind from May on. Gary Johnson's vote increased by 3 million from 2012 to 2016 - I think almost all of that goes to the GOP if it's not Trump. I think NH, CO, VA, and possibly NV flip to the GOP if it's not Trump. Maybe we hold onto MI if it's not Trump - but I think WI and PA fall even harder and maybe MN falls too.

[BeyondGeography]

29. My major issue is they had no idea what their real numbers were

They're on record as saying they were 2-5 points off in the states they lost. Here they thought they were going to win by 5, so they were six points off. In a battleground where they had been burnt before in the primary.

When your numbers are that far off, everything's off.

[geek tragedy]

35. all data models are garbage in, garbage out.

they had a strong culture of data analysis, but a very weak one for data collection

[BeyondGeography]

37. A culture of truth aversion will do that to you

[geek tragedy]

39. so will hubris nt

[jonno99]

71. GIGO - yep. It appears that the biggest problem with "the data" was the BROAD assumption

that the 2016 voters would be the same folks - with the same attitudes - who voted in 2012 & 2014.

[FBaggins]

192. Exactly right

Which is the same error in assumptions that drove do much of the polling to error.

[McKim]

78. The Communication Was Top Down

A basic problem with the campaign was that most communication was top down not bottom up.
If it had been more bottom up they might have self corrected. As a person who grew up in a home where mom and dad did not finish high school, I saw this slow freight train wreck coming . I left messages at the DNC but they didn't listen.

[bettyellen]

141. That's strange as I have friends that did data entry and were easily able to pick up signs and

Literature.... sounds strange to me how they're insisting g these things didn't happen. There were weekend and evening phone banking planned at all the offices around here too- so I don't buy the part where it says the offices had no activity.

[geek tragedy]

143. it's possible some problems were specific to Michigan or even local offices within Michigan. nt

[bettyellen]

149. And offices always run out and then replenish materials, have dead hours before super busy ones....

And a few random anecdotes as cited in this article don't mean much to me. I volunteered mostly on the phone, got several calls asking me if I could show up in person to do x y and z in a swing state as well as digitially being informed of those opportunities every day.
The only big issue I heard about with signs and bumper stickers was that many were afraid of vandalism because things got so ugly. I got enough harassment from wearing a tee or buttons in my liberal town to know that fear was unprecedented, and real.
But I have to say for every anecdote in that story, I have two that say the opposite. To me it reads as if it was written with an agenda. I followed the polls close enough to watch the media coverage impact her badly at certain times and while they ended up failing us, I think the run away negativity from the MSM hurt us more than any other factor. Reporting lies as if they were truth all season long. I think that's the most crucial factor.

[geek tragedy]

151. let's back up for a second here.

We've heard a lot about Clinton's all-star data crunching team in Brooklyn, with their algorithms, quantitative skills, etc.

What do we know about Clinton's data collection efforts--the process of making sure the data and the assumptions that went into computer modeling programs actually measured the reality on the ground?

They intentionally avoided trying to publicly act as if they wanted to win Michigan based on their stupid head fake theory.

Not smart.

[bettyellen]

153. I haven't heard of this "head fake" stuff so I can't say...

We relied on polls that were off. And they tanked a week before by more points than she lost by.
So yeah, we'd not be having this conversation except for the Comey letter.
I will say I know a lot of people were hesitant to do face to face because of the ugliness- and how that ugliness started during the primaries with Sanders supporters calling us every name in the book. There was a lot of fatigue here from the anger that fueled other people's candidacies. And the media amplifies it and focused on it all year.
I've worked in campaigns for many years and that was what struck me as very different this year.

[HoneyBadger]

145. No signs

But I got a few free tshirts and as many stickers as I wanted when I volunteered.

[bettyellen]

150. My neighbor got signs stickers and some handouts. We had scripts from the app too.

The app was pretty amazing. I'd like to see a more robust analysis, because I don't think knocking on doors did it for Trump, either.

[LovingA2andMI]

157. Look....Let's Break This Down...At Least In Michigan

In The area WE live in -- Campaign Office Managers were overworked and underpaid. They were paid upwards to $3000 a month to work 6 days at week, upwards to 12 hours a day. That's ridiculous, period, with an expectation that work will get done and properly (cross-checks for data entry, planning local phone-bank events, sending emails, coordinating with local candidates, running an office and more).

Next, at the beginning of offices opening in the local area, the Hillary Campaign was CHARGING (yes, charging) $10.00 a sign for a Hillary sign? REALLY?

What local folks were going to pay for a yard sign, when yard signs SHOULD BE FREE to supporters? This caused Hillary signage not to be on the ground in any type of mass until early October and even after October when they stopped "charging" for signs -- only at half mass then. Key point, by then Trump supporters, had signs littered in rural areas for sure -- and in SOME urban areas.

Also, volunteers were few and far to come by until the second week of October. Why? Well, it was told over and over again, Michigan was 5-7 points in favor of Clinton.

In other words, no sense of panic to force folks leaning 3rd Party, No Party or just not sure -- snap to the reality Trump could be elected. Add to that, Clinton FAILED to VISIT S.E. Michigan part of the State (Democratic base) during the last three weeks of Election 2016 Campaign.

Lit drops were a waste of time and money by this point. The ONLY THING that might have turned this sinking ship around was Robo-Calls, Human Calls to Voters, a new message just for Michigan voters directly by Clinton, littering the state with her presence, and new commercials targeting why she was against NAFTA and would bring back Michigan jobs.

Let's be frank -- Robby Mook and Jennifer Palmeri were complete failures to Hillary's Campaign. They both should have had an immediate response Counterattack to "Wiki-Leaks/FBI" BS. They knew or should have known what emails and communications were hacked. Clinton should have held nearly daily Pressers plus rallies, along targeted Press Releases for certain states, and a strong Counter-Response strategy to handle this. The Campaign HAD the money to make this happen.

That's the story in Michigan. As for other places, we would be interested what other think about Clinton Campaign on-the-ground operations in Pennsylvania & Wisconsin.

[INdemo]

31. I really dont trust politico or any of their staff..enough said

Hillary Clinton won this election period. Why the Democrats aren't in their scratching and clawing the fucking Republicans is no different than 2000 and 2004 and 2014.Except for a few Democrats in Congress that are not owned by the Corporate Mafia the others sit on their hands and give us nothing but lip service and Bullshit ..."well you know we will take a look at this in January hearing" Bull shit we are screwed.
To think in this World any other country would be calling for new elections after witnessing an election theft aided by Russia but no the most powerful nation on earth has now become nation of Fascist leaders.

[PoliticAverse]

57. "Hillary Clinton won this election period." - I think you are going to be in for an unpleasant...

reality check next Jan. 20th.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

62. election

=/= presidency

[PoliticAverse]

65. The actual election for President takes place December 19th, you know...

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/key-dates.html

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

67. when does the shadow government meet?

I hope our illuminati overlords exercise their constitutional duty

[INdemo]

101. I think you know what I mean..In reality Clinton won

but the damned thing was stolen after years of planning by Republicans

[treestar]

47. This is all monday morning quarterbacking

[geek tragedy]

48. every NFL team goes over game film to figure out what they did wrong nt

[LyndaG]

49. The Michigan result was especially disappointing

Last edited Wed Dec 14, 2016, 07:39 PM - Edit history (1)

President Obama and the Democrats saved the auto industry pretty much. Many Republicans stated they would've let it die.

[geek tragedy]

50. Clinton isn't Obama. nt

[Exilednight]

208. And right there is our problem.

Sure, she's a Clinton, but she's not Bill.

She doesn't have the enthusiasm of Obama, the charisma of Bill or the excitement of a Kennedy.

[Persondem]

60. Please STOP with the "How Clinton Lost" threads

Pointing such idiotic fingers is totally counter productive.

Clinton lost because the country in effectively gerrymandered and 80k too many people in 3 states believed a serial liar. Throw in 30 years of BS "investigations" a well timed Comey BS letter and there you have it.


Put the blame where it belongs.

[geek tragedy]

64. no, that's what postmortems are--a chance to learn from our mistakes.

We don't want the party to repeat her campaign's, or its own, mistakes.

[Persondem]

69. Except that exactly NONE of the points in your OP will apply to any

future election ... unless we somehow get a Clinton-Trump rematch in 2020.

All other general lessons have already been hashed out ad nauseum.

[geek tragedy]

87. really? Data, voter outreach, central vs local decisionmaking won't

be factors in how we contest future elections?

[LovingA2andMI]

144. Umm... Yeah....

If the voting machines are not fixed in Michigan, if the State is not PROPERTY worked for its votes, if a Campaign believes "poll data" over what folks are screaming from the ground....

Michigan might be lost for Democrats in 2020 too.

Hopefully, the next Campaign and Campaigner will not make these mistakes. As for the voting machines in Michigan -- State Democrats must keep in pressure on the Secretary of State to correct this issue, FAST.

[Persondem]

202. That's just silly and rather strawmanish. Clinton had a much more robust ground game than Trump

Elections are always going to pull the strings from the top or do you not recall how OFA really annoyed local dems in 2008 and 2012? Or perhaps you are just not as involved. Data was all over the place; the problem was not much of it was the right data. Can you predict what data will be important in 2020? It's all easy with hindsight, but the reality is 2016 was a freak election. Judging future outcomes by the exception rather than the rule is folly. Particularly when the media landscape is so skewed. You can play these analysis games all you want. Don't mean nothin' for 2020. The thing to do is get ready for 2018, that's the battle to concentrate on, not some freak election with very unique candidates that will not repeat in 1000 years.

[Crunchy Frog]

180. Really? In a forum titled "2016 Postmortem"?

If you don't want to see this sort of thing, the best advice I can give you is to hit that little button at the top of the page called "Trash this forum".

There are some people who entertain the crazy belief that future bad outcomes can best be prevented by figuring out how previous bad outcomes occured and trying to not repeat the same mistakes. Why not let those crazies have their own little corner, and you don't even have to know it's there.

[Persondem]

201. Well why don't you let me know exactly what part this OP will apply to 2020?

Assuming we do not have a Clinton-trump rematch. And while you are at tell me what part of this OP hasn't been stated 10-12 times already in the Postmortem forum?

It's useless finger pointing and wasted energy to dwell on such things to this extent. 2018 will be here very, very soon and the apparently folks at DU are still more concerned with fighting the last war than the next one. If you know anything about history, you should know that that is very bad. Just ask the French.

[Crunchy Frog]

204. I told you, this is the Postmortem 2016 forum.

If you don't like reading postmortems of the 2016 election, then trash the forum so you don't have to see them.

Trump's not even being sworn in for more than a month. 2018 isn't going to be happening in the next few days or weeks. If you're so concerned about 2018 then trash the forum and probably get involved in real political activism, instead of wasting your time on a discussion board.

[Persondem]

211. I think that the point of a postmortem is to provide guidance for the

future. You have in no way indicated how this could apply to 2020. It would seem then that your version of a postmortem and mine are different. To me "postmortem" does not mean pointless whining and finger pointing.

Oh and I have spent plenty of time over the last 15 years or so out in the world doing real ground level political activism. DU is just one of my political interests.

[vi5]

75. I love how for things like this...

..where if true it was irrefutably poor campaign strategy and choices on the part of the Clinton camp, that so many people on here are saying "Let it go.....no Monday morning quarterbacking".

What makes it worse is that so many of those things (in person persuasion in particular) were being done in my state of NJ which is di-hard blue and wasn't even in question. Why those resources were spent here and not in Michigan or Ohio or Florida is beyond me.

But hey, when it comes to what Hillary's camp may have done wrong or things that were 100% in their control.....no sense looking back I guess, right?

[geek tragedy]

85. The Monday Morning QB argument is really unpersuasive.

The biggest practitioners of MMQBing are Sunday afternoon QBs.

[vi5]

131. Especially since many of those same folks

are more than happy to spend endless amount of time obsessing over the roles of Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, Milennials, "leftists", and any number of other factors for the loss.

[Lil Missy]

206. I'm thinking the people obsessing over the roles you speak of are not the same people I think

are still obsessing.

[vi5]

207. Well, since I specifically said..

the people who were "obsessing over the roles of Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, Leftists", etc. I didn't leave much room for ambiguity now did I? Those are the people who when an article or thread comes out that shows big campaign mistakes made by Clinton's people then suddenly want to look forward and not backwards.

I'm all for moving forward and not backwards, but it doesn't get to be selective.

[Lil Missy]

209. I stand by my statement. n/t

[vi5]

210. Congratulations

I didn't assume otherwise.

[JCMach1]

84. And 90%+ of ad buys for HRC were negative driving down turnout even further

Not enough about sums it up...

[C Moon]

86. I'm more concerned with cleaning up our voting system for 2018.

[NRaleighLiberal]

91. I don't think any of this sort of thing would have mattered if we had a real media

rather than a pack of dogs that chased the Hillary email squirrel.

[HoneyBadger]

93. Watching Gladiator should be required for any candidate

"That is power, the mob is Rome. And while Commodus controls them he controls everything."


https://www.quora.com/Gladiator-2000-movie-What-does-the-mob-is-Rome-really-mean

[geek tragedy]

94. lesson from this election is that everything matters. nt

[NRaleighLiberal]

95. Yup!

[elmac]

96. The bottom line is, it isn't about Clinton

and her campaign, this election was about big money, Russian hacks and sustained attacks against Democracy via fake news and thousands of paid bloggers, GOP states election fraud, Sniffles working with a Foreign enemy, the FBI working with a Foreign enemy, GOP congressmen and the Obama administration deciding to keep us in the dark about the depth of the Russian cyber attacks, the slave era electoral college, ect....

It was the perfect shit storm that no one, not even Sanders, could survive. Nothing but a serious revolution or civil war will fix this. The fascist state is here and our future is very, very bleak.

[HoneyBadger]

100. Bernie could have done very well in the Rust Belt

Add that to millennials and who know where you end up.

[elmac]

142. Maybe

and latest "leaks" shows that Putin's attack may have been revenge against Clinton for what ever reason so taking away the FBI, Russian attacks may have made the difference but who knows what attack the fascists had ready for Bernie if he made it to the GE.

[ehrnst]

179. Subtract the southern vote, and I think we know where we end up. (nt)

[ooglymoogly]

160. Just to name a few.

A blitzkrieg; a firing squad of unfounded lies and innuendo, eliminating the vote of the room temperatures, who are want to believe any conspiracy that suits their fancy; sleeper Comeys' illegal, clumsy and dastardly laying of hands on the scale; Russia and Wikileaks severe, deadly and most importantly, reckless involvement; the third way's stupid and short sited leadership of the party; (example; heavy support of blanch Lincoln and other full blown DENO'S while not supporting Bernie a liberal ). Lincoln, a dino, had no chance of prevailing when a more liberal candidate who the dem leadership snubbed, left without funds. all these things adding up, leaving long lasting consequences on Obamas' supprt and the midterms; thus falling on Clinton, who's base is now disheartened; Obamas' early disasters when he had a democratic senate and more moderate house. That, "third way"attitude, diminished the trust of the dem base, a severe blow to future elections; now add on this tin can; Andrea Mitchell, leading the charge, on a loop, literally a drumbeat, keeping the "email" story drummed up to a fever pitch, while many others wanted to just let it go after ("enough of her damned email&quot . But Andrea kept it front and center, chirping to her fellow reporters how big and important this story was when it was not, drumming this hypocrisy up to the election results.. And that is just a few; along with big money and many similar unseen's; a "perfect storm" in which Clinton had to sail sometimes blindly..... and still she won the vote by almost three million votes.

AND THAT IS PRETTY MIRACULOUS!. I would have been mighty proud to have her as my president.

That said, Bernie was my first choice and I believe he could have won.

[ooglymoogly]

163. spell correction

sighted, support. using new tiny keyboard.

[jfern]

187. Hillary had the big money and lost.

[Joe941]

99. I continue to believe that this would not have happened to Bernie.

[geek tragedy]

103. it's possible, also possible Bernie would have done even worse.

He never had to withstand a hardcore rightwing demagoguing.

Never had WWC voters told that Sanders wanted to take their tax dollars and give it to lawyers' kids so they can get philosophy degrees, got baited about raising everyone's taxes, taking away everyone's private health insurance, etc.

Certainly he had strengths as a candidate that Clinton lacked, but he also had weaknesses she didn't.

[Jim Lane]

102. Thanks, this is a very informative article.

The outcome of a Presidential election, especially a close one, is usually attributable to multiple factors. I don't understand why so many people here seem to have trouble with that concept. One can analyze and learn from the Clinton campaign's tactical choices without thereby implying that James Comey doesn't exist.

Yes, the Republicans cheated. They also cheated in 2008 and 2012, but Obama did enough other things right to win anyway. Although we must keep fighting against voter suppression and the rest of it, the sad fact is that the Republicans will cheat in 2020 to some extent. We need to look for every opportunity to improve our campaigns.

[geek tragedy]

107. people are wired to focus on one cause and one solution in defeat,

and ignore everything that went wrong in victory.

The party's accelerating weakness with WWC, exurban, and rural voters was an issue before 2016 and would have remained in desperate need of remedy even if Clinton had won. The rest of the scoreboard, from the House of Representatives on down, told us that.

[Jim Lane]

129. Ignoring flaws after a victory is definitely a problem.

If Clinton had carried Florida and North Carolina, both of which were close, she would have won (with 276 electoral votes) despite the losses in the Rust Belt. "Brooklyn" would be brushing off criticisms of its choices in Michigan. One small silver lining from Trump's win is that analyses like those in the article you linked may get more attention.

[Demsrule86]

104. Thousands of Detroit Ballot with no presidential preference...no

The election was stolen...stop trying to blame Hillary she won the millions of votes...cheating GOP is too blame.

[SunSeeker]

105. Clinton lost the election because of the Comey letter(s). Period. End of story.

As Sam Wang noted, Comey's late-October letter moved opinion 4 points toward Trump. About half of this stuck, which was enough:



http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/10/the-comey-effect/
https://twitter.com/SamWangPhD/status/807943268529041414



Then the second letter, instead of ameliorating the damage done by the first, just fired up Trump voters. As Nate Silver found, late-deciding voters (those deciding in the last week before the election) broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA.




https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/807986531243819008/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillary-clinton-james-comey-fbi-letter-cost-election-a7468831.html

[geek tragedy]

109. Wang, to be candid, is looking to CYA after his entire election model was proven to be sh!t

and he was literally forced to eat a bug.

Sure, late undecideds broke heavily for Trump. But, that's not entirely unexpected for the party out of power.

And even if Comey did put Trump over the line, that it was so close was due at least in part to the shortcomings of our candidate and her campaign.

[HoneyBadger]

118. I cannot believe he did that

Actually ATE an insect.

[geek tragedy]

120. there's video ... nt

[SunSeeker]

135. If you want to be candid, you have to acknowledge the death blow of the Comey letters.

There is no perfect candidate. No candidate would survive an ominous letter from the FBI Director implying evidence has been found that has resulted in a criminal investigation of that candidate being opened. Everyone figured it must be serious to have prompted Comey to make the public announcement so close to the election, risking violation of the Hatch Act to make the announcement.

It is simply wrong to dismiss the Comey effect as the most demonstrable, objectively identifiable reason for her loss. It cost Hillary at least two points, depressed Dem turnout and fired up GOP turnout. It was the perfect October Surprise, timed just 11 days before the election, leaving no time to recover.

[geek tragedy]

146. Comey certainly did not help, but when it's so close and there are so many different problems,

virtually all of them can claim "but for" causation.

There's no such thing as a perfect candidate, but this wouldn't have happened to a candidate who wasn't under FBI investigation in the first place. I don't buy for a nanosecond that Clinton committed a criminal offense, but that home brew server was shockingly poor judgment.

[SunSeeker]

147. It wasn't "so close" before the Comey letters.

The Comey letters are the only demonstrable "but for" cause of the loss.

And why are you using the right wing propaganda term "home brew server"? It was a private, secured server, which was never hacked. Her use of private email was not some "home brewed" idea she came up with, but was recommended to her by a prior Secretary of State (Colin Powell) and was in keeping with precedence set by the prior two Secretaries of State who used private email accounts, and warranted by the archaic email set up of the State Department at the time. Seriously, you want to legitimize the GOP bullshit? The Republicans would have picked up something to investigate and sensationalize about ANY candidate we ran. They certainly would have savaged Sanders and his wife.

[geek tragedy]

148. you're still claiming setting up that server wasn't a mistake?

And it sure as shit was a lot closer in WI and PA and MI than Clinton's data team thought it was.

[SunSeeker]

154. Don't want to answer my question? nt

[dawg]

106. Without the Comey letter, we would've narrowly won MI, WI, PA and probably FL.

It would've been a pretty impressive electoral college victory, coupled with a crushing popular vote mandate.

We'd all be talking about what geniuses we were, and how smart we were to have done the very things all the articles like this one now lament.

Of course, that's all just one dawg's humble opinion. But the vote was so close in those states, I can't imagine that the letter didn't make a significant difference.

[geek tragedy]

108. As I just told someone else, we tend to ignore our mistakes instead of fixing

them when we win, just like we tend to focus on single explanations and solutions when we fail.

A narrow, improbable loss like this shows that every single relatively minor problem is capable of making a major difference, especially if the effect is cumulative.

[dawg]

115. We ignore our mistakes when we win, but we also tend to magnify them when we lose.

Secretary Clinton ran a competent, professional campaign. Considering the mood of the electorate and the various outside influences on the election, it wasn't enough.

But too much navel-gazing is, in my opinion, counter-productive.

If Mr. Trump is able to deliver on the promises he made to his voters, they'll vote for him again. On the other hand, if he cocks everything up to the extent that I suspect he will, they will bolt. In which case, a campaign identical to the one we just ran would be sufficient to win a crushing victory.

Assuming, you know, that our votes still count.

[geek tragedy]

124. certainly we shouldn't discount every good thing the Clinton campaign did, or accomplished.

But failure does tend to focus the mind on improvement.

"I should do better" is less motivational than "I desperately need to do better."

[HoneyBadger]

126. 2016 he was 100:1 in the primaries

2020 he is incumbent. Pretty big difference with the ex RNC head in his corner. And he can start fundraising now. I would not expect the 2020 campaign to look remotely like 2016.

[dawg]

132. Yes, but he will have fucked up the whole country by then.

If he hasn't, then maybe it wasn't all that big of a deal after all.

(But we both know he's gonna screw the pooch from day one.)

[Rex]

111. No, your opinion is not exactly mine so therefore you must be wrong.

We should just skip over anything negative, so C-levels can get back to destroying the country.

Thanks.

[geek tragedy]

112. in death by a thousand cuts, only the 1000th cut is worthy of prevention going forward nt

[Rex]

114. Maybe we are a hydra and when we cut off our own head in spite

of our face, we just grow back another head.

[geek tragedy]

121. Hail Hydra seems to be a common sentiment these days nt

[Crunchy Frog]

116. No comment.

Too much alert stalking.

[True Dough]

128. Great thread and reasoning, geek tragedy

There are too many people here who are complacent about the status of the Democratic party. They are angry that the election was stolen from Hillary but have little energy to devote to improving party policies and philosophy. It's obvious some changes are needed. Even if the Dems won the election, it would have been by a small margin. So one can argue for an overhaul or insist that only minor tweaks are needed, but to sit back and do nothing more than moan and groan about Comey and the Russians won't do a damn bit of good in 2018 or 2020.

Yes, the electoral process could use some changes as well. But it's not an either/or proposition. Movements can exist to tackle both electoral reform and Democratic party soul searching.

[pansypoo53219]

138. she needed to go LEFT.be more than RUMP.

[SunSeeker]

156. Per CNN exit polls, only 17% of voters wanted the next president to be more liberal.

Meanwhile, 47% wanted the next president to be more conservative.

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/national/president

[emulatorloo]

170. She was left.

[bettyellen]

172. That's completely contradictory to all polls but whatever...

[ehrnst]

175. WTF? Who are you talking about? (nt)

[mfcorey1]

159. All this is relevant but nothing works if you cannot combat

cyber attacks, gentrification, voter suppression, an hacking of voting machines.

[LisaM]

161. The election was called without Michigan, by the way.

We should have won Michigan in a landslide, Wisconsin too. But this isn't just about Hillary and the campaign she did or didn't run. These states are being run by unpopular far-right governors, both are heavily gerrymandered, and both are quickly and thoroughly doing what they can to dismantle voting rights (I'm less familiar with Pennsylvania, so can't comment there), get rid of unions, and put in as many deterrents to democracy as they can. They barely represent their own constituents, yet act as if they have mandates to be quasi-dictators.

Snyder should not have been re-elected. Walker should not have been re-elected. Both were. Hillary actually out-performed Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, but he should also have been elected, he was very popular when he was a Senator and did an amazing job.

When the margins are high enough to matter, we don't notice all the discrepancies. When the margins are razor-thin, as they were in MI, WI, and PA, and they all favor a party who shouldn't have won, it's easy to wonder. The Republicans don't sit there and boo hoo about messaging. They don't care if they win by one vote or one million votes. They treat the outcome as the same (Dems don't).

The minute these Republican governors got in, they starting gaming the system. We can wring our hands over making giant messaging changes because 70,000 votes in three states couldn't balance out a 2.8 million voter majority, but I think we're better off ensuring a fair and accessible system in which everyone can vote very easily.

We could run a different candidate and (wrongly, I think) re-brand our values, but the Republicans would figure out another way to cheat. Because cheating is what they've got. Their results in government are pathetic. Their social hate message is ebbing away and they know it. All they have left is working the system. It's to their shame that they don't mind winning this way, their eternal shame - it's a complete lack of moral compass - but if we figure out how to move 70,000 votes, they'll counter with some other dirty play.

We need to get voting back on track. Now.

[emulatorloo]

173. Take everything you read in THE POLITICO with a huge bolder of salt.

It has a Republican tilt.

They can be pretty biased when it comes to Democrats.

They are Especially fond of using 'anonymous' sources to smear Democrats and spinning their 'reporting' about Democrats as negatively as possible.

As I said upthread, I think the paragraph asserting Clinton campaign was not knocking doors and doing face to face persuasion is unmitigated bullshit.

[lapucelle]

181. I live in NY, but travelled by bus to PA with dozens of other volunteers

every weekend in September and October to knock on doors and make the case for Hillary and Kate Mc Ginty.

It was a large operation with hundreds of volunteers. I had friends doing the same in Ohio. That's why I'm bewildered by this:

Most importantly, multiple operatives said, the Clinton campaign dismissed what’s known as in-person “persuasion” — no one was knocking on doors trying to drum up support for the Democratic nominee,

[ucrdem]

182. It's a dirty diaper leftover from the primary wars.

Why didn't we listen when they told us how much they hated her etc.

[triron]

184. screw this narrative.

The Trump campaign in collusion with Putin and the Russians along with Comey's assistance and with the lame MSM produced the con job that resulted in this.

[synergie]

188. It's mostly infuriating because it's a pile of pure BS.

I was in MI, and we were knocking on doors, talking to people and listening to them.

Know what we heard? A bunch of bitter, ignorant folks who bought the Bernie nonsense about "rigging", who kept spouting out RW talking points and claiming that's why they were just too darned precious to vote.

Talk to these people and the ones who were not completely brainwashed, and they were shocked to learn some simple facts about the woman they had been taught to hate. They literally didn't realize that it was important to vote in local elections, and that's why they were busy railing about whatever BS they'd heard about on the internet from those frothing a lot, and using very few facts, and not seeing actual progress.

Also, MI came out to vote. Their votes were not counted. 75,000 in Wayne county were not counted. Instead of actually addressing the ways in which people were disenfranchised, folks concerned about their purity were busy foaming at the mouth about things being rigged.

These were not all Bernie supporters, many of whom were dedicated both in the volunteer sphere and the organizers. These were the ones contributing to the 10,000 who voted for Trump, the 80,000 who supposedly didn't vote for president. We won't know how many those truly were due to the GOP dirty tricks to NOT COUNT VOTES, but the ones we saw while the recount actually progressed (it ended the day it would have been finished in the largest counties), idiots who wrote in Bernie, and didn't bother to vote for anyone else on the ballot. They didn't even check the straight party box, not for the Greens, not for Dems (which would have made a HUGE difference in MI).

There were some bitter Berners, and there were people with some people with legitimate complaints about how the campaign was run, that happens in ALL elections, but this politico hit job is pure bunk, and that's from a ground level view.

The votes were there, people showed up, in nearly record numbers and the enthusiasm was most definitely there, but the votes were not counted. Not in key Democratic, and minority areas. 87 freaking broken machines in Detroit that were not counted. That's why she lost MI. And the Nazi vote. MI has lots of them, that people seem to forget that little tidbit. The militias came out. They came out to harass the campaign offices. They came to drive by and spew abuse. They were out in force with the army of Trump lawyers and every single corrupt Republican who did everything they could to NOT count votes, to purge people from voter records, etc.

There were other issues on the ground, but in no way does that touch the fact that VOTES WERE NOT COUNTED!!!!

Nor does it account for the purity patrol who literally screwed everyone with their complete nonsense, even when the threat of Trump became more and more clear. Let's not forget that part of the equation, which is the one that MOST affected MI.

[standingtall]

205. Yes she made some mistakes

but her mistakes are not why she lost. Voter suppression,FBI and Russian hacks.

What makes some Democrats have so much faith in the system that they refuse to even believe that election was possibly hacked. If the Russians hacked the DNC hacked the RNC and hacked a U.S. election agency after the election. What makes you so sure they didn't hack on election day? Some will say there is no solid proof. Like what? A video tape catching a hacker in the act? There is good reason to suspect it. Even still if the Russians hacked,if the republicans hacked, or a combination of Russians and republicans hacked or no one hacked at all this election being stolen should be part of the message we should be pounding away for the next 4 years.