Donors Demand Autopsy of Clinton Campaign

[DonViejo]

December 16, 2016
By Taegan Goddard

Politico: “The call for a deep and detailed accounting of how Clinton lost a race that she and her donors were absolutely certain she’d win didn’t begin immediately after the election — there was too much shock over her defeat by Donald Trump, and overwhelming grief. Her initial conference call with top backers, which came just days after the outcome, focused primarily on FBI Director Jim Comey’s late campaign-season intervention.”

“But in the weeks since, the wealthy Democrats who helped pump over $1 billion into Clinton’s losing effort have been urging their local finance staffers, state party officials, and campaign aides to provide a more thorough explanation of what went wrong. With no dispassionate, centralized analysis of how Clinton failed so spectacularly, they insist, how can they be expected to keep contributing to the party?”

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https://politicalwire.com/2016/12/16/donors-demand-autopsy-clinton-campaign/

[bettyellen]

1. Well gosh they're weeks behind us at DU then? Interesting they aren't ....

Asking what went wrong with the election itself as well?

[geek tragedy]

2. Comey, Russian hacks are easy to identify.

But they didn't need to be fatal. Clinton campaign team is not exactly a model of introspection these days--they don't seem to be holding themselves accountable.

If Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania were so close that Comey could tip them, then Clinton campaign still bungled this horribly.

[bettyellen]

3. Any one of a number of small changes could have reversed it...

Aside from the hack, the cross check program seems to be a big one. Haven't heard details on when those voters were taken off the rolls in Michigan and what other states were effected. That and getting a grip on the press coverage would have made huge differences too.

[geek tragedy]

5. realistically, the first step is to fix what's in our power to fix.

We can't fire Comey. We can't punish Putin. We have zero leverage on the Electors.

Trump will be President. Republicans will control Congress.

Our first job is to learn from our party's mistakes, and fix them, and to figure out what we need to do better.

And we need to hold the Republicans publicly accountable for what they do starting next year. For every good promise they break, for every evil promise they keep.

Complaining about Putin and Comey ain't gonna help us. Deal with them when we have political power to do so.

[bettyellen]

7. And I think fixing the election laws, getting people IDs in time while trying to end Crosscheck

And building up the part through undoing gerrymandering and focusing on getting back some governors are absolutely crucial.
And a new plan for doing an end run around the media. I think the biggest problem with our platform was that few knew about the issues because the media assumed people preferred scandals and mud flinging. I also think people will be in a different mindset in a few years. This "outsider" crap will be a whole lot less appealing and voters will value experience and service.

[okieinpain]

9. agreed and a billion dollars should have

went a long way in accomplishing a lot of those items.

[bettyellen]

12. Unfortunately they had to run a campaign as well.

[hellofromreddit]

13. Excuses, excuses. I doubt we'll excuse ourselves into the majority any time soon.

I know toddlers who take more responsibility than the party's elite bunglers are taking right now.

[okieinpain]

20. spreading that money around should have been part of the

campaign.

[RBInMaine]

14. Wrong. They will still want outsiders but he right ones! People are SICK of establishment politics!

If this party is STUPID enough to stay with the same old same old SHIT ways of doing things, catering to fat cat donors, catering to corporations, and putting up BORING insider candidates instead of fresh faces with different skills sets, new energy, new ideas, and a populist message, it will continue get CRUSHED INTO IRRELEVENCY.

[dionysus]

24. I don't get it. Up until recently, we were ruthlessly mocking the GOP for doing this. Keep

Doing the same same thing over and over, we said. Keep thinking you can win with just the angry white male vote, GOP and watch your party slip further and further away from being a national entity l. Soon they will only be a regional party and never win another national contest.

All of a sudden, the roles have flipped, and we're threatening to make the same mistake. Good god.

[citood]

26. "the media assumed people preferred scandals and mud flinging."

I've always said: campaigns go negative for one reason - it works. There is no other explaination for why candidates continue to do it.

[Else You Are Mad]

4. Exactly.

In fact, if I remember correctly, the Clinton campaign ignored advice and requests for help from the local and state democratic parties. If the Clinton campaign had a better ground game, then most likely the comey letter and the hacks probably would not have been an issue.

[okieinpain]

11. agreed to hear that people were concerned and

tried to act on their own but were told by the clinton campaign to not do so because they were playing mind games with trump is something that is unforgivable. that is something that needs to be discussed out loud and in front of everyone so it never happens again.

that shit pisses me off just thinking about it again.

[EL34x4]

16. Why should they hold themselves accountable?

Nobody else is holding the Clinton campaign accountable.

Say something bad about Hillary's campaign on this forum and watch your post get juried and removed for "right wing talking points" or "bashing Democrats."

As far as Democrats need to be concerned, Hillary lost solely because Russians, Comey, and the media but she didn't really lose anyways because SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE!!!! You can throw in vote fraud if you want and sure, while we're at it, it's the voters' fault too!

See how easy that was? Not her fault. No introspection required. Thanks for the money. Tough break.

I'm sure her donors will understand.

[triron]

21. Wasn't just Comey.

See Ron Baiman's statistical analysis (Professor at U of chicago)

[HassleCat]

6. Not gonna like it.

Sanders demonstrated there is a path to success that replaces big donors with small donors, and runs a little more towards grassroots and populism.

[duffyduff]

23. What success?

He never got nominated because he wasn't viable.

I wish I could get my hard-earned money back from stupidly giving to him early on.

[dionysus]

25. If you're going to play that game, at least he didn't have to face the humiliation of getting smoked

by the biggest joke of a candidate in american history.

It's a silly game. You can look really small by dissing on bernie instead of being adult enough to admit problems in the campaign if you want to, but it's not going to help us beat him on 4 years.

[jalan48]

8. $1 Billion? That's a lot of money for social justice issues.

[0rganism]

10. which will result in exactly the kind of analysis that sinks us for the foreseeable future

remember back in 2012-2013, when the GOP published that campaign retrospective which strongly recommended outreach to minorities? and then Trump tossed it all in the shredder and won anyway?

unlike with the Republicans, i fully expect the DNC and Democratic candidates will wholeheartedly embrace the recommendations of any Democratic autopsy report, resulting in even more losses at the ballot box as the Democrats bend over backwards to pander to the resource extraction industry and wall st. banking interests. because, you know, experts.

[EL34x4]

18. Funny thing is, Trump did better among minority voters in 2016

than Romney in 2012. Significantly better. He increased his white vote by one measly point but he gained 7 points with African-Americans, 8 points with Latinos and 11 points with Asians.

[RBInMaine]

15. The first thing to do is to STOP pandering to these rich donors and become a grassroots party again!

Tell the rich donors to invest in PROGRESSIVE MEDIA if they want to help. We can get a billion dollars from millions of small donors with an exciting populist campaign.

[HoneyBadger]

19. That would be driven by a populist candidate who will not exist for a couple of years

Meanwhile rich donors can be tapped now for 2020, probably the most expensive campaign in history. The key is for the party to monetize the anger in the streets.

[citood]

27. Did you notice that Trump spent half of what Clinton did?

Concentrating on the big money and predicting it will take x dollars to win is a mistake. Social media is free, staying in the news is free, and people are going to use Tivo to skip political ads. The game has changed.

[Merlot]

29. trumpt has a built in media advantage that any other candidate won't have.

[citood]

30. Odds are Trump will be running in 2020

...and the counter to his media advantage is to outspend him? Because that worked for HRC? Because it worked for Jeb Bush?

[Merlot]

31. I'm not saying outspend him

Just pointing out why he spent half of what HRC spent. He got so much free airtime he didn't need to spend as much.

We really don't know at this point who will be running in 2020. If it's another republican, they won't have that media advantage. I don't see trumpt lasting the 4 years due to either health (mental or physical) or some scandal or him just becoming bored with it all. He's not going to like the confines of the presidency would be my guess.

I hate the thought that 1 billion dollars was spent on this campaign. I'm no campaign expert, but it was an old school, traditional campaign at a time when the country and the opposition were rejecting the status quo. turmpt and Bernie were doing things differetly. Other than that, I have no answers.

[HoneyBadger]

36. If Trump does not run in 2020, Pence will

[HoneyBadger]

34. Going to be a traditional campaign in 2020

Trump went into this a 100:1 outlier at every stage. Every day, he went out, said screw the leaders of every party, screw the media (Megyn!), screw the big money. No endorsements. No surrogates. Never ran for dog catcher. Fired and rebuilt his campaign staff how many times over? Campaign staff had so many no names that when he actually hired a guy that had worked on a Republican Presidential campaign prior, it was newsworthy. The GOP (Ryan) abandoned him.

All because he had nothing built.

2020, it would appear that he could go into it with campaign experience, a vetted machine, surrogates including "First Lady" Ivanka, the RNC in his pocket, several hundred million in campaign funding banked (he probably has $66m+ left and seems to be monetizing everything he does), 5 years of never ending campaign rallies, incumbent, elected Republicans that owe him, big money donors (seen his appointees?) behind him, you get the idea. He will have a harder time tapping his businesses for funding. 2020's campaign will have nothing to do with 2016. He will set a spending record using other people's money. Assuming otherwise will be a mistake.

[uponit7771]

35. +1

[HoneyBadger]

17. They say that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail

Election spending is a huge cash cow that funds, media, consultants, etc for years. It is the job of the 2020 Dems to say that the problem was a lack of money, 2020 is going to be 1.5 billion.

[duffyduff]

22. Ask Putin, you dipshits. NT

[onecaliberal]

28. Russia. Comey, lies about email.

[George Eliot]

32. Hilarious. Big donors are the problem.

Wall street and rich people. That's what the rust belt was voting against. Funny they don't see it.

[ucrdem]

33. Great, I hope someone tells them and they make a huge stink about it.

But I'm not going to bet the farm on it, sigh. More than likely they've already reached their own conclusions and decided the problem was a certain lady married to Bill Clinton.