Autopsy on a Failed Campaign

The Democratic establishment backed Hillary. Lots of members of the Republican establishment backed Hillary, or at least refused to back Trump. Nearly all newspapers left, center, and right backed Hillary. All any of it did was to brand her as the status quo candidate in an election when too many people wanted a change. She was an insider and a member of the establishment, when too many wanted an outsider to shake things up.

Hillary played to not lose, and as in many sports, that is often a losing strategy. She sat back and waited for Trump’s campaign to implode, which it did more than once, but recovered each time. She never played offense – never gave the voting public a reason to vote for her. She needed to set out a vision for America, and sell that vision to the voters. She just played to be a continuation, when the voters wanted change.

There are too many people in the country who feel it is heading in the wrong direction – polls showed that consistently through the election. Telling people you will continue in that direction, would never fly. Between automation eliminating manufacturing jobs and off-shoring eliminating both manufacturing and service jobs, people are scared for the future. Hillary needed to give them hope, and a new direction that would let them feel secure. She never did that.

Would Bernie Sanders have done better? There is no way to know. What we do know is that Bernie had a far higher approval rating than either Trump or Hillary. Bernie had his own set of baggage, but a very different set from that of Hillary. The GOP would have tried to brand Bernie as a communist, but that might not have hurt him as much with the center, and neither Bernie nor Hillary ever had a chance to garner right wing votes.

I suspect in spite of what the GOP would have tried to tar him with Sanders might well have done better. He had a vision, and communicated that vision in the primaries – just not well enough to win enough primaries to get the nomination. Large part of the problem was that he didn’t connect with black voters, where Hillary did. Unfortunately those black voters didn’t come out in large enough numbers in the general election to take Hillary over the top. Better black turnout in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan would have brought a different election result.

I love Elizabeth Warren, but wonder if she’d have the same issues connecting with black voters that Bernie did. As much as I like Warren, I wonder if Kamala Harris, running with a Latino VP would connect better with both those demographics. They would still need some way to connect with disaffected white voters, particularly white male voters. Still 2020 is a long way off, and we have to survive four years of Donald Trump. G-d help us all.