# Did Hillary's camp focus too much on her potentially being the first female president? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 8, 2017, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796 "2017-09-08T09:42:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/141 "2017-09-14T02:58:41Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Okay, but I’ll argue that the election reflected well on the candidates, particularly Trump who stumped for and got the votes needed to win. Take the votes from the white supremacists, and the xenophobes, for example. During the campaign many people were (as they, or we, should be) aghast that Trump did not distance himself from those groups, that he did not speak out directly and strongly against them. To use a crude phrase, Trump whored himself out to every group that would vote for him, with the sole purpose of winning the race. I’m not sure what your point is. Should Hillary Clinton have done more to endear herself to white supremacists? I get that Hillary Clinton is wooden and stiff in front of the cameras, and the Clinton name is associated with greasy palms and political shiftiness (not necessarily her doing but beside the point). But I’m sorry, her opponent was Donald effing Trump. A person can argue that some of this is on Clinton, but maybe she over-estimated the decency of people in this country. That’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. There’s a lot of political analysis about Hillary’s failures – fine I get it. She ran a bad campaign. But in a lot of ‘developed’ countries, she wouldn’t have required anything more than a mediocre campaign against a clearly incompetent buffoon like Trump. The Netherlands rejected Geert Wilders. France rejected LePen. Most countries have had an uptick in nationalism and yet none of them were so far out of their fucking minds to vote for Donald Trump. I guess what I’m saying is, you can analyze political strategy, but in a society that has lost its fucking mind like ours, does it matter? Everyone’s been writing articles and posting threads about where Hillary went wrong, and how she failed to understand the political environment she was in. Fine. But 2016 was last year. She’s not a candidate anymore, and never will be. What went wrong with the average American voter is a more important question, and we’ll be dealing with that question again and again and again in the foreseeable future. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/142 "2017-09-14T12:16:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Why should that cost her any votes when she was running against someone else to whom that description applies even more? Because being unpleasant, vindictive and self absorbed are negative things and people may choose not to vote for anyone. And this wasn’t the only negative she had. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/143 "2017-09-14T12:25:30Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I’m done with analyzing Hillary Clinton’s failures and what she didn’t do to attract Archie Bunker. Hillary’s in our rear view mirror. The bigger question is, how do we save America from thicker than pig shit paranoid white “working class” :rolleyes: voters? Do we pander to them and speak to them “dumbly,” or do we actually try to sell them on programs and policies that are going to be to everyone’s benefit, including theirs? The latter, along with rhetoric and candidates that are specifically chosen in order to excite and motivate young and minority voters. Not only is that easier than trying to appeal to those white working class voters who are inherently hostile to immigration, LGBTQ rights, and the Democratic brand, but it will be far more effective in the long run. When turnout is high among young and minority voters, the Democrats win. We already have a winning formula – the one that worked in 2008 (and also gave us a comfortable win in 2012). Have a skilled candidate that excites young and minority voters. Perhaps not as easy as it sounds, but very achievable, and I think several of the 2020 names floated would qualify. Obama was a once-in-a-generation candidate, but we don’t need Obama-level candidates to win. We just need solid candidates with some level of skill, and some ability to excite young and minority voters, and who haven’t had a deeply persona nationall PR campaign run against them for decades and decades. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/144 "2017-09-14T13:27:58Z")
What makes you think each generational tranche of ‘young voters’ won’t equally grow old ? And then you’ll lose them. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/145 "2017-09-14T13:29:38Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I do think she opened many, many doors for future female politicians down the road, however. She deserves credit for that. I agree with this. She plowed through the political jungle almost by sheer force of will with little to no political talent and no more political capital than any other former first lady. She showed everyone that this could be done and eventually would be done, just not by her. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/146 "2017-09-14T13:34:29Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > What makes you think each generational tranche of ‘young voters’ won’t equally grow old ? > And then you’ll lose them. Then there will be new young voters. And I’m not advocating abandoning any other voters – just that most of the effort should be for those Democratic demographics that didn’t turn out well in 2016 – young people and minorities. Older Democratic voters generally showed up and voted in line with past elections. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/147 "2017-09-14T14:55:15Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Also, her gun stance was actually “Wants DC-style gun bans for the entire country” to people who paid attention (that is, people who care enough that the issue affects their vote) based on the few policy statements she made, which is extremely radical compared to the “common sense” gun control stance that her supporters tend to talk about. People who don’t follow gun news probably don’t realize that Heller is the equivalent of Roe vs Wade for gun rights, and Hillary (who was going to get multiple SC nominations) specifically condemned the decision and wanted to reverse it. Why she didn’t just take a moderate stance (“Heller is great, it confirms that we can implement common-sense gun control and we aren’t trying for bans in the first place”) on the issue is beyond me, I know a number of single-issue voters who turned out specifically because of her stated desire to reverse Heller. She’s done actual flip-flops on other issues in the past, like gay marriage, so avoiding extremist rhetoric on an issue that she wasn’t going to get congress to budge on anyway seems like a no-brainer to me. She was trying to get to the left of Bernie on an issue, ANY issue because frankly people cared a lot less about their genitalia than the differences in their policy positions no matter what the “ready for Hillary” crowd claim. And she more than most politicians should have known better. Her husband lost congress in 1994 over the issue and we’ve had trouble holding on to it since. I also know a shitload of “a plague on both their houses” types who can’t be bothered to go out and vote most years who went out to vote for Trump in Pennsylvania because of the gun issue. There was a 22K vote swing in Pennsylvania and the extra gun votes might or might not have been enough to swing the election in Pennsylvania but it probably made for a non-negligible chunk of that spread. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/148 "2017-09-14T15:01:14Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Everyone’s been writing articles and posting threads about where Hillary went wrong, and how she failed to understand the political environment she was in. Fine. But 2016 was last year. She’s not a candidate anymore, and never will be. What went wrong with the average American voter is a more important question, and we’ll be dealing with that question again and again and again in the foreseeable future. Exactly. I _wish_ it was just that Clinton ran a bad campaign. (which IMO, wasn’t that bad.) When the opponent is a fucking inarticulate moron with bad ethics, you should still be able to win with a bad campaign. Anyone who’s willing to vote for Trump because Hillary “ignored Michigan” isn’t going to vote for Clinton even if she moved to Detroit and took a job on the assembly line. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/149 "2017-09-14T15:17:57Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > But did those women being excited for a first woman President cost Hillary the election? That seems to be the question. > > I guess my response would be… Why would it? I think it was a mistake to even mention her gender. Noone who cares about that is going to miss the fact that she is a woman and anyone who thinks it is irrelevant is going to appreciate the sentiment that anyone that doesn’t vote for her is a misogynist. And if your surrogate tells people that there is a special place in hell for women who don’t support Hillary Clinton, then some people are going to get turned off by that. Women didn’t owe Hillary their vote any more than the black community owed Ben Carson their vote. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/150 "2017-09-14T15:21:59Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Then there will be new young voters. And I’m not advocating abandoning any other voters – just that most of the effort should be for those Democratic demographics that didn’t turn out well in 2016 – young people and minorities. Older Democratic voters generally showed up and voted in line with past elections. Then our work must begin in the kindergartens ! - channelling if not V. I. Lenin, then his more ecstatic junior colleagues in the early years of the Revolution \* ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/151 "2017-09-14T15:37:48Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > How exactly did she “cheat” during the primaries? > > What e-mails by Hillary Clinton did “Russia reveal” which showed she cheated? So you will accept no evidence of cheating short of an email from Hillary? What sort of email FROM HILLARY do you think could show she cheated? A thank you email to Donna Brazile saying “hey Donna, thanks for helping me cheat” Why aren’t emails from Donna Brazile giving Hillary’s campaign the debate questions on multiple occasions enough for you? Would you be as sanguine if Rush Limbaugh sent debate questions to Steve Bannon? Would you ask for the emails from Trump that shows evidence of cheating? Or would multiple emails from Rush Limbaugh be enough? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/152 "2017-09-14T15:44:40Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Agreed. I cringed at that moment with Albright and wondered if they realized the number of women who work in clerical or customer service related positions heavily outnumbered women who worked in professional or managerial positions, but if anything I think she made far more of a deal of it in 2008 against Obama. ??? Do you mean Geraldine Ferraro? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/153 "2017-09-14T17:48:08Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Yeeeeess…well done for spotting that “things you focus on” is definitely a subset of “things you mention”. For Lesson Two, we’ll work on how “things you mention” is not necessarily a subset of “things you focus on”. Well she did it a LOT and this wasn’t seen as a bad thing by some of her supporters. > **[Madame President: Hillary Clinton, gender, and the general election](https://www.nwpcwa.org/madame_president_hillary_clinton_gender_and_the_general_election)** > > The NWPC is a multi-partisan grassroots membership organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in elected and appointed office at all levels of government. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/154 "2017-09-14T18:08:20Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I thought about opening a separate “Hillary’s Book” thread, but I think this is a good enough fit for this question: > > In her book she puts some of the blame for her loss on Bernie (and on NPR this morning, she derided him as not really being a Democrat). As I recall (correct me if I’m wrong) once the convention was over and the nomination was decided he was pretty unequivocal in his support for her. (His supporters maybe not so much, but that’s another story) What else did Hillary expect? Is she begrudging the fact that he campaigned against her during the primaries? I’m honestly confused. Yeah I listened to it on NPR and she seems like a real sore loser. She claims that she would not have lost if Bernie hadn’t undermined her credibility, if Podestas emails hadn’t been hacked, if the DNC emails hadn’t been hacked, if Comey hadn’t found those emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, basically if the other team hadn’t shown up, then she would have won because her mistakes alone wouldn’t have caused her to lose the election. If my kid whined about losing like this I would feel like I had failed as a parent. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/155 "2017-09-14T18:22:04Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in the room at the time. Plus she wasn’t the one committing adultery, the intern in question was the one that initiated that particular sexual encounter (which involved no “banging” except of the finger (and cigar) variety), and there is nothing to suggest that Hillary condoned the act. So, again, your understanding of the situation is at odds with the facts. > > Hillary did stay married to Bill, but then again it used to be the right who talked the talk about the sanctity of marriage when asserting their moral authority. Not so much these days… I understand that she was just trying to protect her political investment in Bill’s political capital but she turned a blind eye to some of the allegations that she would pounce on if the accused was a political opponent. And you don’t get to blame a 22 year old woman for the infidelities of a 50 year old man. That’s kind of bullshit isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/156 "2017-09-14T18:32:46Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Hillary a Christian? She had Beyoncé as her spokesperson. Have you ever seen her videos? While it is impossible to know what’s actually going on inside a person’s head, she identifies as Methodist. We can know that she used to teach Sunday School. When she was First Lady, she was actively involved in her church. She participates in Bible study and prayer groups. In her emails (yes _those_ emails!) she includes Biblical references (and deep cuts, not just the ones that everyone knows), asks people for prayer, and tells people that she is praying for them. She includes pastors and ministers among her advisers. And she’s been seen, many times, reading from the Bible. Again, I do not know what she actually believes, but she says she is and her personal activities do tend to support her statement. FWIW, Beyonce also identifies as Christian. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/157 "2017-09-14T19:13:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > ??? Do you mean Geraldine Ferraro? We were talking about [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRimyfmz0MA) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/158 "2017-09-15T13:30:13Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > We were talking about [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRimyfmz0MA) I meant in 2008. What did madeleine Albright do that was worse in 2008. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/159 "2017-09-15T14:07:46Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Hillary a Christian? She had Beyoncé as her spokesperson. Have you ever seen her videos? Christians can’t like Beyoncé? I guess either the number of Christians in America, or the sales of Beyoncé’s music, have been greatly exaggerated.:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796/160 "2017-09-15T15:05:41Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And you don’t get to blame a 22 year old woman for the infidelities of a 50 year old man. That’s kind of bullshit isn’t it? You can certainly blame the 22 year old for her own active participation in a destructive and deceitful event. It’s not like she was just going about her day, minding her own business, when suddenly Bill’s dick fell in her mouth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hillarys-camp-focus-too-much-on-her-potentially-being-the-first-female-president/795796.md?page=9)