# Hillary Clinton did not run a terrible campaign **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 28, 2017, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305 "2017-07-28T03:55:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/261 "2017-08-02T19:58:21Z")
Read the post that was in response to. 😉 And try responding in something better resembling good faith than in your post right above. As you point out, this is not the Pit. ---
**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:** [August 2, 2017, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/262 "2017-08-02T20:32:55Z")
Part of the confusion lies in conflating two meanings of ‘popular’. Someone voting for Hillary because Donald nauseates might still feel Hillary is bent and loathe her. Someone voting for Donald because Hillary is sanctimonious and and solipsism’s poster child might still want Donnie at the depths of the deep blue sea. In both cases popular as in vote-getting does not equate to popular as in even moderate enthusiasm for the person chosen. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/263 "2017-08-02T20:42:49Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Part of the confusion lies in conflating two meanings of ‘popular’. > Someone voting for Hillary because Donald nauseates might still feel Hillary is bent and loathe her. > > Someone voting for Donald because Hillary is sanctimonious and and solipsism’s poster child might still want Donnie at the depths of the deep blue sea. > In both cases popular as in vote-getting does not equate to popular as in even moderate enthusiasm for the person chosen. “Popular vote” only has one meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/264 "2017-08-02T20:55:52Z")
Knock it off, both of you. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You know this isn’t the pit right? If you think someone is violating a rule of the forum, please report. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Read the post that was in response to. 😉 > > And try responding in something better resembling good faith than in your post right above. As you point out, this is not the Pit. Do not personalize your arguments in this fashion. If you feel you must, the BBQ Pit is right around the corner. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/265 "2017-08-02T21:18:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let me help you guys out (plus anyone else interested in that discussion). [Please have at it over in GD.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=832462) Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/266 "2017-08-02T21:20:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Do you not know what a cartogram is? Yes, I do. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/267 "2017-08-02T21:43:48Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I notice that **DSYoungEsq** somehow still thinks he’s contributing to the discussion. You know, at one point I had you blocked, precisely because you managed in the past to contribute meaningless little gems like this. I had re-considered that policy, on the theory that maybe you’d outgrown such nonsense. Perhaps I was wrong. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/268 "2017-08-02T21:54:44Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > The American electorate remains highly polarized along racial lines and among an axis of urban/cosmopolitan/college educated America on one side… It’s also the case that the country’s large urban areas also contain by far the greatest concentration of people who are the poorly educated beneficiaries of government largess. Remove those people from the equation and Trump would have won the rest of the country’s vote by a large margin. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/269 "2017-08-02T21:58:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Thanks. Now I have a handy post to cite as an example of people trying to create a false narrative. > > Because there’s nothing else those maps prove. Showing that Trump won in more counties tells us nothing meaningful. Counties are not equal; Loving County, Texas has a population of 82 and Los Angeles County in California has a population of 10,170,292. Putting them side-by-side is ridiculous. But Republicans love maps like that because it lets them use their red marker a lot. There’s no “false narrative” at all. The Electoral College mechanism is based on the assumption (at the most basic level) that broad support is more important than localized popularity. That’s the entire system in a nutshell. Else, all they had to do was let the selection process be based upon a popular vote. And the maps I linked show that Hillary Clinton was chosen over Donald Trump primarily in tightly compacted urban areas, which gets her a lot of total votes, but does nothing when it comes to winning the Presidency. And that’s why I linked a cartogram showing the relative value of the state votes to the result, a cartogram which shows that, by racking up votes in states with a lot of population centers, she was able to at least keep the result close. But it shows precisely the problem with her approach: she couldn’t get enough electoral college votes from her strategy. Her flaw was her vote **density** , which is too concentrated in very limited regions. Yeah, it racks up a lot of votes overall, but It doesn’t produce victory. Which is why I included the cartogram. Which you ignored in your comment. 😉 ---
**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:** [August 2, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/270 "2017-08-02T22:04:07Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Yes, I do. Then why did you ignore it? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/271 "2017-08-02T22:13:23Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > The biggest mistake Hillary made was not going negative on Bernie and allowing him to develop a cult. She probably thought Bernie would be an adult, but when surrounded by scum like Jane Sanders and Jeff Weaver, that’s a bad bet to make. I think I missed this earlier. A response: The biggest mistake progressives made was not going negative on Hillary and allowing her to form a cult. We thought she would act like an adult, but when surrounded by scum like Bill Clinton and Robby Mook, that’s a bad bet to make. What? It makes just as much sense as your paragraph. ---
**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:** [August 2, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/272 "2017-08-02T22:38:35Z")
I’m sure that Hillary going negative on Bernie would have made his supporters see the error of their ways. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/273 "2017-08-02T22:44:13Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I think I missed this earlier. A response: > > The biggest mistake progressives made was not going negative on Hillary and allowing her to form a cult. We thought she would act like an adult, but when surrounded by scum like Bill Clinton and Robby Mook, that’s a bad bet to make. > > What? It makes just as much sense as your paragraph. I don’t agree with dalej42 but no, your post doesn’t make as much sense as his. Because reality. Progressives did go negative and any Hillary cult was probably mostly built before most people even heard of Sanders. And she did act adult, even if it wasn’t a very electable adult. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/274 "2017-08-02T22:50:49Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > You know, at one point I had you blocked, precisely because you managed in the past to contribute meaningless little gems like this. I had re-considered that policy, on the theory that maybe you’d outgrown such nonsense. Perhaps I was wrong. :dubious: Knock it off as well. Discussing who or who isn’t on your ignore list is not allowed outside the Pit. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/275 "2017-08-02T23:54:39Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s also the case that the country’s large urban areas also contain by far the greatest concentration of people who are the poorly educated beneficiaries of government largess. Remove those people from the equation and Trump would have won the rest of the country’s vote by a large margin. Remove just the ones in large urban areas, or remove poorly educated beneficiaries of government largess? Let’s note that every county in West Virginia, a poor state propped up by pork-barrel spending, went for Trump. > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > There’s no “false narrative” at all. The Electoral College mechanism is based on the assumption (at the most basic level) that broad support is more important than localized popularity. That’s the entire system in a nutshell. Actually, the EC is a vestige of an era before universal suffrage. It was a way for one handful of wealthy landowners to weight their state’s vote against the vote of another handful of wealthy landowners. The fact that it used a formula based on population instead of acreage or capital meant that it survived the transition to more general suffrage. And of course it means that a state’s dominant political party can get more ‘representation’ ‘for the state’ from the state’s populace, including the disenfranchised ones. ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/276 "2017-08-03T00:58:37Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I think I missed this earlier. A response: > > The biggest mistake progressives made was not going negative on Hillary and allowing her to form a cult. We thought she would act like an adult, but when surrounded by scum like Bill Clinton and Robby Mook, that’s a bad bet to make. > > What? It makes just as much sense as your paragraph. +1 ---
**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:** [August 3, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/277 "2017-08-03T01:24:11Z")
It’s kind of funny to make some sort of big deal about whether or not Trump had “widespread popular support” if you are trying to make the case that Hillary did have such support. She only got about 4% more votes than Trump got, so is that all it takes to go from “not widespread support” to “widespread support”? And how exactly does one measure whether the support is widespread or not? Is that a geographic determination, a demographic determination, or both or something else? Throw into the mix that one candidate was purposely trying to rack up the popular vote and the other candidate was not, and it becomes even more of a meaningless discussion comparing one to the other in that aspect. ---
**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:** [August 3, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/278 "2017-08-03T02:09:14Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s also the case that the country’s large urban areas also contain by far the greatest concentration of people who are the poorly educated beneficiaries of government largess. Remove those people from the equation and Trump would have won the rest of the country’s vote by a large margin. Yeah, but they’re people, with rights, including the right to vote. What’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/279 "2017-08-03T03:22:45Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s also the case that the country’s large urban areas also contain by far the greatest concentration of people who are the poorly educated beneficiaries of government largess. Remove those people from the equation and Trump would have won the rest of the country’s vote by a large margin. If you are claiming that there are more people in cities than in rural areas receiving government assistance, you are probably correct, simply because the U.S stopped being an agrarian society many decades ago. If you are trying to appeal to moonshine claims that people outside the cities tend to be more educated and more virtuous than city dwellers, you are simply appealing to silly stereotypes that may get promoted on C&W radio stations, but have no basis in reality. Percents of people in poverty are higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Percents of food stamp participation are higher in rural areas than in urban areas. And government agricultural subsidies are a significant distribution of government funds. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/280 "2017-08-03T05:09:29Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s also the case that the country’s large urban areas also contain by far the greatest concentration of people who are the poorly educated beneficiaries of government largess. Remove those people from the equation and Trump would have won the rest of the country’s vote by a large margin. I don’t believe that’s accurate. I’m not finding information that breaks it down to the county level but in general red states receive more federal money than blue states do. Here’s some cites: [Which States Rely the Most on Federal Aid?](https://taxfoundation.org/states-rely-most-federal-aid/) [Which States Are Givers and Which Are Takers?](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/) [2017’s Most & Least Federally Dependent States](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/) [15 States Most Dependent on the Federal Government](https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/states-dependent-on-federal-government.html/?a=viewall) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305.md?page=15)