# 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:** 3
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/41 "2017-07-28T17:06:49Z")
In 2016, I’d say Clinton didn’t pursue an electoral college strategy. In 2008, it seems like Clinton didn’t mobilize enough in caucus states and Obama was able to run up those tallies. In my view, both point to poor campaigning, independent of who her opponents were or what they did. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/42 "2017-07-28T17:20:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think what’s needed is to get rid of the idea that the Democrats need to throw out everything and rebuild their party from the ground up. Everyone who is saying that, please raise your hand. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/43 "2017-07-28T17:32:38Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > That something like a third of the American populace now gets their news from sources best described as “malevolently fictitious,” and were literally too misinformed to have any idea what how the candidates actually mapped to reality. > > I think people are consistently and overwhelmingly underestimating just how badly the media has been corrupted by the right in the US (and apparently assisted by the Russians, of al things), and how all-consuming that information bubble has become. > > No other explanation is necessary to account for the election and today’s GOP. I continue to claim that no Democrat could possibly have won the election against that level of deceit and manipulation, and infighting/placing blame on Hillary’s “terrible campaign” is just burying our heads in the sand and setting up for the same result next time. And yet Obama won twice as a Democrat. Trump squeaked through with a paltry number of votes to win the EC. Now, those votes were in key states, but still, the number of votes that could have flipped this election was a tiny fraction of the total. To say that no Democrat could win is to not understand the mathematics involved in winning. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/44 "2017-07-28T17:39:45Z")
We have slipped by gradations into a narcissistic fantasy, keyed off reality TV expectations. If anyone knew that before the vote I’d love to see the cite. Otherwise blah blah blah. Hindsight thy name is this thread. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/45 "2017-07-28T17:40:34Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Anyway, what is the suggested explanation? That Trump ran a great campaign? He didn’t really. That Hillary ran a bad campaign? Ruled out. That the American people wanted change? Ruled out. So what does that leave us with? The American people. Easier to pretend Clinton was a poor candidate than to face the reality of who is doing the voting. Most people can’t even explain or articulate why they thought Clinton was evil/a criminal/unfit to be president, they just believed it to be so. Electing Trump is like a sick joke, it takes something special for you guys to actually go and do something so completely fucked up as that. And as such it doesn’t matter one whit what Clinton did or didn’t do. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/46 "2017-07-28T17:49:31Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > The American people. > > Easier to pretend Clinton was a poor candidate than to face the reality of who is doing the voting. > > Most people can’t even explain or articulate why they thought Clinton was evil/a criminal/unfit to be president, they just believed it to be so. > > Electing Trump is like a sick joke, it takes something special for you guys to actually go and do something so completely fucked up as that. And as such it doesn’t matter one whit what Clinton did or didn’t do. These are largely the same people who elected Obama twice. By all indications, he would have won again if had been able to run. There is no one thing that caused the election to turn out the way that it did. One of those things was that HRC didn’t run a good enough campaign. If you (the generic you) insist on a simplistic, “this one reason is why Trump won”, you are are going to come up with the wrong answer. That is not to say she ran a “terrible” campaign, but you don’t have to do that lose. The team that loses the World Series is still the second best team there is. But this is no mystery. She ran a “not good enough” campaign for the primary in 2008. Obama was this largely unknown guy “with the funny name” who came from miles behind to snatch the crown that was almost literally perched atop her head. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/47 "2017-07-28T17:52:20Z")
The popular vote was not close. The Electoral vote was not close. But this _was_ a close election in the one sense that mattered, the number of votes that would have had to have changed for it to have gone the other way. I’m not going to say that Hillary was a bad candidate or ran a bad campaign, because that would mean that all the Republicans were bad candidates (from a Republican viewpoint) or ran bad campaigns. The simple fact is that trump was just so _unconventional_ that, even though he should have been beaten, both in the primaries and then in the general, but nobody knew _how_ to beat a guy like this who, uncharacteristically, was speaking the truth when he said he could have shot somebody and his people still would have voted for him. It’s one thing to lose when the people want you to, it’s another thing to lose when the people want you to win. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/48 "2017-07-28T17:52:52Z")
Is there any evidence that any of the voters Clinton expected to get in MI, PA or WI would have voted for her if she had just campaigned differently? And would it have even been enough? ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/49 "2017-07-28T18:09:00Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > Is there any evidence that any of the voters Clinton expected to get in MI, PA or WI would have voted for her if she had just campaigned differently? And would it have even been enough? I think we take it as understood that campaigning influences voting. Otherwise, why campaign at all? But also, campaigning helps get out the vote. You’re not just trying to convince people to vote for you; you’re trying to convince people to vote. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/50 "2017-07-28T18:12:07Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > The American people. > > Easier to pretend Clinton was a poor candidate than to face the reality of who is doing the voting. An interesting observation. When a candidate loses, it’s because people are voting wrong! > [@sciurophobic](#): > > Is there any evidence that any of the voters Clinton expected to get in MI, PA or WI would have voted for her if she had just campaigned differently? And would it have even been enough? What would any evidence of this consist of? Campaigning differently would imply she campaigned at all, and in WI, MI, and PN, I’d say she did a pretty horrendous job in the final stretches. [Does this sound like a not-terrible campaign?](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/11/17/report_neglect_and_poor_strategy_helped_cost_clinton_three_critical_states.html) > [@](#): > > Clinton would have needed all three states to go her way in order to win the Electoral College if the rest of the map remained as it did. She lost each state 1.2 percent or less. Each state had gone for Democrats in the previous six elections, and Barack Obama won there by a margin of at least 5.4 percent in the last two elections. In addition to not allocating appropriate on-the-ground resources in Michigan and Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign reportedly failed with her air game there too, as well as in not having the candidate visit key battleground states in the race’s closing stages as much as Trump did: > > As the Washington Post reported, Clinton’s campaign and outside groups supporting it aired more television ads in Omaha during the closing weeks than in Michigan and Wisconsin combined. And as NBC News reported, during the final 100 days of the election, Trump made 133 visits to Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin while Clinton made 87. > For its part, the Clinton campaign pushed back against the HuffPo report: > > A senior official from Clinton’s campaign noted that they did have a large staff presence in Michigan and Wisconsin (200 and 180 people respectively) while also stressing that one of the reasons they didn’t do more was, in part, because of psychological games they were playing with the Trump campaign. They recognized that Michigan, for example, was a vulnerable state and felt that if they could keep Trump away—by acting overly confident about their chances—they would win it by a small margin and with a marginal resource allocation. “psychological games”. They really showed him! We’re so confident we’ll lose to prove it! Airing more ads in Omaha than in MI and WI combined seems like poor campaigning to me. Would it have made a difference? I don’t know. There is this thought that the more people got to know Clinton the less they liked her, so maybe that was her strategy. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/51 "2017-07-28T18:23:31Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > An interesting observation. When a candidate loses, it’s because people are voting wrong! Your president is Donald Trump. Nothing right about that, and you can’t excuse it by blaming the perfectly normal alternative that lost. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/52 "2017-07-28T18:31:14Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Your president is Donald Trump. Nothing right about that, and you can’t excuse it by blaming the perfectly normal alternative that lost. Democracy is not designed to produce the “right” result. Or, one could say that the result produced by democracy is, by definition, “right”. You can get into all sorts of discussion about whether the US is an actual democracy or not (aside from the whole “representative democracy” thing), but this ain’t the USSR and it ain’t The Islamic Republic of Iran. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/53 "2017-07-28T18:43:04Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > What would any evidence of this consist of? A post-election poll of people who did not vote for her as to what she could have done to win their vote. I’m sure for a non-insignificant number the answer would have been “nothing.” ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/54 "2017-07-28T18:57:02Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > A post-election poll of people who did not vote for her as to what she could have done to win their vote. I’m sure for a non-insignificant number the answer would have been “nothing.” Note that your assumption is not quite right, as I addressed earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/55 "2017-07-28T19:00:11Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > I don’t know. I think people might be thinking that its a deliberate lie because they they assume, perhaps falsely, that Hillary supporters are at least educated and or intelligent enough to know that 48% does not mean majority. I don’t think I know any Hillary supporters personally that are that ignorant, but I guess it’s possible that they’re out there. > > But can you really blame them for attributing to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity given the association of the democratic party with higher education and professional employment? They need no such justification. They just _know_ that Democrats are lying and destroying the country. Meanwhile, they do everything in their power (including and especially those things that actually ARE destructive to little ‘d’ democracy) to ensure that it starts with an ‘R.’ ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/56 "2017-07-28T19:16:36Z")
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. Get Sanders of out the race after Super Tuesday, or the New York primary at the latest, then there are no Bernie Bros booing at the convention. That means fewer millennials in Madison, Ann Arbor, or State College throwing their votes away on Jill Stein or doing a silly write in. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/57 "2017-07-28T19:19:57Z")
> [@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. > > Get Sanders of out the race after Super Tuesday, or the New York primary at the latest, then there are no Bernie Bros booing at the convention. That means fewer millennials in Madison, Ann Arbor, or State College throwing their votes away on Jill Stein or doing a silly write in. Wasn’t going to happen. Any attempt along that line would’ve entrenched the Bernie Bros even more, if that’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/58 "2017-07-28T19:23:06Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > They need no such justification. They just _know_ that Democrats are lying and destroying the country. Meanwhile, they do everything in their power (including and especially those things that actually ARE destructive to little ‘d’ democracy) to ensure that it starts with an ‘R.’ I’m not sure what you’re angle is here. Are you saying that democrats are saying 48% is a majority and that’s an OK way to describe things?😕 ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/59 "2017-07-28T19:27:36Z")
It’s fair enough Hillary sought Henry Kissinger’s support, they are old friends, and if we outside America have some residual reservations about his actions during the Vietnam War etc. — insofar as anyone cares, cos it was a time ago and that heals all things — he remains a major figure in 20th century history. Her receiving vast cheques from the banksters was less admirable — 2008 is a lot nearer than 1968. Still, she too has her place in the history book as much as he, all those strange American presidential elections of the 19th century have been out-weirded. For few centuries, if records last that long, they will say of her: ‘ **This Candidate Lost To _Donald Trump_** ’, and go on their way, marvelling greatly. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2017, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305/60 "2017-07-28T19:32:55Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > A post-election poll of people who did not vote for her as to what she could have done to win their vote. I’m sure for a non-insignificant number the answer would have been “nothing.” [Does this count?](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/registered-voters-who-stayed-home-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/) > [@](#): > > Let’s look first at the most newsworthy finding: Registered voters who identified as Democrats and independents were more likely than Republicans to stay home. > > … > > The biggest reason given by non-voters for staying home was that they didn’t like the candidates.2 Clinton and Trump both had favorable ratings in the low 30s among registered voters who didn’t cast a ballot — both had ratings in the low 40s among those who did vote. That’s a pretty sizable difference. So why was Clinton hurt more by non-voters? Trump was able to win, in large part, because voters who disliked both candidates favored him in big numbers, according to the exit polls. Clinton, apparently, couldn’t get those who disliked both candidates — and who may have been more favorably disposed to her candidacy — to turn out and vote. > > … > > Simply put, Trump got more of his voters to turn out than Clinton did. That’s quite a turnaround from the pre-election conventional wisdom that the Clinton campaign had the better turnout machine. Of course, Clinton’s turnout operation may well have nudged many reluctant voters to the polls, but either way, it wasn’t enough. The polling numbers from SurveyMonkey indicate that Clinton was hurt dearly by the voters who decided not to vote. Now, it doesn’t say what Clinton could have done to get these people to vote. I’d say maybe visiting the state, campaigning there, spending resources on canvassers, ads, etc. may have helped. Then again, Clinton was so unlikable maybe this would have been worse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-did-not-run-a-terrible-campaign/792305.md?page=4)