Clinton: 'I was not as adept or as quick' at ways to reach voters

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill



BY ALEX AARON - 09/19/17 07:59 AM EDT




Hillary Clinton on Monday night expressed regret she had not found better ways to communicate with voters during the 2016 campaign, as she kicked off her book tour before a packed house at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C.

The 2016 Democratic nominee sat down with friend and former speechwriter Lissa Muscatine to discuss her new memoir "What Happened," a personal account of her loss to President Trump.

Clinton said her campaign team often focused on perfecting policy points and missing the bigger picture. And Clinton said she failed to make the necessary changes to reach voters. “I was not as adept or as quick to try and figure what is a better way for me to communicate,” she said.

“You think you’re running one kind of campaign and you realize that the press is not covering the policy you’re putting out every day," Clinton continued. "They’re covering an empty podium.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/351295-clinton-i-was-not-as-adept-or-as-quick-at-ways-to-reach-voters

[Demit]

1. Is this really Latest Breaking News??

[Sunlei]

8. the hill (trumps campaign fav media to tweet) always creates BNheadlines for Ds to view here &

everywhere a BNH messageboard/listing/news search exists.

[Demit]

10. The Hill's headlines aren't necessarily news. This seems more like a General Discussion item to me.

And I don't see what The Hill being someone's favorite media to tweet has to do with it, either.

[bettyellen]

53. Since she is specifically taking responsibility for her loss- for many that is news!

It's not new, but to some t is, LOL

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. I appreciate Hillary's honesty.

[FakeNoose]

18. That's true but nevertheless,

...she's still the MOST qualified presidential candidate we've ever had.

Personalities aside, I never doubted Hillary's ability to be an awesome president and leader.
Think of the male presidents in our history, they've all have deficiencies of one kind or another.

As far as I'm concerned Hillary doesn't need to criticize herself any more, considering what they have done to her.

[Bengus81]

3. LBN when....last November? n/t

[Sunlei]

4. didn't communicate with us she had pneumonia.

that 9/11 memorial day she campaigned for many hours, on her feet, personally meeting with families. a hot day, very sick, yet so much inner strength.

[ehrnst]

11. If she had taken off 9/11, she would have been vilified and called a weak old woman.

Unlike male candidates with things like a cancerous melanoma and hid it.

[Sunlei]

16. Rs mocked her anyway as she almost fainted from sickness that day. The "communication"

problems Hillary mentioned in her book & interviews. That's related to D campaign communication "problems" to their voters & the public medias.

Republicans take full advantage of an opponent even if they're sick or hurt.

Ds campaign could have taken quite a bit of wind out of Rs sails by acknowledging her pneumonia. Not canceling the memorial time, let her spend the hours meeting with 9/11 families seated, shaded with better hydration. Not have to walk and wait for her car.

This presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton continues her 10 hour day even with pneumonia. Republican arrives late by golf cart, visits with no one- and leaves after an hour. That should have been the headlines, 9/11/2016

[Eliot Rosewater]

52. Some of us chose to think they were both the same, DAMN them ALL to HELL

[Paladin]

5. Anyone who chose trump over Hillary was a dumbfuck.

End of story, no further explanations necessary.

[leftofcool]

26. Amen!

[rocktivity]

9. She finally admits that she played the hare to Trump's tortoise

and should have hustled up the extra non-female votes that would have put her over by a cheatproof margin -- the exact same mistake she made with Obama.

rocktivity

[StevieM]

13. I think her options were limited given the damage done by the FBI and the fake email scandal.

She did well enough to have the race won by a decisive margin without the Comey intervention. And she kept campaigning until the very end of the race. She didn't let up. It just wasn't enough.

[ehrnst]

17. Yeah, I heard that critique all the time about Al Gore.

Not.

[RhodeIslandOne]

23. Actually we did

He sighed

He didn't embrace Bill Clinton

He embraced Bill Clinton too much

He shouldn't have picked Lieberman

He was cold and aloof

He didn't seem different enough from Bush

He was "too smart"

He had no personality

He wasn't a real progressive

He was boring

He wasn't a guy you wanted a beer with

He lost his home state

He was just a bad candidate

It was all bullshit then too, because the fix was in, just like in 2016.

[ehrnst]

35. Can you point to sources?

Thanks.

[RhodeIslandOne]

40. .....

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1844704_1844706_1844720,00.html

Sometimes a candidate says it worst when he says nothing at all. Al Gore's endless sighing during the 2000 debate against George W. Bush sparked endless mockery, as did his decision to leave the podium and come within inches of Bush during a response. Four years later, debate organizers would amend the event's rules to avoid such an episode, stipulating: "Each candidate may move about in a predesignated area." But Gore is not the first candidate whose silence trumped his speech; in 1992, George H. W. Bush caught flak for checking his watch during a verbal spar with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/hillary-clinton-after-the-clintonites

On the eve of the 2000 election, Bill Clinton lamented that Al Gore never called;

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/3/1465910/-Why-Al-Gore-Really-Lost-in-2000

Al Gore was and is a nice guy. He’s an accomplished environmental hero who should be honored across the party. However, as a Presidential aspirant, he did not help himself. He was a gaffe machine who should’ve known that his comments on his later-Webby-winning role in helping the bring about the internet would’ve been taken outta context or how the “Love Story” thing would’ve been spun. The media was hostile but Gore seemed to sit back and take it. Gore also ran mediocre ads.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/13/the-wilderness-campaign

Unlike Clinton, who could draw on a huge pool of friends for advice, Gore lacked the gift, or the patience, for showing gratitude, for keeping in close touch. Donna Brazile complained that she had never got so much as a thank-you note for her service in 2000, and many who had worked for Gore or who had given serious money to the campaign felt the same. “He treated people poorly,” Robert Bauer, one of Gore’s aides during the Florida battle, said. “He was cold, aloof, condescending, ungrateful. There were legendary stories about how he treated people with a lack of gratitude. There is a strange character in Gore. . . . He is an isolated man.”

That's a start.

There are also several DU threads addressing many of these issues if you want to check the pre-DU2 archives. Feel free to do the homework.

[ehrnst]

43. Bill Clinton lamenting that Gore didn't call is supposed to be a critique of Gore's campaign?

And no, this doesn't support this full list:

He sighed

He didn't embrace Bill Clinton

He embraced Bill Clinton too much

He shouldn't have picked Lieberman

He was cold and aloof

He didn't seem different enough from Bush

He was "too smart"

He had no personality

He wasn't a real progressive

He was boring

He wasn't a guy you wanted a beer with

He lost his home state

He was just a bad candidate

And no, 2004 and 2016 is not in the wake of the election he lost, and hammering about why he didn't have a recount-proof lead in Florida.

[RhodeIslandOne]

45. I'm not your librarian

I gave you some sources, pay me if you want more of my time digging up 16 year old stuff.

The criticism of Gore (and Kerry also) as bad candidates has been going on for years. How someone whose been here since 2004 can ignore that is beyond me.

I'm also not here to justify the criticism of one candidate over the other. Both Al and Hill were fucking screwed and I have a right to still be pissed about both and not engage in excuses so as to downplay election fraud, and pretend it wasn't the real reason Gore and Clinton "lost".

[ehrnst]

46. "Go look for it yourself!"

The response of someone who can't back up their claims.

I don't recall any of the mass vilification of Gore for not getting a bigger lead as has been directed at HRC.

There would be plenty to find if there was.

[RhodeIslandOne]

49. You just don't want to see it or remember it

I submitted four sources, and that wasn't enough for you. You've got a lot of nerve that you think my life revolves around your sarcastic ass.

That's your problem. I'm not sure why you've chosen this tact. Both positions are wrong. Both were blamed for shit that is moot as they both won their respective elections.

Most of the DU archives from 2002 or so don't even exist. So you should be happy, you're safe from more sources you can smugly dismiss.

[ehrnst]

50. I believe that would be called "projection." (nt)

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

21. Glad to see Hillary is @least taking partial responsibility for her loss & realizing her mistakes...

Just too bad these realizations came after she'll no longer be running for public office.

[Hortensis]

29. Projection won't undo Rump and the Repubs. Speaking of taking responsibility.

[ehrnst]

36. She's been taking responsibility from the first she's been talking in public.(nt)

[RhodeIslandOne]

22. The Russians would have found the votes they needed where ever they had to

In Racine, in Lancaster, in Macomb County.....add a few hundred here, a thousand there......

There is nothing she could have done, the fix was in.

[ehrnst]

39. As we learn more about Cambridge Analytica

the more we see that it was microtargeted.

And Kushner and DT's own tech lead said that they were targeting the EC, not the popular vote.

"We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote," Kushner says. "I asked, How can we get Trump's message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?"

[ehrnst]

12. The ability for honest self-appraisal is valuable in a politician.

Unfortunately, lack of it doesn't seem to hold male politicians back at all.

It's referred to as proof of being "constant" and "ethical."

[Justice]

14. "Theyre covering an empty podium" well said.

[StevieM]

15. She is being way too hard on herself.

She did well enough that the exit polls indicate that she was the preferred candidate on economic issues. Trump won based on the fake email scandal and nothing else.

Incidentally, if you read the whole article you will see that it is another journalistic disaster. The writer repeats the talking points about Hillary blaming her loss on a whole host of other people. It is a narrative that the media is determined to deliver. If she talks about what happened, including the parts that involved other people, there is no way to avoid mentioning things like the primary, the Russians and Comey. That opens the door to deliver the sound bite about "blaming others."

[Sunlei]

19. She is way to hard on herself. That is the mark of a Great Leader-they take responsibility.

The D party and Ds in general, all of us need to keep supporting Hillary and blaming all those Republicans (some are criminals/treasonous Russian colluder assholes) for her.

[SunSeeker]

20. Being "way too hard on herself" describes most women, sadly. nt

[Baconator]

24. Yup...

[stuffmatters]

25. Coupla Thoughts: Shutting down millions of free advert $ for Our Party cancelling the Ca debate

and choosing Tim Kaine as her VP certainly were major messaging/communication mistakes to grow Dem votes IMHO.

[leftofcool]

27. She made the right choice with Tim Kaine

[stuffmatters]

28. Agree to wildly disagree

[Hassin Bin Sober]

30. And mss out on that Tim Kaine mojo?

[stuffmatters]

48. Kaine couldn't even win a debate with incompetent, theocratic governor Pence

Such an easy target, even easier than Ryan, who Biden essentially laughed off the stage because he is so "bubble brained"

[ehrnst]

37. The purpose of debates is not advert $$$

it's about choosing a nominee from between more than one option, and even Sanders' staff said that they knew it was over "weeks if not months" before June 6.

And FoxNews? There had not been Democratic Debate on that fetid sewer system in 12 years.

[stuffmatters]

47. A Primary debate is worth millions of free advertising for exposure of our Party ideals

I disagree completely. Many, many of us in Ca, especially we who were fighting to elect down ballot Democrats, felt that
cancelling the debate was detrimental to our struggle. I worked to defeat Darrell Issa who was reelected by only 1500 votes. The perspective here, "from the trenches" was that two hours of Democratic Debate (i.e.exposure) would have helped Doug Applegate win and Issa lose.

Think about how many hours America watched the endless Republican Debates, got brainwashed with the relentless repetition of
their hateful ideology. Two free hours of national exposure for Democrats turned down...that was just stupid.

2016 was not only about Clinton vs Bernie for our Party in Ca or in America. It was about electing Democrats period. Cancelling such a luxurious opportunity to speak "Democrat" to the whole Country for two hours was shooting a gift horse,no matter what station carried it.

Again just my opinion.

[DonCoquixote]

31. what this really says

Is that Hillary realized too late she was being POORLY SERVED by people like "she who was FIRED but you cannot say her name without getting hidden."

[dembotoz]

32. As a Bernie supporter please realize the amount of restraint it takes to quiet here.

And yes I supported, worked for and voted for Hrc

But it's late at night and the matches and gasoline are put away

So I will turn off the tablet and try to sleep...

[JusticeForAll]

38. I hear ya

Visiting your state rather than my state would have helped in the adept and quick areas.

[dembotoz]

42. Yep

[Initech]

33. The GOP owns the media.

It's kind of hard for us to reach an audience when we can't. We have got to take back the media.

[ucrdem]

34. In So Cal at least she ran a bang-up e-mail operation.

Messages every day, asking for money but putting it in terms that made me want to send a few bucks. Always personal too, corretcly addressed to me and signed by Hillary. It was really impressive!

[Oneironaut]

41. I will be happy when everybody stops talking about Hillary, Bernie, and the election.

Time to start preparing for 2018. None of this crap matters anymore.

[ehrnst]

44. If we don't learn from 2016, we'll have no chance in 2018. (nt)

[LonePirate]

51. She should have realized promising the moon without a way to deliver it was key in 2016.

Then again, maybe that only works for male politicians.