2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)NYT TO HRC: STOP LYING ABOUT SANDERS. [View all]
Or you're going to keep losing. If I were Clinton... or a Clinton supporter.... I would pay VERY CLOSE attention.
"A Lesson for Mrs. Clinton in Michigan" --- Lead Editorial in today's NYT.
>>>>On the Democratic side, Hillary Clintons surprising loss in Michigan is still being analyzed, but it holds some lessons about how to approach future contests.
Mrs. Clintons candidacy speaks eloquently of embracing the people, values and thinking that make this nation a leader in the world. But her campaign tactics, particularly in Michigan, did not live up to this vision.
Even with a double-digit lead before the primary, she failed to avoid the type of negative tactics that could damage her in the long haul. A new Washington Post-ABC poll says that nationally, Mrs. Clintons margin over Bernie Sanders has shrunk: she polls at 49 percent compared with 42 percent for Mr. Sanders; in January her lead was more than double that. If she hopes to unify Democrats as the nominee, trying to tarnish Mr. Sanders as she did in Michigan this week is not the way to go.
Mrs. Clintons falsely parsing Mr. Sanderss Senate vote on a 2008 recession-related bailout bill as abandoning the auto industry rescue hurt her credibility. As soon as she uttered it in Sundays debate, the Democratic strategist David Axelrod registered his dismay, tweeting that the Senate vote wasnt explicitly a vote about saving the auto industry. Even as reporters challenged her claim, she doubled down in ads across the state. As The Washington Post noted, it seems like shes willing to take the gamble that fact-checkers may call her out for her tactic Sunday but that voters wont.
Though Mrs. Clinton spent more time in Genesee County, home to Flint, than Mr. Sanders, she only won narrowly there. Mr. Sanderss full-throated call for top-to-bottom government accountability for Flints drinking-water catastrophe contrasted with Mrs. Clintons tepid remarks about the need for a housecleaning at the Obama administrations Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Sanderss opposition to free-trade agreements resonated in Michigan, and are likely to help him in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois next week. He has consistently pointed out Mrs. Clintons past support for trade pacts, starting with Nafta when her husband was in the White House, and her shifting positions ever since. Mrs. Clinton is now opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she promoted as secretary of state. If she hopes to convince skeptical rust-belt voters that shes in their corner, she needs to explain why she once believed that trade pacts would help American workers.
The Clinton machine should stop trying to tie Mr. Sanders to the National Rifle Association. Though Mr. Sanders has a D-minus from the N.R.A., in Michigan Mrs. Clintons operatives took to >>>>
the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/opinion/a-lesson-in-hillary-clintons-loss-in-michigan.html?_r=0