2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Super delegates have worked for the Dems in the past. Why all of a sudden the move to get rid [View all]Exilednight
(9,359 posts)1. Hillary's insider status hurt her. Poll after poll showed the country wanted someone that they viewed as an outsider. Rouse made a decision early on to keep to Obama out of the the Washington elite political circles, but behind the scenes he was quietly cultivating support from those same people. Hillary started out with a strong SD lead, but it was never guaranteed. Rouse convinced SDs to support Obama if he reached certain thresholds in the PD count.
2. There's nothing anecdotal about those connections. These were all seasoned veterans who knew the other players. The one thing Obama benefited from was a crowded Demo article field. If the election started out with only Obama and Hillary as the two choices, Hillary would have won, but everybody knew after the 2004 loss that it was going to be a large field.
After his purple state speech, his skin color was not problem that had to be overcome. Plouffe and Axelrod knew what voters to target. Those that saw race as an issue were automatically knocked off the list. Gen Xers and millennials were their targets along with POC.
One of the more interesting polls I saw was mid 2007 where they polled young people and asked two questions.
1. If Hillary became President do they believe they could become President?
2. If Obama became President do they believe they could become President?
There wasn't a huge gender divide among either candidate, as long as they were white. Obama becoming President made everyone feel like they had a chance.
In contrast, Hillary being President only influenced white girls.