Hillary's Titanic campaign missed the boat
Written by Robert Douglas
Friday, 11 November 2016 03:03
While Donald Trump gets busy “draining the swamp” in Washington, Democrats should start draining the tub at party headquarters where Hillary’s posse spent the last two years drinking their own fetid bathwater.
Trump didn’t win this week’s election as much as Hillary lost it. Her campaign was as “extremely careless” in attracting and counting voters as she was in managing emails as Secretary of State.
From the day she announced she was running, it seems her Titanic campaign had set the cruise control for a coronation. It managed to dodge the Bernie Sanders iceberg in the primaries but powered on as if Donald Trump was just a gnatty little ice cube who would melt before Nov. 8.
She may have won more votes than her opposition. But he won more in the right places. She knew the rules of the Electoral College, which tallies votes on a state-by-state basis. She knew it’s not enough to run up the score big in states like California if you lose enough smaller states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But her campaign was too lazy or incompetent to move enough voters in the right places her way.
The voters were there for the asking. But the campaign either didn’t ask or didn’t know how to ask in a convincing manner.
It was tone deaf to progressives who supported Sanders’ message that spoke to the economic priorities of millennials and working families — preferring instead to court disaffected Republicans. It took for granted minority voters that turned out in greater force for President Obama. And it never fully dispelled the clouds of suspicion of improprieties during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State and as a principal in the Clinton Foundation.
The campaign’s overarching message was simple: Clinton is better than Trump.
Conjure up the image of the campaign’s smarmy surrogates who became fixtures on cable news floating in a big tub, filling their flutes from the water they’re in to toast their better candidate as they slowly circle downward toward the drain.
Progressive Democrats should reach for their plungers to hasten the drainage.
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Robert Douglas is a former union official and former business editor for The Palm Beach Post and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , like him on RBDMedia.com on Facebook or follow him at RBDMediaDotCom on Twitter.
Trump didn’t win this week’s election as much as Hillary lost it. Her campaign was as “extremely careless” in attracting and counting voters as she was in managing emails as Secretary of State.
From the day she announced she was running, it seems her Titanic campaign had set the cruise control for a coronation. It managed to dodge the Bernie Sanders iceberg in the primaries but powered on as if Donald Trump was just a gnatty little ice cube who would melt before Nov. 8.
She may have won more votes than her opposition. But he won more in the right places. She knew the rules of the Electoral College, which tallies votes on a state-by-state basis. She knew it’s not enough to run up the score big in states like California if you lose enough smaller states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But her campaign was too lazy or incompetent to move enough voters in the right places her way.
The voters were there for the asking. But the campaign either didn’t ask or didn’t know how to ask in a convincing manner.
It was tone deaf to progressives who supported Sanders’ message that spoke to the economic priorities of millennials and working families — preferring instead to court disaffected Republicans. It took for granted minority voters that turned out in greater force for President Obama. And it never fully dispelled the clouds of suspicion of improprieties during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State and as a principal in the Clinton Foundation.
The campaign’s overarching message was simple: Clinton is better than Trump.
Conjure up the image of the campaign’s smarmy surrogates who became fixtures on cable news floating in a big tub, filling their flutes from the water they’re in to toast their better candidate as they slowly circle downward toward the drain.
Progressive Democrats should reach for their plungers to hasten the drainage.
------------
Robert Douglas is a former union official and former business editor for The Palm Beach Post and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , like him on RBDMedia.com on Facebook or follow him at RBDMediaDotCom on Twitter.
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