Over the past couple of weeks, so-called Democratic opinion leaders and “liberal blogs” throughout the left and faux-left blogosphere have been playing the blame game. Around Daily Kos, it’s been especially ugly, and harshly divisive. (Look in the mirror, Markos! I won’t even link to Monday’s Twitter outburst from DK’s clueless fearless leader; but, over the past 24 hours he’s accomplished what I thought was impossible: he’s made The Donald’s 3AM narcissistic tweets look good, in comparison.)
No. Libertarian (mostly Trump) voters outnumbered Green voters, sometimes by margins greater than 2:1, in virtually every state where both third parties were on the ballot.
As NYU Professor Christian Parenti noted on Friday, when everything’s said and done, Occam's razor applies.
Turns out Clinton’s ground game sucked.
by Christian Parenti Jacobin 11.18.16
Christian Parenti teaches in global liberal studies at New York University. His latest book is Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence.
It is now becoming clear that Clinton’s ground game — the watchword for defenders of her alleged competence — was actually under-resourced and poorly executed. Like so much else in this election, her field strategy was hostage to the colossal arrogance and consequent incompetence of the liberal establishment...
Parenti details the Clinton campaign’s “...deeply flawed set of tactics, and a badly fumbled get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort...”
He tells us of “...A labor organizer in Ohio, who wished to remain anonymous, reports that Clinton’s early GOTV effort there focused on Republicans in the mistaken belief a significant number of them could be peeled away. This play largely failed...”
He notes: “...the campaign was often unsure about the voters’ current political attitudes.”
Throughout the rust belt, especially in African-American, Latino, and white working-class areas, the author quotes many leading Clinton campaign figures and activists hearing the words: ...“so you only come by once every four years?”
...A union staffer in Pittsburgh reports a similar pattern, saying that Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters failed to invest in a locally generated plan to reach out to African Americans who lived in parts of Pennsylvania other than Pittsburgh and Philly...with no resources, enthusiasm faded...
...
...Another labor organizer lamented in an email about the awful campaign Hillary ran in the northern Midwest. When local leaders started to panic at the apparent traction Trump was gaining in these regions and urged the Clinton campaign to send the candidate into the Rust Belt, the geographic ulcer of corporate globalization, nothing happened. Clinton largely stayed away from the counties she lost; but Trump was all over them. Counties that Obama had carried four years ago experienced fifteen- to twenty-five-point swings in Trump’s favor.
...
...Even Obama has taken a shot at the Clinton campaign ground game and its flawed “demographics as destiny” theory. At a press conference earlier this week, he said: “I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated it, but because I spent eighty-seven days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and VFW hall.”...
...
...South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn told the Daily Beast in an October 16 story: “I’ve seen some good GOTV plans. On paper they’re great. The question is what about implementation? It’s one thing to see what you need to do, it’s something else to execute.” ...
...
...G. K. Butterfield, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, worried out loud about the lack of campaign investment in African-American communities in his home state of North Carolina, which Obama lost by fourteen thousand votes in 2012.
“I don’t know why we have been unsuccessful in being able to make the case for a significant investment in grassroots get out the vote,” Butterfield said. “On the Clinton side and on the DSCC side, I’ve been trying to get them to increase their commitment. They have made some investments, but it’s not enough.”...
Instead, the Clinton campaign went all in on TV ads. Meanwhile, field offices suffered. In 2012 the Obama campaign had 789 field offices; this time around, Clinton only had 489 nationwide.
It gets worse....
Not even mentioned in this excerpt, but detailed extensively in Parenti’s article, is the travesty that was known as the Clinton campaign’s “analytics team.” (You’ll have to read the full article, above, to see how misguided it was. Their fail made their sorely lacking ground game look good!)
Meanwhile, incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Wall Street), who’s on track to be the leading Democratic voice on Capitol Hill for the next four years, (what could be more perversely out of touch with public sentiment and profoundly wrong with this picture?) supposedly promotes the likes of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and Congressman Keith Ellison to more prominent positions within the Party, all while the Democratic blogosphere’s pretty much gone batshit crazy, starting right here at Daily Kos. (Do I really need to provide links?)
Too many so-called Dem opinion leaders are seeking to blame this political malpractice on Stein voters? (Reiterating: Johnson voters—who outnumbered Stein voters in virtually every state, and sometimes by margins of 2:1, or greater--were, for the most part, Trump voters.) And, the owner of this website just came out with what may be the ugliest line I’ve ever heard him—or, from virtually anyone within the entire Democratic Party’s self-appointed opinion leader clique, for that matter--mention in my 10+ years participating in this blog.
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(Neo-Nazis are better than Bernie Sanders? Seriously!?!? A vile, flat-out anti-semitic-tinged rant? I’m sure if folks sit around for a month they can come up with something even more disgusting and divisive than that. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned—until Markos makes a full-throated, sincere apology for that outburst--that’s grounds for resigning as the CEO of this damn blog.)
They say that “recognizing the problem is half the solution.” Markos needs to spend some time in front of a mirror. (Better yet, see Parenti’s article, above, for a reminder of what REALITY is.) Once more, for emphasis: Moulitsas owes the entire Democratic Party—and, especially this community--a major damn apology. And, until he delivers that up, at the very least I truly hope he stays away from his damn keyboard and cellphone.
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