How ironic was it that even as the first polls were closing all the pundits on both sides were talking about how the Republican 2016 autopsy would be a repeat of the 2012 autopsy because they learned nothing and prospects of winning another Presidency were basically out the window until they finally addressed it.
Here is my autopsy:
1) You can’t run a flawed candidate. Yes, those flaws were minimal in reality compared to Trump, but the right managed to build up the perception of corruption and endless scandals. By making her the boogeyman over the last eight plus years she was carrying a ton of baggage.
2) Enthusiasm and likability is huge. The flaws they managed to stick HC with just killed the broad based enthusiasm. You should never had a candidate where the bulk of your voting block saying “I’m not a big fan of her, but she’s better than the other guy”
3) Anecdotal evidence does matter. Big rallies are an indicator of enthusiasm and enthusiasm is an indicator of turnout. If she got same turnout as Obama in 2008, which seemed doable given more first time voters would be voting democratic, this would have been in the bag. Here’s one thing that stood out to me all year...
Here in Arizona when Obama was running I would see bumper stickers and lawn signs supporting him quite a bit. Not as many as McCain or Romney, but you would see them. Guess what… during this whole election cycle I never once saw a Clinton bumper sticker or lawn sign. I’m not saying they didn’t exist, but if I didn’t see a single one this says something and it stuck with me. On a couple occasions on first glance I thought I saw one but it turned out to be a “Hillary for Prison” sticker using her logo in it. I didn’t see as many Trump stickers and signs as McCain or Romney though, and this goes to show he wasn’t creating mass enthusiasm either, but it was significantly more than Clinton. Many people were as reluctant to vouch for Clinton as they were for Trump. We even had down ballot candidates stumbling on answering if they thought Clinton was honest and trustworthy.
4) GOTV is overrated if people aren’t excited for your candidate. It all comes back to if your candidate is inspiring the electorate you’re pissing in the wind. In the age of technology and social media it much easier and cheaper to GOTV. I didn’t see this being leveraged as much as it could have, but then again it probably didn’t matter much.
5) Persuasion matters. When people like a candidate and genuinely excited about they talk about them. They talk the candidate up and convince their uninformed friends and family who don’t know shit about what is going in the world and/or don’t care to go vote for your candidate or switch from the other candidate. It’s all anecdotal, but people never talked up Clinton in the varied circles I encountered throughout the long campaign. They did talk up Bernie, and even right leaning populists were coming around to him. Group think and word of mouth is very important. Consensus is a huge driver.
6) Play to win, not to reward. It was clear from the primary charts if Bernie had injected himself into the primary discussion a month or two sooner or the primary went a month longer he would have been dominating Clinton in the polls. The party knew this as well as we did, but that didn’t matter. Clinton had paid her dues so they were going to give her the nod despite it lessening the chances of a victory. I think a lot of sentimentalists thought because she was woman that women across the board would turn out for her in record numbers to make history much like African-Americans did for Obama. This was the failed thinking that led McCain to selecting a know-nothing from Alaska. History along with the current polls showed this wasn’t going to make a difference anywhere near as having a candidate people are excited about, but they didn’t want to believe. Clinton earned the nomination for her efforts over the years, but the polls and facts showed she didn’t deserve it if the goal is to nominate the most electable candidate as opposed to the one that played the party game the longest.
7) Fight dirty. The republicans are willing to take away constitutional voting rights from people to try to win and disenfranchise voters. The republicans are willing spread outright lies, propaganda and misinformation to the public. If we want to win we must be willing to beat them at their own game to some extent, even if it isn’t totally following them into gutter. I don’t like disenfranchising voters or putting out bullshit, but if they always win this game they will always play it. The day they start to complain about it is the day that their voters might decide they don’t like it either. I say make the same attempts to cast their voters off the rolls. The reason it continues so pervasively is because the other side thinks its okay because it doesn’t happen to them.
Likewise, where are all of our scumbag operatives creating fake and distorted narratives for the press? Where are the swiftboat ads? Where are the blogs and web ads and chain emails of fake scandals and outright lies about their candidates? Why aren’t we keying in on their best prospects well in advance and starting to creative the narratives that pile all the shit onto we can?
Look, I don’t like fighting fire with fire with this type stuff, but if the other side isn’t going to fight fair then neither should we. By trying to be principled and rational it puts us at a disadvantage. The reason is because most people are pretty ignorant and uninformed, and the right knows that and plays to that. Part of the reason they can get away with it is the media sucks at their job. They don’t vigorously call out lies and try to align reality with the facts because that is “liberal bias” and “lame-stream” because liberals ground their arguments in facts while republicans do not. So let’s stop playing defense by letting the other side be the only side to taint candidates and create outrage. The crazy part is we didn’t even have to try do that in this cycle. Trump was a perpetual scandal and controversy machine for over a year straight and we still lost. That is really the leading indicator on how weak our candidate was.
All said, whet they start having to start calling the kettle black about being blanketed with negativity or suppressing their vote is the day we’ll ever be a step closer to people wanting to dial it back.
8) The message is out of date and not focused. The income inequality and gap between the rich and poor are getting so extreme that people are pissed. That should be the main issue on the table because every other social issue spins off that (taxes, education, healthcare, justice system reforms, etc, etc). The country by and large still things the economy is in the crapper despite stats showing it is doing really well. That perception is real though, so it doesn’t matter what the facts are, and when people are earning less and working harder they could care less what the unemployment rate is — it feels like things are bad.
9) Don’t take voters for granted. Clinton assumed the same faithful democratic voters from the last two cycles would show up for her by default. It is clear now that there is no such thing as a lock outside of the deepest of blue states and they must be defended.
Conclusion: The problems are quite obvious and pretty easy to solve with this one. Most of it could have been solved by running a candidate people were more excited about and a message that fit the mood of the electorate. I think the party officials need to stop thinking they are smartest people in the room and have their finger on the pulse while they sit inside their echo chamber. This is the same thing republican officials did and they got the shock of their life. The insiders don’t know shit because they are too close so they can’t see the forest for the trees. They need to start getting diverse candidates and messages out early to sample the response instead of just anointing someone. In this case we should have ran Bernie, if not because he would have been a better president then because he would have won.