WWTBAM Bored

"Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign" is an inside view of the Clinton campaign.

Of the many post-election books-this one seems to be breaking through the noise and shows from an inside perspective, just how bad the Clinton campaign was run.

Michael Barone's take:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hilla ... le/2620595

The New York Times take:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/book ... .html?_r=0

Pull quote from the NYT
>>In fact, the portrait of the Clinton campaign that emerges from these pages is that of a Titanic-like disaster: an epic fail made up of a series of perverse and often avoidable missteps by an out-of-touch candidate and her strife-ridden staff that turned “a winnable race” into “another iceberg-seeking campaign ship.”<<<<

No real news here. She's a crappy campaigner, which is why I voted for Obama in the 2008 primary.

But she's much better at the actual work of governing. The last three months have been an object lesson in how important the latter task is. --Bob

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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Fortunately, in my view, we will never get to see how "Great" she is at governing.

Per "Shattered"-I am most interested in reading the stuff about Mook's data analysis models and so forth. Since you said there is really nothing new here-can you recommend other previous works on that subject?

Oh man!

I could have written that book...and I had no access to the insiders.

I was warning over-confident Hillary supporters from the get-go that they were way too confident...that if Hillary was going to rely on a message of "I'm not Donald Trump" and hope the demographics Obama won were going to carry her over the top, she stood a good chance to lose.

I only changed my tune once- when the "pussy-grabbing" tape game out. I thought for sure that would sink Trump...but I underestimated how voter discontent with the status quo and hatred of Clinton as a person would override that.

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1979 City of Champions 2009

I totally agree that she is a crappy campaigner-You could not be more wooden than she is.

However, if she is so great at governing, why did the organizational side(The "Governing" side, if you will) of her campaign suck so bad? Simply put, the muddled organizational chart of her campaign certainly calls into question her "governing" skills.

Oh really? And what can you possibly base that opinion on?

But maybe you'll end up getting her anyway. When they impeach Trump for being pals with Putin and negate the results of the election and declare her the winner. But I don't hear much about that anymore. Still could happen, right? Or maybe His Majesty Jon Ossoff will be appointed President.

You guys are so over the top, and you don't even know that half the country is on to you.

I'm no Trump fan, but where do you get the idea she would be any good at the actual work of governing?

Her only exec experience was the State Department, which I wouldn't say was a well-oiled machine when she ran it.

Better than Trump? Probably.

Better as in good? Not 100% certain on that.

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1979 City of Champions 2009

lol - need you ask?

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The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. And clowns.

Rick Castle is dreamy.

I have said variations of this before, but I think the worst thing that happened to the Clinton Campaign is that they dug up the "Pussy-Grabbing" tape.

They obviously sat on it for awhile and they "KNEW" beyond a shadow of a doubt, that once they dropped that tape, the election was over.

The biggest strategic decision over the last weeks/months of the campaign was when to drop the tape. They didn't have to worry about Wisconsin-etc because they had the tape.

As I recall, the New York Times sat on it for quite a while because they weren't comfortable it was adequately authenticated. Once the Washington Post got it, it took them less than a day.

I really don't think the Clinton campaign had control over the tape, and I'm not close to persuaded they knew about it before it went public.

As for why I think she'd have been good at governing, her policy positions on her Web site were reasonably detailed and were well thought out. --Bob

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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Here it is.... Wait for it....

So were Hitler's.

You can be a wonk and yet be terrible at governing.

It's actually rare when a wonk is also good at the nuts and bolts of governing.

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1979 City of Champions 2009

Well, this was immensely stupid.

You win the First Annual Sean Spicer Award for Complete Idiocy.

Hold it up high.

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1979 City of Champions 2009

In the future there may be a version of Godwin's Law about mentioning Trump in an argument.

This is right on the mark, unlike Spicer's comment.

Although I am honored, it is bobby boy who should get this award.

His policy positions were very detailed in his famous book. And he obviously had a lot of time to think them out. Hillary's policies may have been detailed and well thought out, but me, for one, and millions of others, did not want them to be implemented. Just because someone announces well thought out and detailed policies does not mean they should be given power.

Or an unsolicited post from a left wing propaganda site critical of some stupid thing they allege he said or think he meant by what he said.

REC

It is an honor just to be nominated.

Flock doubled down on Stupid.

Why am I not surprised?

He's the Bob Juch of the Right.

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1979 City of Champions 2009

I skipped ahead to the chapter on Election Night which contains my favorite words of the English language.

As returns came in from Florida-Mook and Kriegel were realizing something.

"Their vaunted model was way off in Florida."

I love the smell of a burning model in the evening.

It is like a fine wine when models of the smartest people in the world fall apart at the first brush with reality.

Use shit data...will get shit model.

Sort of like the quants who priced and risked MBS' and CDOs

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1979 City of Champions 2009

It's still early in the year. Hope it holds up. I'll bet it's like the Nobel Prize. Only people of one political view can win it. If that isn't the case, BJ will be a shoo-in to pass me up. Probably tomorrow.

Can't be. I use words that have more than 5 letters sometimes.

In my appraisal world, I walked, and became familiar, with the line between quantitative and qualitative analysis. Obviously, quant analysis has its place, but I have much less respect for the quant world because of that experience.

So when I read this paragraph from "Shattered" my sympathies are with "Bill" (Clinton).

>>>"Bill thought the campaign manager was a capable operative but worried that the next-gen Mook was too invested in data to the exclusion of politics. Neither a traditional poll nor Mook’s preferred analytics— voter-behavior models based on surveys and demographic data— were as finely tuned as his own sense of political winds, Bill thought."<<<<<

Mook is presented as someone who always makes his decisions based on data. Well, sometimes the data isn't there and sometimes it isn't in a form you can quantify.

When Michigan Democrats started sending up alarm flares, the data that a quant would rely on might not be there, but qualitatively it was there, and staring them in the face.

Another fun "Shattered" paragraph on Mook and Bill that kind of points to why Hillary lost. The blindness of the smartest 30-year old quants in the world could not be more clear.

>>>Bill’s time on the ground only encouraged his skepticism of Mook’s reluctance to send him outside population centers. Having grown up in Arkansas, Bill understood that a major political player— could bridge ideological divides by just showing up in small towns that never got much attention from elected leaders.

He liked to go to small towns in northern New Hampshire,Appalachia, and rural Florida because he believed, from experience, that going to them and acknowledging he knew how they lived their lives, and the way they made decisions, put points on the board. Mook wanted Bill in places where the most Hillary-inclined voters would see him. That meant talking to white liberals and minorities in cities and their close-in suburbs.<<<

This is my completely subjective appraisal of the Clintons...based on little more how I have seen them on TV and second-hand evidence from friends who have met them.

Bill is a consummate schmoozer...genuinely likes to talk to all kinds of people.

Hillary? Not so much...especially not to folks in the Rust Belt who might not be immediately inclined to like her. She just isn't a people person, and not all that warm.

So when a quant tells her and her team to campaign in areas where people will automatically like her and she doesn't have to really schmooze...her inclination is going to be to take that advice.

I can see now why the only election she ever won was as a Senator in a hugely liberal state.

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1979 City of Champions 2009