Why is Hillary Clinton so politically inept?
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  Why is Hillary Clinton so politically inept?
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Author Topic: Why is Hillary Clinton so politically inept?  (Read 1036 times)
Beet
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« on: November 10, 2016, 12:23:38 PM »

By all accounts she is smart, knowledgeable, and experienced in politics. And she had the best advisers around her the Democratic party could muster.

So why is she always so inept as a politician? Bernie and Trump clearly showed the appeal of populism, yet she chose to run in the opposite direction. She adopted a lot of loser positions, like inserting gun control in the GE, and supporting a no-fly zone in Syria. Her husband once famously said that people would rather be "wrong and strong" than right and weak. Yet she based her campaign on a moral appeal to people's compassion, insisting the election was about "who we are", implying that you're not a good person if you don't vote for her. Whereas Trump appealed to people's self interest. Besides that, she tends to make her campaigns about bloodless soporific superlatives like experience, temperament, and qualifications that inspire no one.

In my humble opinion all of the above, represent an unusual degree of political incompetence, than should be expected of someone at her level. She's no Sarah Palin. So why couldn't she be more politically savvy?
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2016, 12:26:11 PM »

- she is less talented than bill or O.

- she became cynical after being detested and criticized for decades

- her self-defense made things even worse

- wikileaks and the benghazi-witch hunt which found the server have been the last stroke.

if she would have been more talented, she would have killed wikileaks.....
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Ljube
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« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2016, 12:38:44 PM »

She is a stiff.
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Roronoa D. Law
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« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2016, 12:51:31 PM »

She fell for the same thing that hurts Democrats all the time. They get to cocky and come of as elitist. Democrats have a track record of losing to incompetent people. 
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Pandaguineapig
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« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2016, 12:56:35 PM »

She never had Bill's likability or charisma, she also came off as arrogant, entitled, and elitist, allowing Trump to run a populist campaign in the rust belt. Basket of Deplorables and wikileaks only added to her image as the entitled rich girl who had to be class president.
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2016, 01:01:44 PM »

She never had Bill's likability or charisma, she also came off as arrogant, entitled, and elitist, allowing Trump to run a populist campaign in the rust belt. Basket of Deplorables and wikileaks only added to her image as the entitled rich girl who had to be class president.

this post is partially true but if that's the case then trump's vote share should have been about 30% of the electorate.
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Pandaguineapig
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« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2016, 01:05:16 PM »

She never had Bill's likability or charisma, she also came off as arrogant, entitled, and elitist, allowing Trump to run a populist campaign in the rust belt. Basket of Deplorables and wikileaks only added to her image as the entitled rich girl who had to be class president.

this post is partially true but if that's the case then trump's vote share should have been about 30% of the electorate.
Even if they didn't like him, conservative voters in the south and Midwest were always going to come home to Trump regardless of what Clinton did
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2016, 01:09:57 PM »

Even if they didn't like him, conservative voters in the south and Midwest were always going to come home to Trump regardless of what Clinton did

sure, sure.....regardless what clinton said...but also regardless of what trump said...and that's the real deal.

trump just wasn't able to disappoint them, he while he tried REAAAAAAAAAALLY hard.

by now i thing, the well-known "n-word"-tape, the abortion thing and the russian orgy, wouldn't have made a difference too.

by all means we freaking now that the russians helped trump and have had direct contact with the trump campaign.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2016, 01:18:20 PM »

She always been highly overhyped.
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #9 on: November 10, 2016, 01:21:32 PM »


i appreciate her cold-blooded anti-emotional style but i realize i am clearly an ignoreable minority in that area.
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Pandaguineapig
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« Reply #10 on: November 10, 2016, 01:26:15 PM »


i appreciate her cold-blooded anti-emotional style but i realize i am clearly an ignoreable minority in that area.
This has been discussed in other threads but aloof or anti-emotional technocrats tend to not do as well in North America as they do in Europe (with Britain being an exception)
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hopper
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« Reply #11 on: November 10, 2016, 02:00:55 PM »

She never had Bill's likability or charisma, she also came off as arrogant, entitled, and elitist, allowing Trump to run a populist campaign in the rust belt. Basket of Deplorables and wikileaks only added to her image as the entitled rich girl who had to be class president.
"Basket of Deplorables" didn't hurt her.
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Storebought
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« Reply #12 on: November 10, 2016, 02:49:07 PM »

Oh, wait, you don't mean you can win NC with a Lady Gaga concert the midnight before the election?

Or that her choice of a NOVA beltway technocrat bilingual in telemarketer Spanish as a VP appealed to no one except other NOVA technocrats?

Those were, however, symptomatic of her biggest error of judgement: not recognizing that the battleground of 2016 would be the Rust Belt (both Northeast and Midwest). Her constant weakness in IA and OH should have tipped her off.
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #13 on: November 10, 2016, 02:52:25 PM »

doubling down on bi-lingual and educated americans is going to be a strong position in the EC.....it just isn't right now and dems deserve getting dissed for getting a decade ahead of themselves.
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jaichind
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« Reply #14 on: November 10, 2016, 02:53:14 PM »

Oh, wait, you don't mean you can win NC with a Lady Gaga concert the midnight before the election?

Or that her choice of a NOVA beltway technocrat bilingual in telemarketer Spanish as a VP appealed to no one except other NOVA technocrats?

Those were, however, symptomatic of her biggest error of judgement: not recognizing that the battleground of 2016 would be the Rust Belt (both Northeast and Midwest). Her constant weakness in IA and OH should have tipped her off.

So you are suggesting she should have picked MN Gov Mark Dayton as her VP choice ?
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Storebought
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« Reply #15 on: November 10, 2016, 03:03:12 PM »

Oh, wait, you don't mean you can win NC with a Lady Gaga concert the midnight before the election?

Or that her choice of a NOVA beltway technocrat bilingual in telemarketer Spanish as a VP appealed to no one except other NOVA technocrats?

Those were, however, symptomatic of her biggest error of judgement: not recognizing that the battleground of 2016 would be the Rust Belt (both Northeast and Midwest). Her constant weakness in IA and OH should have tipped her off.

I was thinking along the lines of Warren, which in retrospect would have taken the campaign in a direction Clinton herself was distinctly unwilling to go.

As for Dayton, he isn't especially popular in MN right now, but at least he would not have flubbed his debate.

So you are suggesting she should have picked MN Gov Mark Dayton as her VP choice ?
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #16 on: November 10, 2016, 06:29:00 PM »


i appreciate her cold-blooded anti-emotional style but i realize i am clearly an ignoreable minority in that area.

Hillary lost two nationwide races she was a dead-on favorite. That's pretty inept.
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Meclazine for Israel
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« Reply #17 on: November 10, 2016, 06:37:24 PM »
« Edited: November 10, 2016, 06:40:42 PM by Meclazine »

You need to keep things in perspective.

  • This could have easily gone the other way.
  • She only lost by 100,000 votes divided across three states.
  • Hillary won the popular vote.
  • She won all three debates.
  • She has long standing experience in politics.
  • Hillary is a well educated, polite and articulate candidate

Hillary Clinton came up against an explosive volcano of media hype when an "anti-establishment" candidate was desired.

I think the Atlas forum is being too harsh on Hillary's loss because of their emotions about Trump having his face on their TV screen for the next 4 years.

The coin only just flipped Donald's way.

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rafta_rafta
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« Reply #18 on: November 10, 2016, 07:12:13 PM »

BS, She isn't politically inept.  She doesn't have the natural charisma and being a woman president only makes it harder. Plus 30 years in public life with constant attacks can wear anyone down.

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HagridOfTheDeep
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« Reply #19 on: November 10, 2016, 07:36:36 PM »

BS, She isn't politically inept.  She doesn't have the natural charisma and being a woman president only makes it harder. Plus 30 years in public life with constant attacks can wear anyone down.

This.

Also, data drives strategy. She had bad data.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #20 on: November 10, 2016, 08:04:32 PM »

Also, data drives strategy. She had bad data.

Jesus no. This attitude is why the Democrats just lost to a Reality TV star.
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #21 on: November 10, 2016, 08:12:14 PM »

i hate the "confirmation bias"-autopsy.

if something is bad, EVERYONE knows who is to blame, even while everyone disagrees.

if democrats change nothing at all and nominate a likeable latino with a populist streak and suddenly win, have they found the voice of middle america again?

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Hermit For Peace
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« Reply #22 on: November 10, 2016, 10:00:29 PM »


Hey you guys, Hillary did something that NO OTHER FEMALE has done in this country. She was forging a trail for ALL other females following behind her.

When you are forging a new trail, you make a LOT of mistakes, it's simply part of the terrain. Only if you choose to be willfully ignorant can you not see this.

You judge her too harshly. She could never live up to everybody's standards. NEVER.

I have a lot of admiration for how far she has come and what she has accomplished for all the other females in our WHITE MALE dominated society.

So lighten up!

Hillary did absolutely the best she could and I applaud her for what she accomplished.

It's time to STOP the Hillary-bashing. I'm fed up to here with it!!!
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Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon
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« Reply #23 on: November 10, 2016, 10:37:39 PM »

Clinton is addicted to the blue wall theory and couldn't come to grips with the idea that Trump might break through it. Remember how her first order of general election TV ads didn't include Pennsylvania, which (Just as I predicted (one of the things I did get right this year)) ended up being the state that decided the election? Sure, she spent money on it later on, and her superpacs spent money there, but defending it through campaign events never was a high priority of her campaign, and the campaign always treated it like an afterthought: Oh of course we'll win there!. Of course Wisconsin and Michigan received virtually no attention.

Clinton's basic strategy for the election was: Grab Kaine to lock up Virginia, Grab the hispanic vote to lock up Colorado and Nevada, and then you can go chasing after Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and Utah to get your YUGE mandate - even if Trump somehow sweeps IA, OH, FL, NC, NH, and ME-2 while you're not looking, he can't get to 270 without winning MI, WI, or PA - which he's obviously not going to do because they haven't voted Rep since the 80s and are therefore part of an impenetrable blue wall! We have a 100% chance of winning! YAHOO!!!!! - when in reality land, Trump was figuring out just how to break through that blue wall - in all of MI, WI, and PA. Bottom line - if you tell yourself your victory is inevitable on day 1, you're going to lose. Just like the Republican western "red wall" of the 50s (or so) to the 80s, any wall will be broken through eventually. No political alignment of the country is permanent.

The path for the dems in 2020 is not to chase after Georgia and Texas - they're nothing but pipe-dreams. Hillary carried Cobb, Gwinett, and Henry counties in Georgia and still lost by 5! In Texas, she actually fell behind Obama's '08 performance in terms of % of the vote earned. Simply put, neither is happening any time soon. The path for the dems in 2020 is to defend MN, MI, WI, and PA like hell, while also going after Arizona (which was legitimately competitive this year). Leave Georgia and Texas in the dust. Just forget about it. I'm completely serious.
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BL53931
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« Reply #24 on: November 10, 2016, 11:12:28 PM »

OK I will just say it. Hillary really needed to stop pushing Feminism and the 'First Woman President' thing in the GE. I can tell you, it turned off some potential male voters for her. Then all the 'celebrities' doing her rallies- many of them unknown to anyone over 35.

Dems did their usual, depended on turnouts from lower voting segments like Blacks and Hispanics. They also no longer seem to appeal to working class voters, instead she pitched her case to 'Urban professionals'.  Her not setting foot in WI was well nigh unforgivable and whomever decided that needs to be banned from working in any future campaigns. Probably it was her.

I also think there was Clinton fatigue. Even folks who supported Bill and now her felt it. It was always something with them, usually leaving messes behind for others to clean up/cover up for. Two good things, we are through with the Clintons. The other, midterms in 2018 should be a lot better than anticipated.
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