5 ms·

If Clinton's 9-figure campaign couldn't get a handle on what the average American voter wants from their government, it would be downright hilarious to watch so

by 013a 9y ago

If Clinton's 9-figure campaign couldn't get a handle on what the average American voter wants from their government, it would be downright hilarious to watch someone from Silicon Valley try. The region is so far out of touch, they aren't even on the same planet.

dragonwriter 9y ago
The problem wasn't Clinton's campaign, it was the candidate; it's amazing that a candidate that widely hated and whose negatives were rock solid from decades of political exposure still managed to get more votes than Trump, who came in with slightly higher negatives, but about whom voters had far less firm opinions.
- specialist 9y ago
  Uh huh. Overt racism & sexism, foreign meddling, systemic disenfranchisement, Johnson & Stein pulling a Nader (+2m votes over 2012), $3b of free earned pro-Trump media, Comey’s sabotage, the electoral college, and 300k opioid addicts voting for the Big Chief were all totally irrelevant. Nope. HRC was unlikeable. It’s all her own fault.
  - passwordqq 9y ago
    > 3b pro-trump media Look up "wikileaks piedpiper candidate" and decide whose fault is it
    - specialist 9y ago
      How about you just tell us.
  - Mountain_Skies 9y ago
    >300k opioid addicts voting I'll ask the same thing I ask when people claim homeless citizens voting steals elections: why do you think opioid addicts do not have the right to vote? If they registered legally, why shouldn't they have the right to vote like everybody else?
    - specialist 9y ago
      I’m for 100% enfranchisement. No taxation without representation. I mention the opioid addicts specifically because their poster child Rush Limbaugh is a hard core fruit cake. I believe, but cannot yet prove, that pickling the brain turns people “conservative”, by which I mean absolutist and authoritarian.
  - vturner 9y ago
    > the electoral college How inconvenient that the minority vote of states without mass populations centers is valued. > Johnson & Stein I voted for Johnson, it was not a "Nader." If we don't like the system, then we must force pressure upon it.
    - jartelt 9y ago
      States without mass population centers still get 2 senators, so they are valued, even without an electoral college...
    - specialist 9y ago
      I respect your vote. But. Elections have consequences. Voting is a chess move, not a valentines. And any viable new third party must be grown from the bottom up. That’s just how it works. If you want more choices, I encourage you to advocate for Approval Voting (as I do). First a little, than a lot.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Look, let's consider the 2000 election for a moment: Florida was both brought within distance for theft to matter by Nader votes and actually stolen, resulting in the Bush victory. But the only reason the results, in Florida or nationally, were close enough for any of that to matter was because the Gore made the incredibly moronic choice not only fail to leverage the fact that he was Vice President to the most popular outgoing President in the history of polling, but to top that off my spitting in the face of that with the Vice Presidential pick. Similarly, yes, all those things you mention were part of the context in which the 2016 election occurred but they were decisive only because that Democrats picked the weakest possible candidate, with higher unfavorable ratings than any previous major party nominee, firm unfavorability because of decades of national political exposure, and relatively little experience as a candidate in electoral politics (having only served a couple terms as a Senator in a heavily-selling state coming in onethe coattails her husband's Presidential popularity; she'd never been in a campaign where she needed more than the approval of the Democratic establishment to win.) Clinton had the worst negatives that can come with long political exposure, without the strengths that come from long and relevant electoral politics experience. And, no, it's not her fault, it's the Democratic establishment's fault. Clinton didn't have the choice to be herself or be someone else, the Democratic establishment did have the choice not to decide to go all in for Clinton even before other candidates were declared.
    - specialist 9y ago
      Mostly agree about 2000. I mostly blame Liebermann. And the Supremes. re HRC and the DNC... That’s just not how it works. There is no monolithic “Democratic Party”. Just loose coalitions of power centers, big and small, that brand themselves as “Democrats.” And 1/2 of “party politics” is always the candidates parasitic relationship with the various interest groups, making promises to earn endorsements and contributions, to be forgotten once elected. Use them and then disgard them. There is nothing (comparable to the right) on the left where elected are held accountable to their constituents. If voters want more choices, then they have to lower the barriers to entry, by (greatly) reducing the cost of campaigns. Public financing, restore fairness doctrine, time box campaigns season, universal voter registration, compulsory voting (most campaign money on the left is spent on GOTV), etc.
- paul7986 9y ago
  Clinton’s public image and she is so unlikable we got Trump. Funny and the DNC did everything in their power to make her their candidate over Sanders. I would have voted for him instead of an independent.
- starik36 9y ago
  The conventional wisdom is that Bernie would have won the general election. I disagree with that - it's wishful thinking. His ideas might be palatable inside the democratic party, but I think he would have hard time pushing his ideas in the states that mattered.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > His ideas might be palatable inside the democratic party, but I think he would have hard time pushing his ideas in the states that mattered Sanders did better in primaries that allowed people outside the Democratic Party to vote and was throughout the election seasons (and remains, as of the last pollI saw earlier this year) the single most popular national political figure in the country. Every objective indication is that he would have done better than Clinton in “the states that mattered”. In any case, much as one might prefer policy ideas to be decisive, elections are less about policy ideas and more about soft personal factors than people like to think.
    - hilbertseries 9y ago
      The opposition research against Sanders is brutal. >Sanders’ 1985 trip to Nicaragua, where he reportedly joined a Sandinista rally with a crowd chanting, “Here, there, everywhere/ The Yankee will die.” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/bernie_sanders_electability_argument_is_still_a_myth.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
      - bonesss 9y ago
        At yet half the republican members of congress can wax poetic about the glorious, revisionist, legacy of the southern confederates and their lovely Yankee killing generals with a glint in their eye and not a hint of scandal... I don't know how it's gonna happen, but I think the Dems really need to get to a point where they could accept someone with a history like GWB and his "youthful indiscretions" as a candidate. Purity is a hard thing to find in the world.
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  Yeah, but did you see Meg's campaign for governor? She spent a crapload of money and really didn't connect with the voters at all. I don't think she's a natural politician.
goialoq 9y ago
You think that the person who created the system that controls most middle-aged Americans news and emotions doesn't have a handle the electorate's feelings? What's next? A movie star running for President?!
- rconti 9y ago
  Ronald Reagan? The actor???
- 013a 9y ago
  The systems they build and own might have a handle on the feelings of the electorate, but the people don't. Zuck builds walled hundred million dollar mansions on "stolen" land in Hawaii, while the people he "stole" it from complain about it on Facebook. Its one thing to know what people are mad about; its another to empathize and try to fix it, and you can't fake empathy. People see right through it.
  - splitdisk 9y ago
    > you can't fake empathy I disagree partly, faking empathy and goodwill is a cornerstone of manipulation in politics. However, I agree it's not a long-term strategy and over the medium-term (months not years) people will learn to see through it. Some people are more transparent than others in this regard.
kenshi 9y ago
I think people could be persuaded to overlook the negative Silicon Valley sentiment if they believed the candidate knew how to make money and do good deals and improve their lot in life. Pretty much the "Yeah but..." argument I have heard from people who voted for Trump. The press is doing a good job of highlighting the shortcomings and flaws of the Silicon Valley elite, but enough voters in the right places have shown they don't trust the press. Of course, anyone coming from the Silicon Valley elite is going to have answer the question of how they are going to create new jobs... which would be interesting to see.
- rayiner 9y ago
  “Instead, we’re hard at work making you obsolete.”
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > negative Silicon Valley sentiment if they believed the candidate knew how to make money and do good deals and improve their lot in life. Of course but I don't think they can convince the average voter - they have been concentrating huge amounts of wealth in a couple of cities. Why would I trust them to be able to spread the wealth?
adventured 9y ago
10 figure campaign. Total spending on Hillary Clinton 2016, at all levels and by all sources, was at least $1.7 billion. They spent $1.2 billion just trying to defeat Trump and half a billion dollars versus Sanders in the primary.

by 013a 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

The problem wasn't Clinton's campaign, it was the candidate; it's amazing that a candidate that widely hated and whose negatives were rock solid from decades of political exposure still managed to get more votes than Trump, who came in with slightly higher negatives, but about whom voters had far less firm opinions.

specialist 9y ago
Uh huh. Overt racism & sexism, foreign meddling, systemic disenfranchisement, Johnson & Stein pulling a Nader (+2m votes over 2012), $3b of free earned pro-Trump media, Comey’s sabotage, the electoral college, and 300k opioid addicts voting for the Big Chief were all totally irrelevant. Nope. HRC was unlikeable. It’s all her own fault.
- passwordqq 9y ago
  > 3b pro-trump media Look up "wikileaks piedpiper candidate" and decide whose fault is it
  - specialist 9y ago
    How about you just tell us.
- Mountain_Skies 9y ago
  >300k opioid addicts voting I'll ask the same thing I ask when people claim homeless citizens voting steals elections: why do you think opioid addicts do not have the right to vote? If they registered legally, why shouldn't they have the right to vote like everybody else?
  - specialist 9y ago
    I’m for 100% enfranchisement. No taxation without representation. I mention the opioid addicts specifically because their poster child Rush Limbaugh is a hard core fruit cake. I believe, but cannot yet prove, that pickling the brain turns people “conservative”, by which I mean absolutist and authoritarian.
- vturner 9y ago
  > the electoral college How inconvenient that the minority vote of states without mass populations centers is valued. > Johnson & Stein I voted for Johnson, it was not a "Nader." If we don't like the system, then we must force pressure upon it.
  - jartelt 9y ago
    States without mass population centers still get 2 senators, so they are valued, even without an electoral college...
  - specialist 9y ago
    I respect your vote. But. Elections have consequences. Voting is a chess move, not a valentines. And any viable new third party must be grown from the bottom up. That’s just how it works. If you want more choices, I encourage you to advocate for Approval Voting (as I do). First a little, than a lot.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Look, let's consider the 2000 election for a moment: Florida was both brought within distance for theft to matter by Nader votes and actually stolen, resulting in the Bush victory. But the only reason the results, in Florida or nationally, were close enough for any of that to matter was because the Gore made the incredibly moronic choice not only fail to leverage the fact that he was Vice President to the most popular outgoing President in the history of polling, but to top that off my spitting in the face of that with the Vice Presidential pick. Similarly, yes, all those things you mention were part of the context in which the 2016 election occurred but they were decisive only because that Democrats picked the weakest possible candidate, with higher unfavorable ratings than any previous major party nominee, firm unfavorability because of decades of national political exposure, and relatively little experience as a candidate in electoral politics (having only served a couple terms as a Senator in a heavily-selling state coming in onethe coattails her husband's Presidential popularity; she'd never been in a campaign where she needed more than the approval of the Democratic establishment to win.) Clinton had the worst negatives that can come with long political exposure, without the strengths that come from long and relevant electoral politics experience. And, no, it's not her fault, it's the Democratic establishment's fault. Clinton didn't have the choice to be herself or be someone else, the Democratic establishment did have the choice not to decide to go all in for Clinton even before other candidates were declared.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Mostly agree about 2000. I mostly blame Liebermann. And the Supremes. re HRC and the DNC... That’s just not how it works. There is no monolithic “Democratic Party”. Just loose coalitions of power centers, big and small, that brand themselves as “Democrats.” And 1/2 of “party politics” is always the candidates parasitic relationship with the various interest groups, making promises to earn endorsements and contributions, to be forgotten once elected. Use them and then disgard them. There is nothing (comparable to the right) on the left where elected are held accountable to their constituents. If voters want more choices, then they have to lower the barriers to entry, by (greatly) reducing the cost of campaigns. Public financing, restore fairness doctrine, time box campaigns season, universal voter registration, compulsory voting (most campaign money on the left is spent on GOTV), etc.
paul7986 9y ago
Clinton’s public image and she is so unlikable we got Trump. Funny and the DNC did everything in their power to make her their candidate over Sanders. I would have voted for him instead of an independent.
starik36 9y ago
The conventional wisdom is that Bernie would have won the general election. I disagree with that - it's wishful thinking. His ideas might be palatable inside the democratic party, but I think he would have hard time pushing his ideas in the states that mattered.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > His ideas might be palatable inside the democratic party, but I think he would have hard time pushing his ideas in the states that mattered Sanders did better in primaries that allowed people outside the Democratic Party to vote and was throughout the election seasons (and remains, as of the last pollI saw earlier this year) the single most popular national political figure in the country. Every objective indication is that he would have done better than Clinton in “the states that mattered”. In any case, much as one might prefer policy ideas to be decisive, elections are less about policy ideas and more about soft personal factors than people like to think.
  - hilbertseries 9y ago
    The opposition research against Sanders is brutal. >Sanders’ 1985 trip to Nicaragua, where he reportedly joined a Sandinista rally with a crowd chanting, “Here, there, everywhere/ The Yankee will die.” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/bernie_sanders_electability_argument_is_still_a_myth.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
    - bonesss 9y ago
      At yet half the republican members of congress can wax poetic about the glorious, revisionist, legacy of the southern confederates and their lovely Yankee killing generals with a glint in their eye and not a hint of scandal... I don't know how it's gonna happen, but I think the Dems really need to get to a point where they could accept someone with a history like GWB and his "youthful indiscretions" as a candidate. Purity is a hard thing to find in the world.
ScottBurson 9y ago
Yeah, but did you see Meg's campaign for governor? She spent a crapload of money and really didn't connect with the voters at all. I don't think she's a natural politician.

goialoq 9y ago

You think that the person who created the system that controls most middle-aged Americans news and emotions doesn't have a handle the electorate's feelings? What's next? A movie star running for President?!

rconti 9y ago
Ronald Reagan? The actor???
013a 9y ago
The systems they build and own might have a handle on the feelings of the electorate, but the people don't. Zuck builds walled hundred million dollar mansions on "stolen" land in Hawaii, while the people he "stole" it from complain about it on Facebook. Its one thing to know what people are mad about; its another to empathize and try to fix it, and you can't fake empathy. People see right through it.
- splitdisk 9y ago
  > you can't fake empathy I disagree partly, faking empathy and goodwill is a cornerstone of manipulation in politics. However, I agree it's not a long-term strategy and over the medium-term (months not years) people will learn to see through it. Some people are more transparent than others in this regard.

kenshi 9y ago

I think people could be persuaded to overlook the negative Silicon Valley sentiment if they believed the candidate knew how to make money and do good deals and improve their lot in life. Pretty much the "Yeah but..." argument I have heard from people who voted for Trump. The press is doing a good job of highlighting the shortcomings and flaws of the Silicon Valley elite, but enough voters in the right places have shown they don't trust the press. Of course, anyone coming from the Silicon Valley elite is going to have answer the question of how they are going to create new jobs... which would be interesting to see.

rayiner 9y ago
“Instead, we’re hard at work making you obsolete.”
sheepmullet 9y ago
> negative Silicon Valley sentiment if they believed the candidate knew how to make money and do good deals and improve their lot in life. Of course but I don't think they can convince the average voter - they have been concentrating huge amounts of wealth in a couple of cities. Why would I trust them to be able to spread the wealth?

adventured 9y ago

10 figure campaign. Total spending on Hillary Clinton 2016, at all levels and by all sources, was at least $1.7 billion. They spent $1.2 billion just trying to defeat Trump and half a billion dollars versus Sanders in the primary.