‘Democratic Party Has No Earthly Idea Why Hillary Clinton Lost’

[Virginiá]

I'm just going off the title, but I'm pretty sure that while there are a number of ideas floating around, put together, we are plenty sure why she lost. The problem sees to be how exactly to fix this.

Though, one reason I see getting less play than it deserves is the fact that Clinton was an absolutely terrible candidate in so many respects. People just didn't like or trust her. She had too many problems, whether they were fair/deserved or not. She really should have just dropped out when the email stuff hit the fan. Primaries exist to help weed out candidates like this, but it doesn't work if they, in combination with other party officials help dissuade others from running. I'm not offering my own personal opinion of her character, but rather the cold hard reality of her candidacy that quite frankly, was pretty obvious early on in the primaries.

Had Democrats run a better candidate more attuned to the populist anger brewing on both sides, perhaps things would have turned out much differently. Bernie would have been great for this had there not been the democratic socialist angle, imo. Maybe he would have still won, but I continue to believe that would have been a big drag in addition to the rich opposition file that existed for him.

[Virginiá]

So if there is a parallel, the Dems may have to ask whether it's better to nominate a trusted insider who can lock up support like Mondale or Hillary, but aren't effective candidates on the national stage. Or is it worth the risk of an outsider taking over the party either to lose big like McGovern did in 72, or win as an outsider without DC allies as Carter did in 76?

The power brokers are always going to find a way to convince themselves that their trusted candidate of choice is "good enough" and will win and won't rock the boat. But, I also believe that such a loss like this can make opposition less cohesive, particularly when a major theme of the last election was how the insiders played games and made moves to get their pick nominated and then saw her lose when her insanely large number of vulnerabilities that were obvious from the beginning of the primaries dragged her down.

In an ideal world, the powers that be would have looked at Clinton's past issues and the emerging email scandal and worked against her while trying to pull someone like Biden (at least) in. Really, if we're going to have primaries though, the party should encourage competition and not favor one candidate or the other unless one of them has many past scandals or other issues (like a Trump-type or Clinton). Otherwise if we're just going to have a system where the party leaders fall in line behind a favorite and try to clear the path for them, we might as well just go back to convention picks.

[Virginiá]

They look around, see that one candidate has an awful lot of support, and think to themselves "Looks like that candidate is going to win.

But that's the thing - it pretty much was only one candidate, until Bernie's campaign exploded. Everyone knew all this baggage Hillary was bringing in, and the email stuff broke early enough. If the party was going to do anything, leadership should have tried to recruit more viable candidates. Instead, you had one very, very flawed candidate with lots of connections and influence basically clearing the field because no one wanted to go against her, didn't think they could win anyway, and probably some coercion behind the scenes (although I obviously cannot prove that) from all sorts of people.

Whatever truly went on in this year's primaries, it was deeply unhealthy and risky for future elections, both in terms of GE prospects and the possible alienation of the voters. We need to be better than that.

[Virginiá]

I think Democrats control the fewest state governments ever. They need drastic change.

I agree that the party needs some decent changes, but I'm curious about just how much success you think is possible on the back of that alone? Democratic control at the state level was pretty inflated due to the South, and that is a Republican stronghold now. We aren't getting that back for a long time, if ever (besides some select states here and there trending our way). Numerous structural pro-Republican advantages in the electorate are going to prevent Democrats from dominating in the states like we did over a generation ago. Not unless some earth-shattering realignment of white voters occurs.

Maybe worth noting too that the Republican Party was exceptionally weak at the state level even while it was dominating presidential elections. The electoral benefits they reaped nationally eventually did trickle down to the states in the 90s-now.

Democrats need to make changes for sure, but party issues are really not the only reason, probably not even the primary reason that Democrats are weak at the state level right now.