Was Hillary Clinton always unelectable nationally?

[TML]

By no means was Hillary unelectable.

Looking back to her initial Senate campaign in 2000, Hillary was viewed by many as a carpetbagger, since she and her family had only taken up residence in New York (the state where she ran) a year before. That is usually considered a disadvantage. However, she managed to win the election by 12%, which was a margin greater than what most observers expected. A major part of her winning strategy involved personally reaching out to many voters in upstate New York (which is mostly rural and where Republicans generally do well in NYS), which won her several upstate counties (Cayuga, Niagara, and Rensselaer) which most observers did not expect her to win, and kept her losing margins in the other counties relatively respectable (her greatest losing margin was 68-31 - roughly 2-1 - in Hamilton County). Furthermore, although her campaign did run attack ads against her opponent, the attacks were mostly focused on the potential negative effects of her opponent's proposed policies instead of her opponent's personal character.

It seems to me that in 2016, Hillary failed to adequately duplicate the strategy that worked for her in 2000. IMO, if she had done any of the following things, she would likely have been able to flip at least the three Midwestern states (WI, MI, and PA) which were decided by a fraction of a percent each:

-Spend more time campaigning in the aforementioned Midwestern states (remember, she barely touched Wisconsin and Michigan after the primaries).
-While campaigning, spend more time reaching out to white working-class voters as well as voters in rural areas. Obama stated that he adopted this strategy when he ran for Senate and for President, and while he may not have won the rural vote overall, he did manage to keep margins relatively respectable (in his words, 60-40 or 55-45 instead of 80-20). In Hillary's case, a slight but significant reduction of her losing margins in rural areas would likely have been enough to flip the three aforementioned Midwestern states to her side.
-Focus more on policy points (e.g. promoting Democratic economic policy proposals and the potential positive effects they would bring to voters). Additionally, when running attack ads, focus more on the potential negative effects of her opponent's proposed policies (in 2016, there was plenty of stuff on that front) instead of his personal character.