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.
But it seems that the Dems deeper question is what to do about a presumptive nominee four years ahead of the election. Are there changes that could be made to stop a nominee that had lined up major donor and political support after it became clear that the nominee was not electable.
One might observe that this is not a new problem, since Mondale started lining up the key insider support even before Ted Kennedy indicated that he would not run in 1984. Gary Hart had a more popular message, and John Glenn probably would have been more popular as a nominee, too. Mondale couldn't even wrap up the nomination without superdelegates at the convention. 1984 was the first nomination with the superdelegate process in place. I'm not suggesting that any Dem could have beaten Reagan that year, but they might not have lost 49 states.
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?
