How would Bill Clinton's Campaign Advice have altered the 2016 Campaign

[WPADEM]

Former President Bill Clinton recognized early on that there was a discontent among the Working Class voters across the country, especially in the Rust Belt.  He pushed for his wife's campaign to focused on the issues in order to counter Trump's appeal.  Much of Hillary's campaign staff saw the former President as a has been and his advice was ignored.

Can't help but see this as a similar situation to 2000 where Vice President Al Gore distanced himself from Clinton and emphasized his Independence.  You could argue that Gore's choice played right into Bush's call for "Restoring Honor and Dignity," to the White House.

So with that being said, to what extent could Bill Clinton's strategy have altered the outcome of the 2016 election?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/shattered-authors-bill-clinton-pushed-tone-hillarys-campaign/story?id=46974506

And for some memories:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5knEXDsrL4

[Vice President Christian Man]

If it went like how it went IOTL, she probably would've won Michigan and if she was lucky Pennsylvania, but the emails doomed her. On the other hand, hiring Carville instead of Abedein could have better reduced damaged control and she could've won more states.

[brucejoel99]

The answer is entirely dependent on whether or not it's even possible for Hillary to persuade undecided voters &/or voters already leaning against her. To your heart's content, you can spend a lot of money & man-hours on polls & boots/literature on the ground to try & persuade swing voters in key states to vote for Hillary instead of just trying to turn-out the base, but it'd still be all for naught if Hillary is just truly incapable of getting a national electorate to turn-out to the polls for her.

That being said, it's still simply undeniable at this point that the fundamentals underlying the 2016 election were intent on putting Hillary in a position to lose & Trump in a position to win, so who's to say (especially in light of the significantly increased Trumpist turnout that 2020 proved was capable of producing) that even if Hillary had listened to Bill & gone to the Rust Belt, her presence wouldn't have just alerted more potential Trump voters to the fact that there was an election going on & that they could show up & vote against Hillary? After the Comey letter, maybe she was better off avoiding them.

[TML]

You could certainly make the argument that this is one of many things which could have tipped the election the other way, given that the three decisive states were all decided by a fraction of a percent apiece. Remember that exit polls indicated that a plurality of the electorate thought that the ability to bring needed change was the most important candidate characteristic, and Trump won overwhelmingly among that group since Hillary's campaign was mostly about continuing down the existing path. Perhaps if she had actually framed her campaign as bringing needed change, that could have been enough to push her over the finish line.

[Mr.Phips]

You could certainly make the argument that this is one of many things which could have tipped the election the other way, given that the three decisive states were all decided by a fraction of a percent apiece. Remember that exit polls indicated that a plurality of the electorate thought that the ability to bring needed change was the most important candidate characteristic, and Trump won overwhelmingly among that group since Hillary's campaign was mostly about continuing down the existing path. Perhaps if she had actually framed her campaign as bringing needed change, that could have been enough to push her over the finish line.

Hard to argue that you are going to bring change when your party controls the White House.

[Podgy the Bear]

Bill Clinton was the best Democratic politician since FDR.    Winning states like WV and MO are completely off the table now.  Getting 30-40% in counties where 25 years later, the Democrats are lucky to get into double digits.

He knew how to win elections and when he didn't do well, he was able to adapt.  The Democratic Party of today needs to learn that.  The self-righteous, waiting for demographics to change to get the permanent majority, etc. is a ridiculous stance.

[Skill and Chance]

The answer is entirely dependent on whether or not it's even possible for Hillary to persuade undecided voters &/or voters already leaning against her. To your heart's content, you can spend a lot of money & man-hours on polls & boots/literature on the ground to try & persuade swing voters in key states to vote for Hillary instead of just trying to turn-out the base, but it'd still be all for naught if Hillary is just truly incapable of getting a national electorate to turn-out to the polls for her.

That being said, it's still simply undeniable at this point that the fundamentals underlying the 2016 election were intent on putting Hillary in a position to lose & Trump in a position to win, so who's to say (especially in light of the significantly increased Trumpist turnout that 2020 proved was capable of producing) that even if Hillary had listened to Bill & gone to the Rust Belt, her presence wouldn't have just alerted more potential Trump voters to the fact that there was an election going on & that they could show up & vote against Hillary? After the Comey letter, maybe she was better off avoiding them.

I agree.

Given subsequent election results, it can't be understated how strongly the average voter favors Republican positions on post-2014 cultural issues.  My takeaway is that Hillary did about as well as a Dem candidate possibly could have in that environment.  Given how bad things were in 2020 and how close Trump still came (and how downballot R's held up even better), 2016 should have been a Republican PV win. 

[SInNYC]

I am aware of the claims that Bill warned Hillary on the rust belt, but I think it should be pointed out that the sharpest R trends in 1992 were rural white and/or rust belt states IA/WI/Dakotas, with PA/OH/MN also trending away.

Of course Perot complicates the issue, and I think there is validity to the argument that there was a strong D-->Perot trend in the rust belt. But Bill was no rural or rust belt hero. and his strength was the south and parts of the midwest with historical southern connections.

[Mr. Smith]

It wouldn't.

Trump by default already meant she couldn't run the Obama '12 campaign as planned, she had to try something else.

As long as Robby "Data is G%d" Mook and Abedin were running the show, any sort of advice would be taken wrong.

And anyway, 2016 was lost by just a week. One more week would have given Hillary the numbers to flip The Sun Belt.

[MT Treasurer]

1) (the revisionist historians won’t like this but) Hillary Clinton did just as poorly in states she visited frequently over the course of the GE campaign (e.g. PA, IA) as she did in states that she barely or never visited (e.g. WI, MI). She was a historically unpopular candidate who wasn’t going to change attitudes toward her by "visiting" states. She was extremely fortunate to face an opponent who somehow managed to have even lower favorability numbers than her in the contested states, because the race wouldn’t even have been in doubt otherwise.

2) (the revisionist historians won’t like this but) There was a reason why Gore wasn’t eager to hitch his wagon to Clinton — not sure if you actually realize just how abysmal and unprecedented the latter's low favorability numbers were (maybe you haven’t seen the exit polls, but he was underwater in 45+ states, including quite a few deep blue states). It would have been political suicide to associate himself with Clinton (on the trail, in the debates, etc.) even more than Gore did in real life (which was already a lot, something that is conveniently forgotten whenever this debate comes up). It’s actually a testament to Gore's fairly underrated strengths as a candidate that he came this close to beating Bush, even though the latter admittedly ran a campaign that completely failed to live up to expectations (a habit that would continue well into his failed presidency, of course).

[dw93]

It might've made the difference, but she also went about attacking Trump the wrong way. Instead of a campaign of "Trump's an unqualified, racist meanie and I'm not, vote for me" (even if Trump truthfully was/is all of those things) she should've done what Obama did to Romney, hammer the hell out of his business record and use that to define Trump. If she followed Bill's advice AND hammered Trump's business record, she'd have won, doing just one of those may or may not have made the difference.

[Alben Barkley]

Hillary won have won MI/WI/PA at least and the election.

[Sir Mohamed]

Possibly she would have won at least the Rust Belt trio.

Basically, you can say a lot of negative stuff about Bill Clinton and his moral shortcomings, BUT the dude indeed has a pretty good political instinct and had such for a long time.

[Mr.Phips]

Possibly she would have won at least the Rust Belt trio.

Basically, you can say a lot of negative stuff about Bill Clinton and his moral shortcomings, BUT the dude indeed has a pretty good political instinct and had such for a long time.

He sure didn’t in 1993-1994.  Otherwise, I agree.

[Alben Barkley]

Listening to Robby Mook over her husband is probably the dumbest thing Hillary has ever done. Tragically, uncharacteristically, and fatally.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Listening to Robby Mook over her husband is probably the dumbest thing Hillary has ever done. Tragically and fatally.

This isn't quite wrong I think. Bill still had the pulse of the country back in 2016. Mook had his smart points, but listening to Bill over Bobby was, no doubt, an utter mistake.