Did Tim Kaine cost Hillary votes

[Ilhan Apologist]

I don't know how much it actually affected the final outcome or anything, but the selection of Kane certainly doubled down on the image of Hillary running on a strictly "I am the sensible, enlightened alternative, and that is all you need to take into consideration" shtick.  In Iowa (where I lived during the 2016 election), Hillary's ads were very protectionist, populist and focusing on Trump's hypocrisy on issues of offshoring and whatnot because she knew the Democratic base in Iowa depended on those voters.  I imagine her ads were quite different in Virginia.  The selection of Kaine, rather than a nod to Sanders voters or even a better pick like Brown, really doubled down on the "winning over moderate Republicans" strategy, IMO.

I mean, she had a good reason not to pick Brown, which looks even better in retrospect. I wonder how it would have gone if she had picked Merkley though. Would have been a nod to Sanders voters at the very least.

[Ilhan Apologist]

No. Hillary Clinton cost Hillary Clinton votes. She was a terrible candidate who made stupid decisions, especially at the end of the campaign. If she paid a little more attention to states like Wisconsin (never visited after the primary), Michigan and Pennsylvania, she might have won.

I mean, that was her advisors' intuition, not her own.

[Ilhan Apologist]

No. Hillary Clinton cost Hillary Clinton votes. She was a terrible candidate who made stupid decisions, especially at the end of the campaign. If she paid a little more attention to states like Wisconsin (never visited after the primary), Michigan and Pennsylvania, she might have won.

I mean, that was her advisors' intuition, not her own.

The buck stops at the top. Otherwise, what you're saying is that Hillary Clinton either lacked her own intuition on to where to campaign or was too weak to overrule her team's bad decisions. Either way, it's not a good look.

Bill Clinton generally stayed in the background for fear of repeating 2008, but had she listened to her husband and campaigned more in and tried to connect to exurban and rural areas, the result may have been different."Basket of deplorables" was an even bigger gaffe than Romney's "binders full of women."

You think she should have been clairvoyant and done what her pollsters told her was a bad idea?

[Ilhan Apologist]

No. Hillary Clinton cost Hillary Clinton votes. She was a terrible candidate who made stupid decisions, especially at the end of the campaign. If she paid a little more attention to states like Wisconsin (never visited after the primary), Michigan and Pennsylvania, she might have won.

I mean, that was her advisors' intuition, not her own.

The buck stops at the top. Otherwise, what you're saying is that Hillary Clinton either lacked her own intuition on to where to campaign or was too weak to overrule her team's bad decisions. Either way, it's not a good look.

Bill Clinton generally stayed in the background for fear of repeating 2008, but had she listened to her husband and campaigned more in and tried to connect to exurban and rural areas, the result may have been different."Basket of deplorables" was an even bigger gaffe than Romney's "binders full of women."

You think she should have been clairvoyant and done what her pollsters told her was a bad idea?

A candidate can't always be guided by the polls. I'm not a Bill Clinton fan, but even I can admit that Bill Clinton has 100x better political instincts than any pollster and almost every other living politician.

Just because he happened to be right in this one instance?

[Ilhan Apologist]

Given how toxic both Presidential candidates were, the VP seat played a substantially weaker role in 2016; but it's quite obvious that someone like an Elizabeth Warren or Julian Castro wouldn't have gotten killed in a debate by Pence as Kaine did.

I mean, at least for Hillary a less forgettable VP would have helped distract from her toxicity.