A friend of mine dug up this Facebook post that I wrote in 2016. I hate when I’m right.
(This is unchanged from my original post… excuse any typos.)
Predictions for 2016: Hillary Loses
More specifically: Hillary wins the DNC primary but loses the election. Democratic pundits respond saying “how foolish were we to not see that someone with such high negatives would lose?”
How foolish? 100% foolish! …because the grassroots saw it coming and you ignored us.
Yes, the conspiracy theories around Hillary Clinton all are crazy bullshit manufactured lies. However they are out there and must be dealt with.
I fear that the HRC campaign is filled with people that have grown used to ignoring those conspiracy theories and don’t plan on addressing them as part of the campaign. This will be huge mistake because such conspiracy theories will be the keystone of her opponent’s strategy.
The only way you can be a DNC operative is to have developed a hard shell and a temperament that can ignore those batshit crazy people. Those crazy rumors started in 1992 (24 years ago!) and have only gotten more batshit crazy ever since. You have to learn to ignore them to work in this business.
While ignoring them is a good self-protection mechanism… it is a terrible campaign tactic. The RNC leverages them very effectively. Young voters grew up with them as “truth”.
Ignore the opponent’s strategy and you lose.
Part 2:
This part is called “If I had 15 minutes in a room with Hillary, this is what I’d ask her”
Hi Hillary. I’ve been a big fan since 1991. By the way, we have a mutual friend, the late Don Jones.
My question requires some background. Excuse me for explaining some points that you know already but the background is important.
Hillary, as you know… back in 1988 Dukakis lost because he didn’t ignored the attack advertisements used against him. His strategy was “if you ignore them, they’ll go away; if you respond, it validates them”. Reagan/Bush saw this was happening and used it against Dukakis over and over again. Eventually Dukakis would respond within three or four news cycles but by then it was too late.
As you also know… in 1992 the Clinton campaign was smart enough to not repeat this mistake. For the first time in history, a Democratic campaign set up a “rapid response team” that responded immediately to any negative attacks. Realizing that news was becoming more of a 24/7 thing, they made sure that any attack was defused in the current new cycle, not the next one. That way it was snuffed out when it was small.
Squashing a problem when it is small is more efficient than fighting it when it is big.
So, my question, Hillary, is do you plan on losing like Dukakis did in 1992 or fighting like your husband did in 1992? The reason I ask this is because so far you have not responded to Trump’s attacks.
Are you not responding because you have forgotten 1992? Or do you think that Trump isn’t a serious candidate and can be ignored? If you think he can be ignored, what makes 2016 different from 1988?
If you don’t think Trump will win the primary, why aren’t you using his attacks as a practice run against whoever does win? Practice makes perfect.
So far your strategy a copy of the losing 1988 Dukakis campaign. You’re one of the smarted political people in the world… why is your campaign being so dumb?
Footnotes:
While researching this post I found an interview with Dukakis from last October where he said: “one of the dumbest decisions I’ve ever made — that I was not going to respond to the Bush attack campaign.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/10/talking-hillary-and-trump-with-michael-dukakis.html?fbclid=IwAR3sOUeUJiThYY_h9xUxniqEJlqhu0eHdKJ-C45yyR8BtpuFLaH9COBJdvM
Don Jones was Hillary’s Methodist youth minister when she was growing up in Illinois. Later he was a professor at Drew University where I took 2 classes with him, and I did clerical/database work on one of his books. http://www.drew.edu/news/2009/04/27/prof-donaldjones19312009 When Don passed away in 2009 Hillary wrote: Don opened up a new world to me and helped guide me on a spiritual, social and political journey of over forty years. Don taught me the meaning of the words ‘faith in action’ and the importance of social justice and human rights.
The film “The War Room” is a great documentary about how the Clinton campaign fought back in 1992. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ADHR8N2/tomontime-20
The film “The Hunting of the President” is a great documentary about how these batshit crazy conspiracy theories make money for the press and the crazy people meanwhile hurting democrats. In doing so, the film debunks every HRC conspiracy along the way. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002IQK9U/tomontime-20 or the dvd https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Hunting-of-the-President/70000106
Practice makes perfect. When former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley ran against Al Gore in the primaries it helped give Al Gore practice campaigning which helped him considerably. Even the pro-Gore people knew that and supported Bradley’s run.
