The authors of Shattered: Inside Hilltary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign have made the rounds of Cable TV, talking about their access to the Clinton campaign and the mistakes made in it. Almost all of the salacious material was included in these appearances, so if that’s your interest, I’ll simply embed one of those videos
Having watched those videos exactly for the salacious content before beginning, I really can’t describe any of those revelations as a pay-off of reading the book. But I think three large themes are clear in the text, and have been largely ignored by television coverage. They are the organizational nature of the campaign, the conscious rejection of the Clinton coalition as a population to speak to, and the utility of “data” as a shibboleth.
First the cost of internal office-politics in the Clinton Campaign may have been as severe as all the external resistance Hillary Clinton faced. The lack of alignment in incentives seem to have been particularly egregious in the case of Robby Mook, though its unclear if this is because Mook was particularly independent or (more likely) these stories were the most available to the authors. Mook engaged in behavior that is perfectly rational in any corporate office — serving as a gate-keeper to the resources under his charge. His gate-keeping role denied others access to non-rival resources that could have been used by others on the campaign to help their candidate. (Why important stakeholders did not have their interests aligned is not discussed in the book.)
Second, the most shocking part of the book was a revelation that something I took to be accidental was instead intentional: Clinton attempts to run a campaign not to her strengths (which she attempted in ’08), but to Obama’s (who, admittedly, actually won in ’08). One of the endearing images I have of that cycle was Clinton throwing back whiskey shots. The message was clear: whether you like Clinton or not, she is tough and unafraid. In a dangerous world those are admirable qualities in a leader. Those may be the qualities that won the White House for Donald Trump.
Instead of projecting a tough image and winning those left behind by globalization, Clinton tried to complete Obama’s transformation of the Democratic Party into a globalist party. Obama’s coalition included highly paid professionals, feminists, those seeking race-conscious preferences from the federal government. But unlike Obama, Clinton was neither charismatic nor black. She failed, but her failure was part of a conscious strategy.
The only shocking part relates to data. It’s unclear exactly what is meant, but polling was replaced by another technique cheaper because polling was expensive. Total Survey Error was simply ignored. Domain experts were sidelined, and anonymous sources told the authors they were made to feel like “dinosaurs” if they questioned analytics. It seems clear the authors themselves don’t understand the details of these debates (whether anyone in the room did is uncertain!), but I have a creeping feeling that too many were dazzled by the geeky magic of pop-analysts like Nate Silver, to their ruin.
I read Shattered in the Kindle edition.
