Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign

A fascinating insight into how modern politics works. If this book is to be believed then "Veep" is not far off the mark! The picture painted here is of a deeply flawed campaign on behalf of a deeply flawed candidate. Also, for me, it highlighted the inherent shallowness of modern politics. Style and personality are more important. At the time of the election I felt that Clinton had not made her policies clear whereas Trump's positions were very clear. For example, everyone, even people with no interest in politics, knew about the wall. This book explains how this bizarre situation happened - after all wasn't Hillary meant to be the consummate political insider? I am no fan of Hillary, but I did feel sympathy as she and her team wrestled with their main predicament: how to deal with the anti-politics mood of parts of the electorate. She was reluctant to attack Sanders, while attacking Trump only served to make the election about him (perhaps Teresa May should have noted this?).

In the UK, many of us felt we were missing something during the last American elections. Firstly, it seemed inconceivable that anyone would consider voting for Trump. Hillary Clinton seemed what the UK press would term, “a safe pair of hands.” She had years of experience, she seemed the most obvious winner. Yet, it also seemed that the American public disliked her so much that they were unable to consider voting for her and, certainly from our viewpoint, we did not understand why. As such, I thought it would be interesting to read this – subtitled, “Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.”Of course, the UK had their own rejection of the norm, with Brexit, and, reading this, it seems that many – including, notably, Bill Clinton, has a suspicion that this election would not follow the usual pattern. That aside, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was faced with endless problems and, having read this, I do feel I understand what happened a little better. So, how did this happen? How did Trump actually become the better option for some voters?Seemingly, the problems seemed to start right from the very beginning, with Clinton’s initial speech, which was supposed to underline her reasons for standing. Only, she didn’t seem to have any – or, although she had a huge number of causes she wanted to address, she seemed unable to articulate these in a simple, vote winning way. “Build a Wall!” can be chanted. Her team, who always seemed divided, could not give her those catchy sound-bites and, to be fair, she would have found them near impossible to say. For Hillary always comes across a little serious, a little stern, a little uncomfortable.With her team divided by self-interest, a constant stream of damaging news stories, the Democrat vote divided by Bernie Sanders, not taking the threat of Trump seriously enough and Hillary mis-reading the mood of the voters, there was a disaster coming that – like Brexit – those in charge failed to see coming. Her team seemed to cling to figures and trends with desperation, totally losing the idea that they needed to try to persuade voters to their point of view and, instead, clinging to those they were sure would come out in favour of her.Certainly, the campaign was not all bad. In the debates with Trump, the authors felt that Hillary did well. However, she was judged harshly, while Trump was deemed a success, “if he didn’t drool on his shoes.” As such, perhaps she could never have won. Indeed, if Trump was a viable option, then it is pretty certain that anyone could have beaten her and, as such, you cannot help but wonder whether someone should have suggested a different candidate. For, it seemed that Hillary Clinton was the safe pair of hands in a world that suddenly wants populism, wants something different, no matter what the costs. It is said that we learn from our mistakes, but let’s hope that voters, wherever they may be, do not learn the hard way.

Shattered attempts to provide for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign the sort of insider account which John Heilemann and Mark Halperin perfected for the two Obama victories. Although pacy throughout and impeccably sourced, it comes off as something of a poor imitation. The authors have interviewed all the key players, which provides a fund of compelling detail; the drawback is that not enough has been done to synthesise the rich source material into a narrative that rises above the internal turf wars. It is hard to escape the conclusion that a book commissioned as a victory lap had to be hastily recast as a post-mortem, a challenge to which it never truly rises.At its best, Shattered nails the hopelessness of a campaign that struggled throughout to find a purpose and message for its candidate. At its worst, it becomes a cipher for low level axe-grinding, and provides a strangely minimalist perspective on a momentous moment in US political history. On past form, Heilemann and Halerpin's forthcoming account will likely do better.

A great read with a happy ending. Read how the Clinton campaign really messed up with a flawed candidate and Mook relying on the polling data and ignoring the "gut feel" of experienced Democrat leaders, and Bill Clinton. The book is written by people who were sympathetic to Clinton. Read how Kaine was a compromise VP thrust onto Clinton. They had never met before he was picked. Read how Bernie played hard-ball to get his endorsement of Clinton. They tell the story of how they took minority Democrat supporters for granted and couldn't read the Rust Belt. Even when the results began to go south they were clinging onto Florida as the path to 270.

Unfassbar detailreiche und hochspannende Einblicke in die Clinton-Kampagne. Die Quellenlage ist absolut beeindruckend und der Wissensgewinn groß. Der Teil mit den Primaries hätte insgesamt etwas kürzer sein können, aber durch diese wenigen Längen kämpft man sich durch. Der eigentliche Wahlkampf ist spannend beschrieben, obwohl man ja weiß wie es ausgeht. Für Politiknerds ein echtes Vergnügen!

If only more people read it. they would find out the real truth ahbout how the Clintons operate. Sje is a real eveil person and the USA should be glad she lost the election. "LOCK HER UP" is what the people deserve.

In “Shattered: Inside the Doomed Clinton Campaign,” Jonathen Allen and Amie Parnes take the reader on a highly detailed, in-depth tour of the Clinton campaign, from the time before the announcement that she was a candidate all the way to the post-election remorse and recriminations. I didn’t for a minute doubt that they themselves were Clinton supporters, but this book is not a flattering kiss-up to the candidate. Instead, it is a clear-eyed view of what happened and why. And other factors built on her inability to articulate her reason for being in the race in the first place.Clinton was determined to avoid the mistakes she believed her team had made running against Barack Obama in 2008. She was so consumed with this that she ended up making many of the same ones, because she missed the essential nature of those mistakes in 2008.The campaign relied heavily on data analytics – perfected by the Obama campaign teams in 2008 and 2012 – and less on traditional polling. They likely should have relied on both. Data analytics misled them in Florida, Wisconsin, and Michigan, until it was too late to do anything about it.The candidate and the campaign team first missed and then misunderstood the huge wave of populism that rose like a monster from the political deep. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both rode that wave. Both Sanders and Trump were able to articulate clearly why they were running for the country’s highest office. And both Clinton and her team saw but seemed unable to deal with the revolt of the American working class, especially in the Rust Belt.The campaign team and the candidate assumed the “narrative of the blue wall” – and believed that states that had gone Democratic in recent elections would continue to do so. The Sunday before the election, warning lights were flashing full tilt in the Rust Belt, and the response was too little and way too late.The ruthless power struggles within the campaign team, by the paid consultants, and by the DNC were all factors.The perceptions of the Clinton political empire played a role.Clinton went into the campaign hobbled by the ongoing media coverage of her private email server used for State Department business.And once Wikileaks started the release of the hacked John Podesta and Democratic National Committee emails, most people conflated those emails with Clinton’s server problems.FBI director James Comey playing popup-head with “We’re ending the criminal investigation of Clinton, no indictment but she did a bunch of illegal things,” “We’re reopening the investigation,” and “We didn’t find anything after all” was also a significant factor.All of this, and the details of the primary campaigns and the general election, form the narrative of Shattered. Donald Trump plays a small role in this story. Clinton’s campaign team had never run into a candidate like him before, not to mention some of his wild statements and antics (like inviting four alleged women victims of Bill Clinton to one of the presidential debates). But the authors clearly see the reasons for Clinton’s defeat not so much explained by Trump as by the significant failings of the candidate and her campaign team.Allen is an award-winning journalist with a long political reporting pedigree, including Politico, Bloomberg News, and Roll Call. He’s currently the head of community and content at Sidewire and an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. Parnes is senior White House correspondent for The Hill and has also written for Politico. She has previously reported on the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. Allen and Parnes are also the co-authors of “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Rodham Clinton” (2014).The authors rely a lot on unnamed sources (like “a senior campaign official”), but they explain why and how they managed that. The account of the Clinton campaign in Shattered has the ring of truth. And while the authors don’t cover much beyond the two days following the election, there is much here that points to what happened in the months afterward – the shock of the defeat, the rage it engendered, and the “Russia interfered with our election” narrative. Among others.“Shattered” is an absorbing book, but if you’re not a political junkie, it does require some stamina to get through the detail. But there’s a reason for that – the explanation is in the details.

Cette analyse est d'autant plus intéressante qu'en septembre sortira une autre analyse de cette campagne, mais cette fois, faite par Hillary Clinton elle-même. Intéressant de comparer les 2 visions.

It's written so well and it's a definite page turner. It gives a definite insight into the inner workings of the Clinton world. A great read.