Hillary Clinton’s Campaign, Cautious but Confident, Begins Considering Running Mates

[karynnj]

34. Actually, the primary might have been more cynical than wrongheaded

I had not thought this out until reading your words, but I wonder if making the primary fights over a FALSE issue, placing her on the traditional democratic side was not well thought out.

For HRC, every moment that Sanders spent fighting against being labeled as not understanding AAs and not being acceptable to this large Democratic demographic group, while articles reinforced how strongly they supported HRC - was a plus for her. Going back, you see this started with people arguing when he announced in his hometown and people posted here and elsewhere that this was a huge error in terms of optics. (because having a cheering crowd of over 5000 on a late afternoon in a 42000 person city is a bad idea)

In that case, the issue was bogus - and Sanders' history compares well to Clinton's. However, HRC was genuinely to the left on gun control. Her team did exaggerate the difference, but it was in a way that happens in every election. Both of these issues helped Clinton whenever they were in the forefront. On issues of power and wealth, Clinton proactively changed her rhetoric to minimize the difference with Bernie. I assume this was intended to neutralize the issue that play to Bernie's favor.

The other difference was foreign policy, where Clinton counted on the genuine lack of real interest on the part of the American electorate. Here, her strategy has been to tie herself to things seen as Obama successes and to use her resume as SoS to close any discussion of differences in vision and philosophy between herself and Sanders.

Sanders gained when income inequality, questions of integrity, or arguments on a few HRC hawkish foreign policy issues were in the forefront.

HRC won when electability, "proven ability" to be President - including lead foreign policy -- and in NY this was on steroids with the NY Daily News interview that opened questions on how ready Sanders was to be President, guns, or the bogus POC issue were raised.