Author: Hillary Clinton Cost Herself The Election
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Jonathan Allen, the co-author of the new book, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, told Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the former Secretary of State cost herself the White House with mistakes on the campaign trail.
"The basic conclusion of the book is that there were a lot of things she set in motion, a lot of things she did that cost her this election. I know she talks about Russia and the FBI Director as factors and, certainly, that's part of the story of this election, but here's a candidate who struggled, according to her own aides, to come up with a message that convinced a fair number of voters that it was about them and not her. She had the email scandal which dogged her throughout the campaign, based on her decision to set up a server outside the basic government system. There were so many missteps along the way that I think she put herself in position to lose to Donald Trump."
He pointed to Clinton calling many supporters of Trump 'deplorable' as a key error that she, ultimately, failed to overcome.
"It's a situation where it re-confirmed the worst suspicions of people who were uncomfortable with her, that she saw herself as above a lot of the people she was asking to vote for her. I think that got into the consciousness. Of course, it was at odds with her campaign slogan, 'Stronger Together.' Her whole idea was that you don't divide Americans like that to win elections and, yet, here she was, doing exactly that."
Looking forward, Allen said Democrats will have to regroup and re-focus their political coalition if the want to emerge from their current minority status in Congress.
"I think the Democratic party, number one, won a lot of votes in this election across the country, but, number two, didn't win them in the right places. They've got a lot of thinking to do about what they need to do to reconnect with people in the industrial Midwest."