New York Post: Hillary is Running a Painfully Stupid Campaign

The author spends some time taking Hillary to task about West Virginia, and saying it was a stupid mistake. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, she's actually running a pretty smart campaign, it wasn't a mistake, it was the transparent part of an elaborate strategy.

Let's dispel the fiction she doesn't know what she's doing. When she said the coal miner thing, she knew exactly what she was doing. She was willing to give up West Virginia, a state with a ridiculously low amount of Democratic delegate, and one that she could never win in the general election (and doesn't need to), so that she could position herself for the general election. See, Hillary is very shrewed, she knows she won't win coal states, she might even lose Pennsylvania. But she intends to run in the general election by appealing to various minority and special interest groups, like Latinos, environmentalists, etc, and mobilizing them with an unprecedented effort. She knows she will win a certain percentage of the white vote, so she can discard that right away—she doesn't need most of it. But in order to mobilize the special interest groups, such as environmentalists, and make sure they don't stay home on election day, she has to have something to show them. Nothing in her legacy points out to a good record on environmentalism, so instead, she creates herself a legacy—she will go out and say, hey I stood up for you guys, I have the bruises to show for it in West Virginia. She'll coat it by saying somethign about the workers but the end result is clear, she appealed to their most basic emotions by taking "bruises" for them. Nevermind the fact that they're not real bruises, she had planned it all along. And just so we're clear, these sorts of emotions work wonder in campaigns, people WILL go out and vote for someone who they perceive as having sacrificed for them, being willing to fight for them. Trump is running the same type of campaign, albeit aimed at other people, and on other issues altogether (and in my opinion he takes it to an even higher level).

Anyway, food for thought.

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