I having a stroke or are you? I’m not sure what her having won the popular vote and lost the EC in states she didn’t campaign in has to do with her “elevating trump.”

The person you’re replying to seems correct to me in that these are excerpts from a plan drafted by her team, but it does seem to be missing evidence they put it into action. Her not campaigning in some states isn’t that, right?

And honestly, I can kind of see their point. Sure, in hindsight it’s easy to criticize the idea post trump election, but most people would not have taken a trump campaign seriously. Especially in 2014 when this was written. It’s a extremely normal and valid tactic to try and prop up what’s perceived as a candidate that can be easily beat in a national election to cut out any real competition during the primaries.

But strategy aside, there’s still nothing showing the Clinton campaign “elevated” trump. Even reading that article, the most they did was nothing. They just focused their attacks elsewhere because he wasn’t a serious target. Again, that’s what everyone does. Why waste millions in advertising dollars to attack someone who seems like they’re going to lose anyway? Surely you want to work on taking down your actual rivals early? Turns out they were wrong, but so were most of us in 2014.

I worry that the decades that republicans spent demonizing Hillary Clinton worked all too well on even more progressive voters and people will see malice in everything she ever did, and misjudgments that we were all guilty of are viewed as unforgivable when she does it. By all accounts I remember reading, she’s not terribly charismatic, but has always been a very effective leader once in position. Nobody like campaigning Hillary, but poles for her when she was in an office were great.