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I have just finished Shattered by Allen and Parnes.
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes guide the reader through the convoluted labyrinth of "Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign". Recently, Clinton claimed that she lost the election primarily because of the actions and remarks of the FBI director, James Comey. But these two supporters of Hillary make a very strong case that the root causes of her defeat lay in her own decisions and the strategies she adopted.
She created distrust in a large section of the electorate by actions before the campaign through setting up a private email server and then avoiding taking responsibility for this mistake far too long. She gave speeches to Wall Street Banks and ". . . was unable to prove . . . she had a vision for the country rather than visions of power".
The authors also emphasize her reliance on the "scientific" data analysis of her campaign manager Robby Mook rather than engaging with the voters themselves and having poll workers on the ground. She presumed the Democratic "Blue Wall" would guarantee a victory and thus never focused on the "Rust Belt" states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. She lost them all.
The long bitter road of the Primaries and the equally difficult battle against a flamboyant and unpredictable opponent who proved far more dangerous than she expected is agonizingly detailed in this tale of one of the greatest political upsets in American history.
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