Trauma of Clinton's Pennsylvania loss has Casey weighing 2020 bid

[brooklynite]

Politico

It’s been more than two years since Donald Trump carried Pennsylvania in 2016, and it’s still on Bob Casey’s mind. He wishes he had pushed Hillary Clinton to campaign more outside Pennsylvania’s two major cities. He thinks he should have pressed the Democratic nominee to go to economically struggling places like Washington and Greene counties to talk about rural broadband rather than talk about Trump.

Those regrets help explain why Casey has emerged as one of the most improbable names being floated as a 2020 Democratic presidential prospect. The Pennsylvania senator, on the heels of a double-digit victory in the midterm election, made a late and surprising entry into the invisible primary last month. It wasn’t activists, donors or reporters who first added his name to the long list of potential candidates, but Casey himself who suggested he was considering a bid.

He’s determined that the Democratic nominee not make the same mistakes in 2020.

"Looking back on it, months later and months later, and after more and more therapy, every time I thought about that election, I was remembering flashing lights that I looked at and then dismissed,” Casey said in an interview with POLITICO. “I share some of the blame for not calling Brooklyn and saying, ‘You can’t just go to Pittsburgh.’”

[elleng]

1. He's right, of course, about HRC missing important areas,

and not only in PA; think about Debbie Dingell's unsuccessful appeals to HRC vis a vis Michigan.

I don't know how a Casey bid would play, having not seen him recently.

[StevieM]

3. Hillary did make several campaign stops in MI, along with stops by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and

Tim Kaine. And she made the most campaign stops, I believe 15, in PA, OH and FL.

I doubt that all 15 of her PA campaign stops were in Philly and Pittsburgh.

It's also important to remember that her ground game was operational throughout the state, and her ads were running everywhere.

I doubt more campaign stops would have made a difference. Comey not screwing her would have.

[JI7]

2. that wouldn't have done much . the idiots weren't looking for real policy solutions

it wasn't really hillary as much as the bs about trump and how the media did not accurately report on him and just let him get away with the successful businessman bs.

and then there was the russian attack and voting issues.

[StevieM]

4. Comey and the FBI were an even bigger factor than the Russians IMO. (eom)

[JI7]

6. they both affected each other. Comey would not have had as much an impact without

the russian attacks already in place. and without Comey she would have still made it with the russian attacks.

[StevieM]

9. Agreed. I just think that Comey was a bigger factor than the Russians.

It was such a ridiculous election. The media tries to normalize it with their absurd descriptions of what they claim led to her loss. They ignore all the facts and say what makes them happy to say.

[betsuni]

5. Here's what Hillary says in "What Happened":

"We always knew that the industrial Midwest was crucial to our success, just as it had been for Democrats for decades, and contrary to the popular narrative, we didn't ignore those states. In Pennsylvania, where public and private polls showed a competitive race similar to 2012, we had nearly 500 staff on the ground, 120 more than the Obama campaign deployed four years before. We spent 211 percent more on television ads in the state. And I held more than twenty-five campaign events there during the general election. We also blanketed Pennsylvania with high-profile surrogates like President Obama and Vice President Biden.

"Here's the bottom line: I campaigned heavily across Pennsylvania, had an aggressive ground game and lots of advertising, and still lost by 44,000 votes, more than the margin in Wisconsin and Michigan combined. So it's just not credible that the best explanation for the outcome in those states -- and therefore the election -- was where I held rallies."

[JI7]

7. it's such bs also. it assumes this was just some normal election where people voted on issues

when there was a huge propaganda effort and attack on the election. the shit from Trump and the media failure to report the truth about him . the shit that his coming out is everything we knew back then but which the msm did not cover.

but even with all that shit she would still have won if not for Comey.

[betsuni]

8. She says that "Google searches about WikiLeaks were particularly high in swing areas

with large numbers of undecided voters, like Cambria County in Pennsylvania and Appleton, Wisconsin. In other words, a lot of people were online trying to get to the bottom of these crazy claims and conspiracy theories before casting their votes. Too often, what they found was more misinformation and Russian-Directed propaganda."

[Cha]

11. Mahalo for that, betsuni!

[betsuni]

12. You're welcome!

[triron]

10. Except she didn't lose Pennsylvania. Vote tallies were changed.

[DeminPennswoods]

13. No, they weren't

nt

[DeminPennswoods]

14. She did focus her GOTV efforts on Pgh and Philly

I thought she'd have been better off doing small issue-oriented events in some of the more conservative areas of the state so voters could see that she wasn't the caricature portrayed by rw media. Then voters could have gone home and told their friends and family that she was not at all like what they'd heard.

There is no doubt rolling up big margins in Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties is key to winning the state. And she did roll them up, but when looking at the turnout, iirc, it was in the mid-60's in Phila, but higher in most other areas. Had Philadelphia turnout matched the rest of rural PA, she'd have won. Or if voters in the few counties where she underperformed the vote for the Dem PA atty general candidate, she'd have won.

TBH, the reason she lost the state was that too many voters simply did not like her due to decades of being defined by rw media. For ex, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, based in Westmoreland County, was owned by RM Scaife, a chief funder of the many "investigations" in the Clintons.

As to Bob Casey, he's a great senator, honest, sincere and a serious policy wonk, but he is pretty boring.

[Mc Mike]

15. (Insert bronx cheer here.)

[bullwinkle428]

16. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Casey isn't the most pro-choice Senator.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. Of the Democrats, yes I think so. He's delusional to believe he's our Presidnetial answer. n/t