Wasting More Words On Hillary's Campaign And Ignoring The Elephant In The Room

Since this week seems to be one in which we all re-litigate the competency of the Hillary Clinton campaign while blithely ignoring the impact of James Comey, let me throw my two-cents into the mix. Clinton lost the election when she decided not to pick Tom Perez as her running mate. Perez had a stellar record both at the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice and at the Labor Department and he would have had appeal for the disaffected Sanders' voters as well as the angry white working class because of his efforts to support workers.

As I wrote when I endorsed Perez for Vice President, "He has pursued voting rights, civil rights, and police misconduct cases in his work in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. As Labor Secretary he has supported the fight for $15 minimum wage, paid leave, and unions frankly love him. He instituted the new overtime rule that extended overtime pay to millions of workers; he has been involved in pursuing wage theft; and he was instrumental in negotiating an end to the Verizon strike which was a huge victory for the unions. In fact, when rumors surfaced that he was being considered to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General, unions revolted, demanding that he stay in place at Labor."

Perez would have had credibility with the working class in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and would have made clear that workers' concerns would have had not only an ear but an advocate in the Clinton administration. Perez could have gone to coal country and the abandoned factory towns of the Rust Belt and had some credibility. Tim Kaine, on the other hand, brought far less to the table - perhaps a few more votes in Virginia and a handful of Hispanic votes as well, which Perez could have easily brought in as well. Hillary's problem turned out to be with the working class and Kaine did very little to help in that regard.

Look, when Clinton wins the popular vote by 3 million and loses in the Electoral College by under 100,000 votes, you can point to almost anything as the "cause" of her loss. The reality is that she was running against a lot of headwinds to start with. Running for a "third" presidential term has traditionally been rather difficult. She was faced with a press that held her to something higher than a presidential standard while her opponent was allowed to get away with virtually anything, simply because the media never believed Trump had a chance and the usual "Clinton rules". And Trump managed to tap into the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and angst of the white working class that had never recovered from the Great Recession of 2008. But the data does not lie and it is clear the biggest mover in this election was James Comey. There is just no getting around that fact. But if you want to put aside Comey, media bias, the Russian hacking, and the misunderstood appeal of Trump, then you can make just as good a case that the reason Hillary lost is because she didn't choose Tom Perez as her running mate as opposed to any other.