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In reply to the discussion: Eleanor Clift: Will Obama Ever 'Fess Up to His Merrick Garland Mess? [View all]zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)It was part of her point, and a big part of the larger point. Obama's strategy had been (as it had been virtually his entire presidency) was to "work with" the GOP to try to get what he was after. What the author's suggestion was about was that that was a losing strategy all the way. The wrong pick meant that, among other factors, at the convention he couldn't use the opportunity to "force" the issue with the GOP and at the very least turn out a larger liberal vote in certain states. It also meant he was relying upon Hatch instead of Grassley.
I'm a bit dubious that there was any winning strategy. I'm dubious that the voters HRC needed were going to be affected by any of this. The primary short coming on the democratic side was they believed too long that HRC had it wrapped up and in fact were campaigning the last couple of weeks in the wrong states trying to create a lopsided victory to bring in the concept of a mandate. But there is also the real possibility that no amount of campaigning was going to change the Comey letter effect.