The failed 2016 campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton made many serious blunders in that election cycle that ended with the surprising loss to then-businessman Donald Trump, including largely sidelining and ignoring the advice of the candidate's politically savvy husband, former President Bill Clinton.
A new book has revealed that the former president lashed out privately against his wife's arrogant but unsuccessful campaign and reportedly accused it of being unable to even "sell p---y on a troop train," according to Breitbart.
This is just the latest reported example of Bill's alleged sharp critiques against the campaign that stunning failed to meet expectations and elevate Hillary to the White House, in part by pushing him and his wealth of political knowledge and experience to the side.
The alleged remark from Bill Clinton about the shortcomings of Hillary Clinton's campaign comes in the newly released book "The Squad," which documents the initial rise and impact of the progressive leftist wing of the Democratic Party in Congress.
Written by Ryan Grim of The Intercept, the first part of the book details the failed 2016 campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the openly declared Democratic socialist, whose surprising run from progressive leftist seriously challenged and threatened the neoliberal establishment Clinton campaign's anticipated coronation as the Democratic nominee and laid the groundwork for the upstart progressive movement that followed.
The book documented the Clinton campaign's messaging mistakes and struggles in attempting to counter the initial momentum of the Sanders campaign, which eventually led to the alleged outburst of frustration from the former president.
Grim wrote, "Former president Bill Clinton, surveying the landscape and the ham-handed efforts at identity politics, was bereft, lamenting to a longtime friend in the fall of 2016 that Hillary’s campaign 'could not sell p---y on a troop train.'"
That alleged remark from former President Clinton about his wife's 2016 campaign likely stemmed from the frustration he felt at being pushed to the side and ignored by Hillary's relatively young campaign staff, some of which was revealed in the 2017 book "Shattered" by political journalists Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, who documented Clinton's "doomed campaign" for the presidency.
According to ABC News at the time of the book's release, the authors wrote about how the former president had urged the campaign to travel to various rural and suburban districts to garner support, even though a majority of voters in those areas likely wouldn't vote for Clinton in the general election.
"He thought, these eggheads don't really know politics. They don't understand persuasion," Allen said, according to ABC, and added, "He knew there was some power just in showing up."
As for the 2016 campaign's seemingly inexplicable sidelining of Bill Clinton -- and with him, his knowledge of what it takes to win two presidential elections with relatively broad appeal among the American people -- a 2018 CNN report provided some of the reasoning for why that occurred.
Clinton's campaign worried that it would be harmed by Bill's tendency to go off message in speeches, his unpopularity among Republicans -- though Hillary fared even worse in that regard -- his prior "sexual indiscretions," and his coming from a bygone political era that no longer existed in the view of the younger staffers.
Given how Hillary Clinton twice failed to meet expectations in her bid to become president, in 2008 and then again in 2016, one might think that Democrats would be averse to listening to or following the political advice of the losing candidate, but that is surprisingly not the case.
Fox News reported this week that President Joe Biden's 2024 re-election campaign has enlisted the prior failed nominee to aid in its current effort, including by hosting a fundraiser and performing outreach to certain elements of the Democratic base, with allegedly more to come as the general election next year draws near.
