"What Happened", by Hillary Clinton

Having read so many negative reviews of it, I was reluctant to try this book. But when I saw it prominently displayed in the local library, I decided to give it a shot.

The criticisms claimed that Hillary blamed everybody but herself for her pitiful campaign performance. While she does mention the interference by Comey and by the Russians, to me she does in fact take responsibility for the bad campaign.

She covers in detail the major decisions made by her and her staff over the course of the campaign, beginning with her announcement of her candidacy on April 12, 2015.  What stands out is that she was so focused on policy decisions that she ignored the basic requirement that a candidate must connect with the voters.  She doesn't have to overtly admit to this, because it is obvious from her description of how she went about her campaign.

Every time an issue arose, she tried to explain what policies she thought were best to address the issue. It turns out that the voters, for the most part, are not interested in detailed policy issues, but rather are interested in picking a leader to head the country for the next four years. Voters want a candidate who can speak to their deepest concerns, not in a remote, academic way, but in a way that demonstrates that the candidate really cares about them. In a survey in which voters were asked "which candidate do you feel is on your side", a pathetic 12% said it was Hillary. She simply had no ability to connect with people, because of her icy, aloof, humorless, and charmless demeanor.

In the book she writes in a more personal way than she ever campaigned in. She shows that underneath the icy demeanor there really is a living, breathing human being.  Too bad she couldn't have shown more of this side of herself during the campaign.