Car Crash
Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign (2017) by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes.: 9 out of 10: Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign is a critical and journalistic exploration of one of the most shocking election outcomes in modern U.S. history. Written by political reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the book delves into the internal workings of Clinton’s campaign, offering insights into its operational dysfunction and strategic errors.
The Good
The Good: Despite my niggles down below, I think this is an excellent book. This is actually the second time I have read it, the first being in 2018. With a repeat of the 2016 election in 2024 (more or less) I thought it would be fun to take it for a spin again.
Shattered is heavily detailed and pulls few punches. It is extremely critical of Hillary Cinton, certainly more so than the authors intended, I think. It reads somewhere between a Shakespearean Drama and a Fable. Hillary is a clearly flawed protagonist and these flaws lead to her undoing.
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes clearly had access to all levels of the campaign and one can certainly see where people were trying to get their side of the story out (And casting blame on others) In the aggregate, however, a clear picture often emerges from the differing accounts.
There is a slowing down to watch a car crash element to reading Shattered. One knows the outcome and like any good disaster movie (Or horror movie for that matter) one can find themselves yelling at the characters on the screen not to go there and watch helplessly as they do. The fact this is factual reporting rather than drama does little to take away from that drama, as character flaws from various people involved lead to disastrous results.
The authors use thier talent to tell an insightful and entertaining narrative. While they get into the weeds a bit much occasionally, I appreciate the thoroughness and detail.
The Bad
The Bad: The Nevada caucus almost broke me. I mean, I had made it through the chapter on the Iowa caucus. There are so many names, places and details about something that, in the end, really does not matter that much.
Part of the issue is I really do not understand the caucus process (The voters have to stand there for six hours? What?) And I do not know why the major political parties allow them. (For all the complaints that the people in the book had about the caucus process, I wanted to point out it’s your party, you probably could change it.)
As indecipherable as the Iowa caucus was, there was an easy to understand through line. Hillary Clinton’s campaign began its failure in 2008, coming in third behind Barak Obama and John Edwards. Even more confusing, even though Edwards came in second, Hillary got more delegates somehow. (Her campaign manager Mook gets a lot of stick in Shattered. It is well deserved when it comes to the general election. But I can’t fault him for his strategy on the primary. He was sucking up delegates right and left for Hillary. It really is up to Hillary to shape the narrative. He was running out the clock with a big lead and people were complaining Hillary was not throwing the ball).
Where was I? Oh yes, the Nevada caucus chapter. It is simply a tough read with a lot of MEGO pages. Perhaps combining it with the more dynamic Michigan chapter and trimming some details would have helped.
There is a bit too much foreshadowing in Shattered. Hints of what would go disasterly wrong are liberally (I see what you did there, Ed) sprinkled throughout the text. I have a reasonable assumption that such bon mots would not have appeared in Shattered had Hillary won.
Authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes wrote a puff piece disguised as a book for Hillary in the past (HRC, State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton) and one can easily conclude that is exactly what they were doing here. Only after the disaster did they go back and rework the narrative. I don’t blame them, mind you. They were handed an incredible story and worked it. Sometimes, though, they show that work a bit too much.
The Ugly
The Ugly: I was not the biggest fan of Ken Burn’s Baseball. Overlong with not enough action and everyone around you yapping how owners, players, and fans have ruined the game. On the plus side, disk nine’s coverage of the Red Sox curse is a delight. I doubt I will watch the baseball miniseries again. But highlights from game six of the 1986 world series… (I just watched them again on YouTube… My god that is inspiring) and the commentary from the fans is fascinating. Worth the price of admission. Like how you spend sixty-five minutes watching somewhat unconvincing Japanese actors pretend to be scientists or aliens while patiently waiting for Godzilla to appear in Tokyo Harbor.
Shattered seems to pull back just when the ship hits the iceberg. Titanic may have had a romance that filled the seats, but James Cameron knew not to skimp on the ship sinking.
Now part of this is I am sure is a lot of calls were not returned, doors were suddenly locked, and lips were suddenly sealed once the scope of the failure was clear. Still, authors that were willing to torture the reader with the details of the Nevada operation could certainly slow things down at the end.
In a similar vein, I really think Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes really underplay how much of a favorite Hillary was to win on election day. Don’t get me wrong, Shattered certainly covers the expectations on some level.
The Huffington Post wrote on October 3rd “We simulated a Nov. 8 election 10 million times using our state-by-state averages. In 9.8 million simulations, Hillary Clinton ended up with at least 270 electoral votes. Therefore, we say Clinton has a 98.0 percent chance of becoming president.”
This is not a favorite losing. This is Buster Douglas KOing Mike Tyson… And even that is not accurate as Buster was only a 42-1 underdog. At the time, I really felt no one was more surprised he won than Donald Trump himself. The book does not seem to convey that moment well.
The scope of the disaster is assumed to be known by the readers and certainly when the book was published in 2017, it was fresh in people’s minds. But time does funny things to people’s recollection and putting that moment in black and white a little more than was done is certainly something that would have helped.
Well, that and who does not like a good old-fashioned Titanic hits iceberg scene.
Questions after reading Shattered.
Why don’t people listen to Bill Clinton?
I know right. If I was running for President of the United States as a Democrat, Republican, or hell as the nominee from The People’s Front of Judea, my first call is to Bill Clinton to invite him to lunch and pick his brain. (The buffet at Scores is very nice and a short drive from his office in Harlem. Get the lobster thermidor, tell them Julian sent you.)
Bill was right throughout Shattered. And the fact nobody was listening to him was a theme often repeated. Even one of Bill’s so-called flubs when he called out the dramatic premium increases on Obamacare is in reality a really excellent strategy. Let people know you are in touch with the reality and their pain. Let them feel you plan to do something about it. Also, separating yourself from your own administration’s less popular policies is never a bad thing either.
This is a lesson a certain 2024 campaign also could have learned. They didn’t listen to Bill either. One thing you may notice reading Shattered is a lot of the names bandied about, as campaign consultants in the 2024 campaign are in this book making the same mistakes.
Why do people run for president without knowing why they are running?
Hillary is hardly the first candidate to have this problem. “Why do you want to be president?” Roger Mudd of CBS asked Kennedy in November of 1979. Kennedy had not yet announced, but was gearing up to–he would make a formal announcement the next week.
Hillary defenders will always state the “It’s her Turn” was never the official Hillary campaign slogan. (Stronger Together is the official slogan… yeah, I know her campaign had all sorts of issues). But many people thought “It’s Her Turn” was the slogan. The reason is simple. It seemed to be why she was running for president. In fairness to Hillary, Trump ran in 2024 to stay out of prison. Not a great slogan either, but certainly an understandable motivation.
Outside of it being her turn, what was the reason Hillary was running? Yeah, I don’t know either and Shattered struggles to tell us. In defense of the book, the candidate herself struggled to tell us.
Would Hillary have made a good president?
After reading Shattered honestly no. Now I understand it is a binary choice in American politics, so the question should be, would she make a better President than Trump? Still Shattered is chock full of reasons she would have been awful at the job.
She is extremely secretive, almost to the point of paranoia. She is constantly yelling at her staff and pitting them against each other. She shows incredibly poor judgement and refused to take personal responsibility blaming outside forces. And I am really only scratching the surface here.
There are tons of examples. Not a chapter seems to go by without her screaming at staff on a conference call or her need for blind loyalty, causing her to keep staff that are clear liabilities. I realise we are watching the sausage getting made here, but there is almost no fun or joy in Hillaryland. Everyone is scared to speak thier mind and more worried about thier status than actually winning an election.
Why was Hillary so adamant in kneecapping Joe Biden?
Before reading Shattered, it never occurred to me that Joe Biden was a serious threat to run in 2016. After all, he had just lost his favorite son and bluntly, at seventy-four, he was too old. (We were so innocent back then).
Apparently, however, the Hillary team saw him as a genuine threat. But was he? There is a theory that with both her and him representing the administration and appealing to the same base, it could give Bernie an easier road to win the nomination. And this is probably the right answer.
On the other hand, if one were to assume that the opposition to Hillary was more personal than political, He would have split the anti Hillary vote with Bernie, giving her an easier road to the nomination.
Either way, if she had confidence that she had fixed the race before it began, she should have not been so concerned. Biden recognized Hillary had all the consultants and bundlers on her team already. He was not looking to run against a brick wall. He was a practical man and was not on a crusade. (Unlike Bernie). Despite this, one almost gets the feeling reading Shattered that Hillary’s actions came close to driving him into the race out of spite.
What is your favorite story from Shattered?
Oh, this is an easy one. The 9/11 Hillary sickness scandal. To quote Vanity Fair
You don’t need to be a PR expert or a political guru to figure this one out. First, adults go to events while under the weather all the time. Hell, every time I would go to the office with the sniffles I would make sure everyone in the command chain knew I came in despite being clearly on death’s door because I am a team player.
Trump’s reaction was perfect for Hillary. She could point out he is not an adult. She could explain it was not like she had a serious condition like bone spurs that would keep her from serving her country. The opportunity to reverse UNO this situation and humiliate Trump was endless.
Or it would have been if her staff had been informed she was sick. Only Huma had that closely guarded secret. So when her campaign staff and supporters took to the airwaves to defend Hillary and claim she was not sick, it was in truly good faith.
So did Hillary mea culpa and say my bad I should have told my staff I was sick or did she let her staff lie again to the press and fall on thier own swords to protect the candidate? Guess.
Almost every fault of Hillaryland is on full display during this silliness. Instead of taking a story that would have died in days, Hillary gave it legs for a month. She lets others take the blame for her mistakes and she misses an opportunity to put her silly opponent in his place instead making her own incompetence the story.
It is a story I have used in my life as a cautionary tale. It truly is an amazing example of character flaws turning a molehill into a mountain for no reason at all.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion: One of the hard parts about judging the accuracy of any non-fictional work is one invariably goes by feel. Does this feel accurate and complete? Shattered feels complete. Often, as I noted above, it can feel too complete. The authors clearly had access and since the participants in real time they did not realise they were on the Titanic and felt happy to candidly talk to the authors. One also gets the sense they talked to the authors because no one else would listen to them. Such were the ways of Hillaryworld and her campaign.
Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes wrote a book on the 2020 election called “Lucky” but it is thier upcoming book on the 2024 election I would love to read. What can I say? I love disaster movies.