I don't know if this violates my "no more post-mortems" promise, but i early linked to the first two parts of Ryan Cooper's four parter, and i've realized that the second two parts are now out and quite good. And they're really about rebuilding the Democratic party, so they're not post-mortems anymore anyway. Here's part three and the bottom of it links to part four.

min:

As part of this, Dems should also shed their preening "wonky" self-presentation. Hillary Clinton had a whole office stuffed full of policy experts churning out papers on everything under the sun, and it was all for naught. Remember that the point of campaigns is to set values and priorities, not lay out hugely complicated policies that do little but flatter the campaign's sense of its own expertise. How many people were swayed by Clinton's last-minute plan to make the Child Tax Credit somewhat more refundable for certain parents? I'd wager it was in the triple digits at best.

That's not to say that realistic ideas are bad, or that one should be deliberately dishonest, but that the time for drilling down on the minute details is after the election is won.

remember how all the pundits kept criticizing Bernie cause he didn't have a "specific" plan for everything under the sun? and only had general policies outlined? GRR!