Hillary Clinton was not an ideal presidential candidate. We don't need a poll to tell us this, but some post-election clarity from The Wesleyan Media Project doesn't hurt.
In their survey, Wesleyan notes that Clinton's failing to show up in some key swing states, taking the "Blue Wall" for granted, surely cost her votes, but other factors were at play that can explain her brutal defeat to Donald Trump, at least in terms of the electoral college.
To put it bluntly, the Clinton team really blew it when it came to their ad campaigns. Instead of promoting and outlining their policy agenda, the campaign decided to go largely negative and launch character attacks on Donald Trump. While Trump's ads focused on his plans for the economy, Clinton's ads hammered him on his controversial remarks about women. These types of personal attacks, like that seen in the ad "Role Models," amounted to 90 percent of Clinton's negative ads. Only 30 percent of her ads promoted her own policies.
In contrast, When Trump ads went negative against Clinton, the majority of them (70 percent) made sure to mention at least some policy.
“Message matters, and a message repeated endlessly does no good unless it resonates with a sufficient number of the right voters,” the Wesleyan authors said. “Team Clinton’s message that Trump was unfit for the presidency may not have been enough.”
As Hot Air's Ed Morrissey notes, the most obvious conclusion one can draw from this report is that Clinton was a terrible candidate.