2016 Postmortem

For potential primary voters it's not the content of those emails it's the way that problem was created (she did that to herself) and how it was and is being handled (also done by herself to herself).

We've got here a pointer flashing in the above story that is just at the email, but the event has also resulted in publication and national discussion that includes descriptors of personal features such as 'exceptionalist', 'poor judgement', 'obfuscator' etc. Not the sort of thing that's good for your campaign when the public perceives trustworthiness problems.

That's quite unfortunate. But that's how people's minds work. They are attracted to something, but even as they may become bored with that, they notice what's going on around the general direction of their attention. In this case that general direction includes H> responses and handling of the mistake.

Mistakes are mistakes; everyone makes them. Mistakes often come out in the wash. What is indelible is personality. The email unscandal has turned from being a mistake to a personality issue.

IMO, HRC is better off with attention directly on and limited to the emails, because when attention slips off the emails it notices her.

We've seen a lot of posts that basically say the emails themselves are nothing. That's likely not completely an accident. It is very probably the best defense.