NEW YORK — President Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway responded to Hillary Clinton’s reasons for why she lost made and how 2010 and 2014 helped Trump win the presidency.
Clinton blamed her 2016 defeat Wednesday on the Democratic Party, saying she received “nothing” from them and the organization’s data “was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it.”
“I have found the hard way that a gift all women can give to themselves is self-awareness, and I hope she finds some soon,” Conway said Thursday night to New York State Conservative Party members at their annual gala in Manhattan.
Conway described to attendees at the dinner a detailed account about how she was brought on to the Trump campaign and how Trump went on to win the presidency against Clinton.
Giving complete credit to Trump for her hiring and noting that Trump never mentioned her gender as a factor, Conway said, “He did say I have a plan to beat Hillary and, yes, it was her fault she lost.”
Conway went on to say, “We basically applied what we worked on for years. One thing I learned– and this is where conservatives come in bigly — I took lessons from 2010 and 2014. And instead of looking at 2016 as 2012, we tried to take the best practices of 2010 and 2014.”
She continued, “Because in those years, conservatives did a great job of running against Obamacare. They did a great job running for lower taxes and limited government. In 2012, they didn’t do such a great job. When we have a program — when we run ideas and not individuals — when we run on principles and not personalities, we prevail.”
Conway said that she was always worried Clinton was going to wake up one day and say, “You know what guys? After 8 years when I lost the first time — after 8 long years, today is the day I’m actually going to have a message.”
On August 19, 2016 Conway was named Trump’s campaign manager. She was his third campaign manager after Paul Manafort was let go by the New York billionaire.
Conway reminisced about the day she took over the campaign.
“I was already on the campaign as a senior adviser on the polling team…and somebody called me up to work on a video shoot with him. That day, before we left for Erie, Pennsylvania…I went out there and he said, ‘When we’re done I want everybody to leave the room except Kellyanne.’”
According to Conway, Trump appeared to be upset as to how he was being handled in the campaign and missed the energy he pushed out and received from his rallies during the primaries.
“So, I stayed and said, ‘What’s going on?’”
“And he said, ‘This is a disaster.’”
“And I said, ‘Well…you are running against the most joyless candidate in presidential political history and it’s starting to feel that way.’”
“And he said, ‘No it’s not.’”
“And I said, ‘There it is.’”
“And he said, ‘Everybody tells me that I’m a much better political candidate than Hillary Clinton.’”
“I said, ‘That is empirically provable.’”
“He said, ‘I don’t have my [inaudible] around me.’”
And I said, “‘Well I’m downstairs every day. And you have a lot of hard working men and women down there. Come and visit some time. You’ve got a lot of people who, it’s their first political job—for a lot them their first job ever, and they’re there all the time. They get there early and they leave late at night. They’re there for you, so you do have a team.’”
“I said, ‘What will help you?’”
“He said, I miss flying around. I miss the primaries. I miss flying around with a few people and going and talking to the crowds and now people want me to do this and people want me to do that.’”
“I said, ‘Look, those days are gone. You can’t just fly around and talk to crowds, but in favor of the way you want to connect with people, let’s see if we can replicate that for a general election strategy. And let other people worry and take other things off your plate and worry about the other stuff.’”
The strategy worked and Trump found himself re-energized on the campaign trail again. Conway pointed out that while Trump enjoyed campaigning Clinton appeared to loathe it.
“I felt like Hillary Clinton was having her root canal and I felt like he was having the time of his life every time he was up there. And that matters to voters. It matters very much to voters,” she said.
As far as fame goes, Conway told the crowd, filled with many longtime political allies of hers including New York Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long, that her new found fame is something she is still getting used to.
“My husband became Mr. Mom almost immediately. I was not prepared at all because I never sought nor expected to become so well-known so quickly. It wasn’t like I said to my children, ‘Mommy’s going to star in a Disney movie, so I’m going to be famous or Mom’s gonna run for governor of New Jersey, so look out.’ It came out of nowhere and that’s been really odd for us,” she said.