The political pundits were wrong. So were most of the politicians, academics, media personalities, and so many others. Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 Presidential election. (Well, she did secure three million more votes than Donald Trump, but under our system of government the actual number of votes are not more important than the votes in the electoral college, where Hillary lost.) Why were we all so wrong?

Hillary Clinton has asserted that FBI Director James Comey’s public statements regarding improper use of her e-mails damaged her enough in the eyes of the American electorate, that she was defeated. Others, armed with the new information about Russian actions gathered from the Mueller Report, assert that those activities were largely responsible for Hillary’s defeat.

I believe that both the Russians and Comey certainly affected the outcome of the Presidential race. But, based on the fact that Hillary lost Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the electoral college by only 70,000 votes combined, other factors played a more important role in her defeat. Those factors, given the stakes for the country in this election, can only be described—in total— as campaign malpractice, especially on the part of the candidate herself.

In terms of what was at risk for the United States, most of us were aware of just how unfit Donald Trump was to assume the office of the Presidency. He was correctly described as shallow, in both knowledge and temperament. Those who knew him best asserted that he was a “conman” and “womanizer,” faithful only to himself. Businesswise, he carried on a practice of constantly being sued for not meeting contractural obligations nor paying his bills. From the beginning of the campaign, Trump made racist and misogynist comments. In all, few considered him fit for the job and recognized that a President Trump could be a serious threat to our security. Hillary certainly knew this, but unlike her many successors as Presidential candidate, she took the outcome of the campaign as a foregone conclusion, and therefore did not work strategically nor hard enough, and misled and patronized the public throughout the campaign. Recognizing what was at stake, these actions and decisions can only be labelled campaign malpractice.

Yes, Hillary was, according to most pollsters, on the path to victory. Assuming that was the case, she also ignored traveling to states where her support was expected to be strong—e.g. Wisconsin—and instead went to Texas, where she had an extremely poor chance of electoral victory. Apparently, the prospect of winning the Lone Star State was good for the ego, but with limited time available, Wisconsin and Michigan were two states that demanded, without success, her presence.

Hillary had taken on a campaign staff that relied more on algorithms and less on what had been successful for her husband: common-sense, instinct, in-depth polling and hard work.

Regarding the last variable, recent accounts of the campaign reveal situations in which, at fundraising events, President Obama had been tirelessly working the room; Hillary would leave early. When she collapsed at an outdoor campaign event, she blamed it on  the heat. In fact, she was suffering from pneumonia. Her lack of candor, when disclosed, only reinforced Trump’s claim that she was secretive and tended to mislead people. Perhaps most disturbing of all, when the FBI tried to notify her campaign staff about the nature of the hacking efforts directed towards the campaign,  it took weeks before the FBI received a sufficient response from those in charge.

In the end, a Presidential effort that seemed destined for success, was torpedoed, in part by the decisions of the candidate and campaign officials. Even with Russian hacking and Comey’s undue interference, Hillary Clinton failed America. She ran a campaign worthy of “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.” If only she could be sued for malpractice.