Support NeoGAF

[noshten]

It's hard to acknowledge that Hillary may have been a really bad choice for some reasons that really weren't her fault. It's no secret that the Democratic candidate, whomever it would be, would be pitted against a party that has mastered the art of shamelessly and relentlessly finding and exploiting bullshit scandals, with a happily complicit media, and to great success. Surely they must have realized that the years of baggage a candidate like Hillary Clinton has would be a huge liability. What exactly was supposed to be so special about Hillary Clinton aside from being a woman to run that risk anyway, despite these obvious dangers, I have no idea. I guess it was "her time" or something. sigh...

Please... you can talk about how awful Trump was but in the end the campaign was nasty on both end of the spectrum. Hillary's team ran and Super Pac ran attack ads and tried to smear anyone that so much as question her credentials. We are talking "Correcting the Record" her wonderful ads about Trump saying mean things, her ads on Gary Johnson and Jill Stein and the general tendency for her campaign to actually believe the hype. Her team had plenty of resources to spread a positive message or instead spend those billions of dollars into organizing - what did they achieve... a Republican house and senate supreme justices and Trump as president. She outspend him 3:1 and couldn't win we are talking about Trump not Reagan or Obama.
We are talking the same team that ran Obama's campaign, the same GOTV effort but it appeared that all they did online was hire trolls, make abuela memes and try to start awful trends on twitter. No offense but her team was a decade behind the times because they had a lack of young volunteers - passionate people who code, go door to door, call millions of people a day, donate small amounts or drive others to donate - you don't even need that many volunteers to do it.
After the primary win it was clear that Clinton expected that to be the end, she thought that the Republicans had gone insane but there were still sane people out there - who she could reach with her smearing of Trump. What a brilliant plan, smearing a guy who does it all on his own and does interviews about his next scandal. Instead of you know hiring Bernie volunteers from the primary into the campaign, getting who ever was making his commercials to do hers, and generally adopting someone far more appeasing as a VP. But nah Trump was too weak all we had to do is smear him.

the Hillary campaign had such insight into the American psyche

 

[EatinOlives]

Nah, you're delusional. He got more votes in the swing states she lost. How do you not think that is an advantage? He appealed to anti-establishment voters, something that has been a huge part in Trump winning. You're the one not making any sense here.

He got more votes against her in the swing states, not against Trump, because Bernie wasn't running against Trump. You're making loony comparisons.

Trump didn't get a "huge" anything. His turnout was anemic, smaller than even that of Romney.

People don't like hearing this, but I'll keep repeating it. Clinton's strategy and campaign was winnable. The problem was bad polling data that led her campaign in the wrong direction. But that's not a reason that lets you bash Clinton in cathartic glee so people are simply going to continue ignoring it.

 

[Primethius]

You know what? People can blame Clinton's campaign, the DNC, Bernie, millennials, white women, rural working class whites, whoever.

You know who's fault it is? People who fucking voted for Trump.

Don't give me some bullshit about how your needs were ignored, or how you weren't energized. People were presented a choice between the most openly racist, misogynistic, close minded and ill prepared candidate for president in the history of our country, and one who wasn't. And, when and where it mattered, they voted for the worse candidate.

Don't tell me how white voters feel marginalized and threatened. How they expect the fucking poster child of New York elitism to care about the working man. You don't want to labeled as bigots? Don't vote for the bigot.

That's how I feel. The number one group of people I blame is every fucking dem voter who didn't show up. If my mom can register and go vote for the first (and sadly last given the result), then everyone else should've shown the hell up.

Granted, there's factors for why turnout didn't happen. But if I had to blame someone, It would be the voters first.

 

[PdotMichael]

That will help. Why are people acting like she is the devil? I still don't get it. Look at our next president/white house staff.

"but she is not Trump atleast"

Is another reason she lost

 

[Puck Beaverton]

I really, really hope that liberals don't lose sight of this because the ultimate story of Hilary's career is in part a tragic tale of an ambitious, well-intentioned woman thats personal political brand was constantly toxified at every stop because of America's continual unfair double binds toward Hillary at every stop in her public life.

Hillary and her team lost this election, but America's lesser qualities bear a lot of responsibility for the toxification of her brand over the years.

true

the republican propaganda machine worked

 

[depths20XX]

There were a lot of problems with Bernie, his lack of foreign policy experience, he didn't do well with minorities, he had a very idealistic but unrealistic platform (keep in mind he said he didn't know how to break up the banks, something crucial to his campaign). You also assume that Bernie being the nom would mean he would win the swing states Clinton lost, we don't know. Fact of the matter is Bernie got a lot of young people fired up but those young people didn't know how politics works. So when he lost the young people stayed home. And there was nothing Clinton was going to do about it.

Sorry but bringing up "idealistic and unrealistic" ideas is exactly a part of why dems lost when we got a guy talking about building a fucking wall between countries.

 

[BotoxAgent]

i don't know why media is being blamed when they were constantly burying tramp and how he was unfit to be president everyday.

Hillary fucked up so bad during pussygate. Trump was on the ropes but she kept silent through the the whole thing, except for some boring tweet. She could used that as a moment to define what she stood for and expanded on policy. In fact, she kept silent for a lot of moments during the campaign. Hillary had horrible surrogates (hearing Mook talk on tv was so cringe). She continued to have horrible answers for the emails.

I thought she did excellent at the debates but unfortunately she needed to show those strengths more on the campaign trail somehow.

That said. Hillary won the primaries fair and square. More people voted for her. It wasn't rigged. Sanders should have done more to win minorities in the south, much like how Hillary needed to work on the rust belt. Basically it seemed we were screwed either way. The whole accusation that you felt "it was her turn" just reeks of unfair projection.

 

[cheezcake]

Because Dems didn't show up to vote? And I agree the campaign is to blame, but let's not pretend the other factors listed weren't problematic this election. The media in particular was pretty damn bad.

Dems now showing up to vote is an effect. What do you think are the causes?

 

[Puck Beaverton]

Basically it seemed we were screwed either way.

probably true

it is a hard pill to swallow though

 

[Jigorath]

They are floating Tim Kaine for 2020 or leading the DNC. Hilary's boring, milquetoast VP pick that did nothing for the campaign, has zero charisma, and is for the TPP.

Unbelievable.

lmao

8 years of Trump here we go.

 

[Vestal]

Don't take this as confrontational, I'm seriously asking. What the fuck did anybody see in Tim Kaine? He was everything people didn't like about her with a penis.

In a traditional campaign he represented a person who could reach out to a segment of the population. A spanish speaking VP candidate, he had all the qualities you look for in a safe VP bet. Also he possibly ensured Virginia.

Problem was that neither she nor Kaine could spit fire in the campaign trail. Any other election that works. Not this election. Don't get me wrong, she destroyed Trump in the debates, because that is her platform. She just was horrible in the trail exiting the base.

 

[bachikarn]

Why are we acting like the 6 million who didnt show up are not democrat working class whites inside of the rust belt?

People are conflating a state flipping red with voters flipping red. all it takes for a state to flip red is for rep voters to turn out the same number but the dem voters to turn out less.

This idea that center left angered working class whites into voting for trump is utter horse shit. Angry working class democrats simply didnt turn out...

We have to wait for more data. Voter turnout was down nationally but not necessarily in swing states. PA I believe had just as big of a turnout. Nate Cohen seems to believe the story is whites who voted for Obama flipping to Trump in the rust belt.

It also may be wrong to look at national results right now and say it was that much down from previous years as final results are still be counted.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Sorry but bringing up "idealistic and unrealistic" ideas is exactly a part of why dems lost when we got a guy talking about building a fucking wall between countries.

The wall was in no way, shape, or form idealistic. Also did you read what I wrote, he didn't even know how to bring down Wallstreet, that was the crux of his campaign. He would've been turned on in the general because of that alone.

 

[RustyNails]

First page is full of reactionary crap. OMG TEH HUBRIS! FRAUD! BURN IT DOWN!

You folks need to realize, Hillary won the democratic primary because she appealed to it's core groups. No one can dispute she won the AA, hispanic and women, the core constituency of democratic party. Obama won this constituency, and he became the nominee. So did Hillary. Bernie didn't. Rural white voters and millenials who don't even vote most of the time are not the core contituencies of democratic party. Yes, the DNC shenanigans cast doubt on the proceedings but nothing suggests that the system was indeed rigged for Hillary. She won the groups she needed to win fair and square. DNC favored Hillary and rightly so. Hillary gave Obama a run for his money in 2008. Of course she was favored to win, just like Jeb was supposed to be RNC's favored to win. The various factors listed in the actors absolutely played a part. Media in particular, going absolutely insane over the emails and private server crap and treating her owning a private server, which was not illegal, to Trump's litany of abuse and scandals in the hopes of horserace equivalency destroyed her.

Lets not forget, Bernie started going down the personal attack route against Hillary during the primaries (bad judgement, transcripts, corrupt, etc) which made themselves into tailor-made attack ads for Trump to use. In fact, he brought up Bernie during the debates in order to criticize her. Her campaign is well within its rights to criticize Bernie for poisoning the well for Millenial voters. Just look at this thread.

And yes, Comey's unprecedented interference absolutely hurt Hillary. Before he sent that letter to chaffetz, the Republican enthusiasm was down. After the letter, it was fully back up and then some. That was just enough to tip the scales in areas where she was expected to win. She was fighting against Trump, Russia, Wikileaks and the fucking FBI.

This however does not mean Clinton couldn't have handled things better and addressed problems earlier. For example, the wikileaks hack showed the contents of the Wall Street speeches. Nothing was in them, as everyone guessed. But she refused to release the transcripts, turning it into a politically charged stick to beat her with. Her reasoning was that no one has been ever asked to release the private speeches they do to various groups, so why her? It was a legitimate grievance. But sometimes in politics you have to take it on the chin and get back up. She should have released them during the primaries and put the thing to rest.

In the end, stop with BURN IT DOWN nonsense. You need Clinton supporters if you want to build a new democratic party. Play party purity games, start losing elections then. Her defeat was a combination of various many things. FBI, media, sexism, Bernie, Trump galvanizing the white nationalists, racists, homophobes and Clinton missteps. Doesn't mean everything fucking sucks.

 

[demon]

He was so inspiring that he lost by millions against a milquetoast, boring establishment candidate? You're not making any sense.

This blind idolatry of Bernie is a coping mechanism, I get it. But let's not pretend like this thought experiment is a viable alternative. You have no idea how Trump was gonna run against Bernie because it never happened. On day 1 of the general he could've painted Bernie as a pinko commie and it could've been even more disastrous for Bernie.

Primaries are in no way shape or form the same as the GE. Once again, as stated many times in other threads, 30 million Democratic voters choosing between two Democrat candidates is very different from the entire country choosing between candidates of different parties. All the Dems who voted for Hillary in the primaries would have lined up behind Sanders, and Sanders would very likely have picked up a lot of the votes that Hillary lost from the undecideds, independents, and the "wanna shake shit up" crowd, of which there were MANY people this election cycle. Constantly pointing back to the primaries is basically keeping your head in the sand with regards to the mood, sentiments and issues that ultimately decided this election. That is what Sanders supporters myself included had been saying all along- that he was tapping into something new and critical that Trump was able to tap into and Hillary could not. All those primary voters were a given, it was the people not voting for Hillary (or at all) in the primaries that were up for grabs and of critical importance..... as we now know.

 

[cheezcake]

He got more votes against her in the swing states, not against Trump, because Bernie wasn't running against Trump. You're making loony comparisons.

Trump didn't get a "huge" anything. His turnout was anemic, smaller than even that of Romney.

People don't like hearing this, but I'll keep repeating it. Clinton's strategy and campaign was winnable. The problem was bad polling data that led her campaign in the wrong direction. But that's not a reason that lets you bash Clinton in cathartic glee so people are simply going to continue ignoring it.

Did you see that other thread?

One surrogate blamed the poor sampling models and analytics that the campaign was so reliant on. It hadn’t done traditional tracking polls for the last month.

Other aides and surrogates pointed to an arrogance that came from the top.

Some faulted the top brass for not properly allocating the resources they needed to win states.

Given Clinton’s primary loss to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Michigan, allies questioned why the Democratic nominee didn’t double down in the state much earlier.

Allies on the ground complained for weeks that they weren’t getting the resources they needed.

 

[Staccat0]

All this woulda coulda bullshit about Bernie (who I loved) is missing the goddamn point. Trump woulda beat his ass the same way he did with Hillary, by making a bunch of shit up and turning Hillary supporters against him by just barraging the internet with misinformation for months and months and months.

This was not a war of ideas. It just wasn't. The media will navel gaze and pretedn it was because they fuuuuuucked a duck on this one and became irrelevant, but we are past the point where facts and policy were gonna matter.

I voted for Bernie. Hillary ran a bad campaign. Trump? He zigged instead of zagged and changed American politics in a fundamental way that makes this shit moot.

 

[depths20XX]

The wall was in no way, shape, or form idealistic.

Look up the definition of idealistic. If you think building a wall and making Mexico pay for it isn't that then I'm not sure what to say. That shit ain't gonna happen. It got him votes though.

 

[SneakersSO]

Could Clinton have run a better campaign? No doubt.

But imagine, for a second, that she had run her campaign like Donald Trump.

Imagine if she had showed up to all three debates unprepared, rambling, and quick to anger.

Imagine if she had a video where she talked about how she can molest women because of her celebrity status.

Imagine if she flip flopped on almost every policy position, frequently contradicting Tim Kaine.

Imagine if she had a 3 AM meltdown on twitter, followed by reports that she had to have her twitter taken away from her.

Imagine if she went through three campaign chairs, and if Huma's name was found in a book of illicit Russian payments.

Imagine if she hadn't released a single year of tax returns.

Clinton's campaign could have done better, but they did better than Trump's campaign by pretty much every possible metric. They lost rural whites hard, but even Trump's campaign didn't have that data; they expected to lose.

Let's face it: she could have done better, but the deck was stacked against her to begin with. If the campaign's quality was the only thing that mattered, then she would have won.

Read this article about some of the most ridiculous missteps her campaign did:

http://nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html

HRC's campaign was aware that they were losing their grip on white rural voters, and her aides chose not to target them, on purpose. They were specifically warned in their HQ in Brooklyn by their camps in PA that they needed more resources & support for the rural voters and were told No.

Sure, HRC came prepared to debates, nor did she do anything Trump did, but it didn't matter - Trump turned away GOP voters, he just didn't turn away enough to lose, and appealed to white rural voters that she was ignoring on purpose. But HRC's campaign turned away enough voters that she lost (there were 8 million fewer democratic votes nationwide).

 

[Jonm1010]

true

the republican propaganda machine worked

Not just the Republican propaganda machine, but many American's on the other side who still don't recognize some of their own subconscious prejudices and through that their complicity in perpetuating their own unfair double binds and double standards that stacked the deck against her through her career.

And make no mistake, I have been and probably still am guilty of some myself.

 

[mjp2417]

He won swing states and inspired people that she never did.

He won rust belt states in the Democratic primary against an establishment neoliberal opponent with a vagina. There's a difference. Trump could offset all of Bernie's economic appeals (it would obviously all be bullshit, but we live in a post-facts world) and still offer them xenophobia while Bernie is trying to convince them that black lives matter. When rust belt voters talk about a vanishing way of life they aren't just talking about manufacturing jobs and they definitely aren't crying out for Scandinavian socialism or single-payer healthcare.

 

[Cagey]

Hillary fucked up so bad during pussygate. Trump was on the ropes but she kept silent through the the whole thing, except for some boring tweet. She could used that as a moment to define what she stood for and expanded on policy. In fact, she kept silent for a lot of moments during the campaign. Hillary had horrible surrogates (hearing Mook talk on tv was so cringe). She continued to have horrible answers for the emails.

I thought she did excellent at the debates but unfortunately she needed to show those strengths more on the campaign trail somehow.

That said. Hillary won the primaries fair and square. More people voted for her. It wasn't rigged. Sanders should have done more to win minorities in the south, much like how Hillary needed to work on the rust belt. Basically it seemed we were screwed either way. The whole accusation that you felt "it was her turn" just reeks of unfair projection.

No.

The only challenger was a damn 74 year old socialist Jew from Vermont.

The party collectively decided to provide no real challenge to her before the primaries began.

That's where the "it's her turn" is clearly borne out. Not some anti Bernie nonsense.

 

[EatinOlives]

Did you see that other thread?

That's only part of the problem. There was also non-internal polling that constantly gave Clinton laughably huge chances of winning and comical polling percentage leads. That also plays considerably in the political climate, because it tells people to not vote. Every pollster got it wrong, not just the internal ones.

 

[SURGEdude]

He was so inspiring that he lost by millions against a milquetoast, boring establishment candidate? You're not making any sense.

This blind idolatry of Bernie is a coping mechanism, I get it. But let's not pretend like this thought experiment is a viable alternative. You have no idea how Trump was gonna run against Bernie because it never happened. On day 1 of the general he could've painted Bernie as a pinko commie and it could've been even more disastrous for Bernie.

I don't think you can dismiss people's argument as quickly when you talk about a large number of closed primaries.

Let me be clear I still think she would have squeaked out a victory thanks to her long history and ability to call in favors. But I think equating the primaries to how he would fare in the general is unreasonable.

 

[depths20XX]

He won rust belt states in the Democratic primary against an establishment neoliberal opponent with a vagina. There's a difference. Trump could offset all of Bernie's economic appeals (it would obviously all be bullshit, but we live in a post-facts world) and still offer them xenophobia while Bernie is trying to convince them that black lives matter. When rust belt voters talk about a vanishing way of life they aren't just talking about manufacturing jobs and they definitely aren't crying out for Scandinavian socialism or single-payer healthcare.

Ok I have to say you have a point here. I just think he would have done better. I can't imagine someone doing worse than her with the way he acted leading up to the election.

 

[Regulus Tera]

I'm sure all of those contributed, but the fact of the matter is she lost a huge portion of the Obama coalition in the north. That's on her.

 

[demon]

All this woulda coulda bullshit about Bernie (who I loved) is missing the goddamn point. Trump woulda beat his ass the same way he did with Hillary, by making a bunch of shit up and turning Hillary supporters against him by just barraging the internet with misinformation for months and months and months.

This was not a war of ideas. It just wasn't. The media will navel gaze and pretedn it was because they fuuuuuucked a duck on this one and became irrelevant, but we are past the point where facts and policy were gonna matter.

uh, you could say that about anybody. Are you saying Trump's win was absolutely inevitable no matter who the Dems ran?

And you are right that this was not an election of ideas and qualifications etc. There were a lot of people who wanted to vote just to "shake things up" and, for reasons shallow or not, Bernie Sanders was very much seen as someone who was doing that. Among those people who voted that way, they had only one choice this election.

 

[ginger ninja]

Ironic because I have been seeing the same thing on Neogaf.

 

[gutter_trash]

it's really messed up when voters need a shiny pony to go out an vote instead of voting on policy and issues

WTF, okay, she isn't charismatic, big fuckin deal


voters makes me sick

 

[watershed]

At minimum their polling, their lack of awareness for which states were vulnerable, and their inability to drive Obama's coalition to the polls are firmly in the category of their own fault. They fucked up too.

 

[BajiBoxer]

Her and her staffers certainly had some major screwups, and she came with lots of baggage (some deserved, some not)... but the FBI and Russian government both directly meddling in the election in Trump's favor is a pretty big problem on its own.

 

[noshten]

OMG TEH HUBRIS! FRAUD! BURN IT DOWN!

I hope the rest of the post is just satire

Lets not forget, Bernie started going down the personal attack route against Hillary during the primaries (bad judgement, transcripts, corrupt, etc) which made themselves into tailor-made attack ads for Trump to use. In fact, he brought up Bernie during the debates in order to criticize her. Her campaign is well within its rights to criticize Bernie for poisoning the well for Millenial voters. Just look at this thread.

SHE HAS BEEN VETTED FOR 30 YEARS BUT LETS NOT VET HER RIGHT NOW BECAUSE REPUBLICANS MIGHT USE IT!

She had a fucking FBI Investigation over her head through out he primary and if someone wanted to get into "personal attacks" he could have easily gone that route and when Sanders would have said that the actual vetting might have happeened. But nope lets protect our Queen from any attacks because they are baseless. Being baseless doesn't make them any more dangerous when you have Trump on the other side... We needed someone ruthless to be running against her but than again there was no ruthless person who'd want to get into the ring against that Machine. Bernie's chance was the fact that everyone didn't take him seriously until he actually started to gain support among young people by visiting their schools, colleges and university and the media started to hide him from any news channel. Instead they showed Trump - thank you HUBRIS

 

[BotoxAgent]

No.

The only challenger was a damn 74 year old socialist Jew from Vermont.

The party collectively decided to provide no real challenge to her before the primaries began.

That's where the "it's her turn" is clearly borne out. Not some anti Bernie nonsense.

He could have won too. The blueprint to beating the Hillary was there--Obama created it. But Bernie ran a different strategy and it didn't get him there. Giving the Bernie the nom while Hillary had millions more votes and delegates would cause different complications.

 

[Chumley]

Holy fucking shit the first page of this thread.

The aides are right. This was a white supremacist coup. Hillary had flaws but if we fucking brush aside the voter suppression, Bernie bros purity test (he lost the primary FFS), FBI collusion, media - we are all fucked. We have to hold them accountable.

 

[sazzy]

I recently made a post on Poligaf about this.

Hillary and her team isn't perfect because who the fuck is. But honestly, I don't see what they could have done better.

Pretty much all polls said they were winning the swing states. When you look up michigan and you see that Hillary held a solid lead day after day, week after week, it's not insane to think "Hey, I can assume that state won". I mean, that's why we take polls.

And the media did make this about scandals rather than policies. The amount of time spent on her emails is truly staggering.

And the Comey thing is something EVERYONE seems to agree was completely uncalled for and dirty politics coming from the highest investigative office. I can't tell how many states this hurt her in, but didn't a recent article say that it was in 3 major swing states?

And sexism goes without explanation. I'm not even going to defend this one, it's just true.

And the minority demographics, specifically white women, truly astound me. I don't think I'll ever understand how Trump got more than 53% of that vote.


So I don't know guys. I honestly do feel that the Hillary and her team did the best they could, even with the mismanagement stories coming to light. Maybe we'd have done better with another candidate, but honestly, given how this election was unexpected in just about every way possible, especially the polls, I feel Hillary just did everything she could.

Besides, at some point, voters just have to take responsibility. It's their citizen's right and duty to educate themselves if the media does a crappy job of it, and go out and vote.

They could've fought for Wisconsin, Michigan, for one.

Holy fucking shit the first page of this thread.

The aides are right. This was a white supremacist coup. Hillary had flaws but if we fucking brush aside the voter suppression, Bernie bros purity test (he lost the primary FFS), FBI collusion, media - we are all fucked. We have to hold them accountable.

A whole bunch of counties that voted for Obama voted for Donald.

Please tell me, why were white supremacists voting for Obama?

I'm not denying that Donald has racist voters; the point is - its not ALL of them. If Democrats keep blaming the fringe for Donald's victory, they will lose again and again.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Look up the definition of idealistic. If you think building a wall and making Mexico pay for it isn't that then I'm not sure what to say. That shit ain't gonna happen. It got him votes though.

Trump never campaigned on idealism like Bernie did. Trump campaigned on exploiting legitimate working class frustrations by "blaming the Mexicans" and "blaming the Muslims" among other racist dribble. The Wall was never going to happen and Trump knew that which is why is stopped being a relevant talking point later in his campaign, but it's a fantasy an alarming number of people wanted to see.

 

[cheezcake]

First page is full of reactionary crap. OMG TEH HUBRIS! FRAUD! BURN IT DOWN!

You folks need to realize, Hillary won the democratic primary because she appealed to it's core groups. No one can dispute she won the AA, hispanic and women, the core constituency of democratic party. Obama won this constituency, and he became the nominee. So did Hillary. Bernie didn't. Rural white voters and millenials who don't even vote most of the time are not the core contituencies of democratic party. Yes, the DNC shenanigans cast doubt on the proceedings but nothing suggests that the system was indeed rigged for Hillary. She won the groups she needed to win fair and square. DNC favored Hillary and rightly so. Hillary gave Obama a run for his money in 2008. Of course she was favored to win, just like Jeb was supposed to be RNC's favored to win. The various factors listed in the actors absolutely played a part. Media in particular, going absolutely insane over the emails and private server crap and treating her owning a private server, which was not illegal, to Trump's litany of abuse and scandals in the hopes of horserace equivalency destroyed her.

I agree, Hillary won the nom fair and square.

Lets not forget, Bernie started going down the personal attack route against Hillary during the primaries (bad judgement, transcripts, corrupt, etc) which made themselves into tailor-made attack ads for Trump to use. In fact, he brought up Bernie during the debates in order to criticize her. Her campaign is well within its rights to criticize Bernie for poisoning the well for Millenial voters. Just look at this thread.

This is ridiculous, these things would've seen the light of day with or without Bernie, most are valid grievances no matter how much diehards HRC supporters want to ignore that, and regardless of if they're valid or not they still play heavily into public perception. She showed bad judgement in voting for the Iraq war, her inability to be open with the speech transcripts where she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak to the nations elite was worrying for a candidate who supposedly represents the party of the people. DNC collusion with the Clinton campaign was confirmed after emails leak, but it was rather mild and probably not worthy of saying 'corruption'.

And yes, Comey's unprecedented interference absolutely hurt Hillary. Before he sent that letter to chaffetz, the Republican enthusiasm was down. After the letter, it was fully back up and then some. That was just enough to tip the scales in areas where she was expected to win. She was fighting against Trump, Russia, Wikileaks and the fucking FBI.

It absolutely did, but she did practically nothing to mitigate fears it bought up in dem supporters. I don't think it really galvanized the Republicans to a significant extent considering Trump won with less votes than Romney had in 2012.

This however does not mean Clinton couldn't have handled things better and addressed problems earlier. For example, the wikileaks hack showed the contents of the Wall Street speeches. Nothing was in them, as everyone guessed. But she refused to release the transcripts, turning it into a politically charged stick to beat her with. Her reasoning was that no one has been ever asked to release the private speeches they do to various groups, so why her? It was a legitimate grievance. But sometimes in politics you have to take it on the chin and get back up. She should have released them during the primaries and put the thing to rest.

She should have, but didn't. I also don't think that's a legitimate grievance, leaders set precedent, and this was hardly a significant precendent to set. There was nothing in them, just release them. She also should have tried strengthening her hold in Michigan and Wisconsin after she lost them handily to Bernie in the primary. She didn't. Her entire campaign was completely uninspiring, she said herself she hated the game, she didn't play it, and she lost.

In the end, stop with BURN IT DOWN nonsense. You need Clinton supporters if you want to build a new democratic party. Play party purity games, start losing elections then. Her defeat was a combination of various many things. FBI, media, sexism, Bernie, Trump galvanizing the white nationalists, racists, homophobes and Clinton missteps. Doesn't mean everything fucking sucks.

Of course but Clinton and much of the people responsible for this travesty need to go. This campaign is a monumental fuckup and the people involved have to be held accountable.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Reads like a party about to enable a second Trump term.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

He won swing states and inspired people that she never did.

Doesn't really matter when he appealed to the people that we needed to win the election. Hillary was the chosen one though and she lost to a joke.

Nah, you're delusional. He got more votes in the swing states she lost. How do you not think that is an advantage? He appealed to anti-establishment voters, something that has been a huge part in Trump winning. You're the one not making any sense here.

Dude what are you even going on about? We get it, you loved Bernie, but he lost. And it wasn't just a case of him garnering more votes, but losing to some antiquated representative voting system (like some people argue with the electoral college). He handily lost, by 3+ million votes. Yeah he appeared to people that were needed, but he didn't appeal to enough to win the nomination. Yeah he got more votes in swing states, but not enough to win the nomination. This point either seems to be going over your head or you're intentionally ignoring it.

And the last post isn't delusional. A major part of the reason he lost was that Hillary garnered much more minority votes than he did and for some reason you're assuming they were all going to vote for him if he had won the nom just because they would vote for her, when there was no guarantee that was the case.

And it's bizarre people are so dismissive of these issues, as if they along with a badly run campaign are mutually exclusive and can't both be large contributors to her loss. People are already trying to revise history and downplay the impact a lot of these things had. We had articles showing that the media literally allocated a 9:1 ratio of reporting the email "scandal" to her actual platform. How can you say that when the vast majority of what was shown of her was nearly nonstop scandal news it had no effect? Especially when this election has shown that perception is more important than facts

 

[Sinfamy]

TYT video, but It's had to disagree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNZmXhxuThU

 

[SneakersSO]

He could have won too. The blueprint to beating the Hillary was there--Obama created it. But Bernie ran a different strategy and it didn't get him there. Giving the Bernie the nom while Hillary had millions more votes and delegates would cause different complications.

Obama pulled in a minority vote that neither Sanders or HRC managed to pull in. It was too much for the DNC to ignore - they were backing HRC in '08 just as fully, and only relented because the voter base Obama pulled in was too large to ignore. The Obama coalition didn't come out to vote for HRC in this GE.

 

[EatinOlives]

I don't think you can dismiss people's argument as quickly when you talk about a large number of closed primaries.

Let me be clear I still think she would have squeaked out a victory thanks to her long history and ability to call in favors. But I think equating the primaries to how he would fare in the general is unreasonable.

I'm saying it's not a given that Bernie would've definitely won and was gonna be a sure thing. They're speaking with 100% certainty about an election that never happened.

 

[Adaren]

Read this article about some of the most ridiculous missteps her campaign did:

http://nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html

HRC's campaign was aware that they were losing their grip on white rural voters, and her aides chose not to target them, on purpose. They were specifically warned in their HQ in Brooklyn by their camps in PA that they needed more resources & support for the rural voters and were told No.

Sure, HRC came prepared to debates, nor did she do anything Trump did, but it didn't matter - Trump turned away GOP voters, he just didn't turn away enough to lose, and appealed to white rural voters that she was ignoring on purpose. But HRC's campaign turned away enough voters that she lost (there were 8 million fewer democratic votes nationwide).

Don't get me wrong: they fucked up. They lost.

But Trump went into Election Day thinking he was going to lose. Their data was just as bad as the Clinton's.

Hillary's campaign lost, but it's hard for me to buy that her campaign was more poorly run in an objective sense.* She lost despite running the more gaf-free campaign.

* Side-note: while I want to point out that Hillary's campaign was a thousand times cleaner than Trump's, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. There was a time when running a well-organized, well-funded, clean campaign was a boon.

But now, in the age where a single tweet or a controversial sentence can give you media coverage for weeks? Being clean, organized, and prepared no longer makes you presidential - it makes you a politician. And, in this climate, that's the worst thing you could be.

TL;DR: I think Hillary's team ran the "better" campaign by far, and they deserve recognition for that. Unfortunately, that strong campaign was also their greatest weakness.

They aren't stupid or lazy. The political climate is just changing fast, and Trump is (by sheer chance) the type of person who grows stronger in this type of culture.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

It's not unfair to suggest that the various, often unfounded stories about her depressed the vote for her.

Your average voter was of the "well they're both bad" and "we're fucked either way" mindset. As if candidates were both fundamentally broken. As if both were the same.

When that's become the default position of your average voter, you're in trouble.

The tough primary had an effects as a lot of men appear to have become apathetic. then all the bullshit static was loud and people are usually not inclined to educate themselves beyond the noise that's playing the loudest.

Outside of not being Hillary Clinton, I'm not sure what else she herself could have done to better her chances. Outside of being boring, I thought she said the right things, did the right things, and generally had the right positions on issues of consequence. She's not an Obama in personality (she is dry and boring), but she didn't deserve to lose because of it. She's running for President of the country; not president of some fanclub or prom queen. Unfortunately, for a large part of the electorate, whether they want to get a hug and picture with them determines whether they're going to drag their asses to the polls or not.

 

[BotoxAgent]

They could've fought for Wisconsin, Michigan, for one.

looking back, her deplorables comment was probably the ultimate thing that screwed her over. That really caught on with the trump base. I can't believe she fucking said that. What an idiot.

 

[Jas]

Play party purity games, start losing elections then

LOL, Ah the Republicans control all 3 branches of government now.

This is the most powerful they've been since 1928.

 

[mjp2417]

uh, you could say that about anybody. Are you saying Trump's win was absolutely inevitable no matter who the Dems ran?

And you are right that this was not an election of ideas and qualifications etc. There were a lot of people who wanted to vote just to "shake things up" and, for reasons shallow or not, Bernie Sanders was very much seen as someone who was doing that. Among those people who voted that way, they had only one choice this election.

Joe Biden is the one potential D candidate I would argue would have won this election, and probably would have won it handily. He would have largely countered Trump's surge in the rust belt, which wasn't about policy but about rhetoric and identity, while holding on to every other part of the firewall. Bernie, unfortunately, is a red herring at least in 2016 America. A Bernie-like does have a very real shot once the baby boomers start to die off. I think that's the most encouraging takeaway from this election cycle.

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

I don't wanna hear it. A black man named Barrack Obama who was accused of being a Muslim got elected twice. No excuses other than we fucked up is acceptable.

 

[depths20XX]

Dude what are you even going on about? We get it, you loved Bernie, but he lost. And it wasn't just a case of him garnering more votes, but losing to some antiquated representative voting system (like some people argue with the electoral college). He handily lost, by 3+ million votes. Yeah he appeared to people that were needed, but he didn't appeal to enough to win the nomination. Yeah he got more votes in swing states, but not enough to win the nomination. This point either seems to be going over your head or you're intentionally ignoring it.

And the last post isn't delusional. A major part of the reason he lost was that Hillary garnered much more minority votes than he did and for some reason you're assuming they were all going to vote for him if he had won the nom just because they would vote for her, when there was no guarantee that was the case.

And it's bizarre people are so dismissive of these issues, as if they along with a badly run campaign are mutually exclusive and can't both be large contributors to her loss. People are already trying to revise history and downplay the impact a lot of these things had. We had articles showing that the media literally allocated a 9:1 ratio of reporting the email "scandal" to her actual platform. How can you say that when the vast majority of what was shown of her was nearly nonstop scandal news it had no effect? Especially when this election has shown that perception is more important than facts

Yeah dude, minorities were surely gonna vote for Trump over Bernie. Keep telling yourself that. Keep acting like swing states didn't matter in the primaries when she lost them. She even lost white voters which is clearly more important if you want your "side" to win.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

All of the above were factors, but at the end of the day, Clinton was a weak candidate. This election was not about left vs right. It was about outsider vs establishment. Establishment was slated to lose. Bernie is a better/truer outsider than Trump will ever be (since Trump is not actually an outsider at all....he's a fucking billionaire tycoon from NYC for fucks sake) and is actually a good person who wants to represent the will of the people rather than the will of elites who control large multinational corporations. Clinton is a person who empathizes with the plights of others as well, but on the flip side, she is also part of the establishment and a shill for those same corporate elites in terms of economic policy and maintaining the status quo.

Trump just managed to trick working class people into believing he was an outsider. The rest is history.