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New Clinton postmortem of campaign includes criticism of Sanders policy promises
- Thread starter Inuhanyou
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KojiKnight
Member
Bernie Sanders has nothing to do with why she lost the election against Trump... she needs to stop blaming other people for her inelectability. There are just too many scandals, real and imagined, that have surrounded her and her husband.
Problem is that wasn't until after the convention. There was zero time for the wounds to heal, just as Comey dropped a bullshit bomb.
Several rust belt states went to Trump by only 30k votes.
I'll even bring in Jill Stein into this if we want to really talk about a kook promising snake oil to line her own pockets and ego, repeating GOP propaganda unabashfully.
And_Gignac
Member
Everyone will miss her point then. She has terrible communication skills, and anaology is just another terrible, dismissive, pentulant example.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
It's true that the campaign floated the idea that there were untoward donation practices going on, but this seems pretty typical for a campaign, particularly a losing one. The 2008 campaign was substantially nastier, as was 1992. There's not much evidence the primary in 2016 had any real effect on the general. To the extent that Clinton's flaws were seen to include corruption and inaccessibility, those were present before the primary. The specific lines of attack used in the general differed from the primary so it's not even as though Trump benefited from the regular opposition research the sanders campaign did. Instead he hired professional career-long anti-Clintonites from the early 90s.
I think this thread is frustrating me in part because we have literally no reason to believe she's crediting camp Sanders with disproportionate impact.
There was some impact. Not just in the Bernie Bro wing, which may have caved Clinton, but in pushing the same image from the left that Trump was pushing from the right, meaning people who considered themselves in the middle were hearing she's a wall street shill crook from all sides. It didn't singlehandedly sway twenty million votes, or anything, but the loss we're looking at is small margins.
But what we've seen is a few short passages in what sounds like a fairly long book about the election, so jumping on Clinton for touching on frustrations with Sanders in what's supposed to be a candid post-mortem seems a little premature and more built out of residual ill will than anything. Understanding the impact Sanders had on her campaign and how her campaign thought it would impact her is important. Not 100 pages of ranting important, but if she spends a few pages on it it seems appropriate given that some people still want to blame Trump on people not just flocking to Bernie the second he promised them the moon.
cj_iwakura
Member
Yep.
Def agree that they did damage to her campaign. Looking back at Reddit, the Bernie subs were pushing Russian propoganda full force. The social media Bernie supporters had no problems putting her down as much as Trump when they were entirely different. I still hear people say Clinton rigged the primaries which is not true. It's sad how people went full force against her.
TheContact
Member
Clinton lost because she's a smug shithead and a bad politician. Yes she would have been better than 45 but Sanders really has the best ideas but she fucked his chances up with sabotage
so what's the solution? eliminate primaries and third parties?
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Stein is a Russian pawn used in the same way Trump was. Get the two extremes of each side to attack the middle and muddy the waters.
Realism and constraint are good when you are schmoozing around in the Hamptons with people who have already won life and are just building their lead.
No one there wants wealth redistribution, the thing that is needed to fund "the dream," so let's all say it's unrealistic and akin to asking for a pony, because the European standard is too good for the poor people in America.
The expectations need to change for politicians. Big changes have happened many times in this country. We need a democratic party that doesn't ask before it steps on corporate toes.
Father_Brain
Banned
"I take responsibility for every decision I made, but that's not why I lost." Her words.
Her definition of taking responsibility extends to literally saying the words "I take responsibility" and not one iota further. If she doesn't believe her decisions have anything to do with why she lost, she doesn't believe she actually has anything to take responsibility for.
ChuckHoneywood
Banned
Did Sanders not campaign for Clinton?
Well Stormfront got into trouble so you know...
I think the biggest issue were Sanders' continued attacks on her character when it was clear he couldn't win the primary.
Sabotage?
Those 25% people will never change. It's a lost cause.
The problem is getting the 48% no show / others to pull the progressive lever.
As much as I appreciate the backfire this thread has become, let's be real.
Bernie worked hard for Hillary once the primary was over. Did he criticize her character? Sure, maybe, but Hillary's character wasn't that great, and that's her fault! There are steps she could've taken that she didn't take -- most notably, her vice-presidential choice. In an election this close, everything counts, but ultimately I don't think it's all that reasonable to blame Bernie for the loss.
I would also note that Hillary, pragmatic politician that she is, knows quite clearly that Bernie is a Democrat who stays independent as a branding effort. It's almost dishonest of her to portray this as a criticism of the Democratic Party. If Bernie and the Democrats weren't always working together, they'd probably run a candidate against him. Hillary knows this.
Ultimately I don't think these excerpts paint Hillary in a particularly good light. Hillary had trouble with her character because of the choices she's made over her lifetime of public service. I'm sure all those choices seemed correct and reasonable in the moment, and maybe even were! But there's no guarantee in politics that you will be remembered for how reasonable your decisions were at the time, or how the one time you definitely took a bribe it was never investigated so there was no proof, or how the FBI investigation you were under wasn't criminal in nature.
Politics ain't beanbag. Hillary knew this. She shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Bernie worked hard for Hillary once the primary was over. Did he criticize her character? Sure, maybe, but Hillary's character wasn't that great, and that's her fault! There are steps she could've taken that she didn't take -- most notably, her vice-presidential choice. In an election this close, everything counts, but ultimately I don't think it's all that reasonable to blame Bernie for the loss.
I would also note that Hillary, pragmatic politician that she is, knows quite clearly that Bernie is a Democrat who stays independent as a branding effort. It's almost dishonest of her to portray this as a criticism of the Democratic Party. If Bernie and the Democrats weren't always working together, they'd probably run a candidate against him. Hillary knows this.
Ultimately I don't think these excerpts paint Hillary in a particularly good light. Hillary had trouble with her character because of the choices she's made over her lifetime of public service. I'm sure all those choices seemed correct and reasonable in the moment, and maybe even were! But there's no guarantee in politics that you will be remembered for how reasonable your decisions were at the time, or how the one time you definitely took a bribe it was never investigated so there was no proof, or how the FBI investigation you were under wasn't criminal in nature.
Politics ain't beanbag. Hillary knew this. She shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
There is no dragging it forward. The DNC is regressing into 70s Republicanism.
Progressives want a progressive party.
thehypocrite
Member
Self-serving Clinton does it again.
Nah my hot take is simpler than that. Not enough Democrats voted and this opened the window for Trump to win if he activated enough KKK since he was like the second coming of Jesus to the jaded racists, who are not just in the South. It's real real simple. His winning message was that he was a racist. Her biggest problem was that things weren't shit enough for people to give a single fuck to make sure they voted (the "both sides" schmucks who I have nothing but vitriolic seething hatred for) - a perennial problem for the left wing coalition in most developed countries. Sanders in my view was basically irrelevant in her losing and a pointless thing to focus on.
mercenar1e
Member
to blame everyone but herself.
Byakuya769
Member
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I was skeptical about her whining, but this is 100% accurate.
TheContact
Member
The DNC did a lot of shady shit to push sanders out of the way to give rise to Clinton
When she talks about Bernie I understand the primary was bad but so was her primary against Obama. I think it was more of a Hillary issue of not being able to win those people over. In 2008, she did some REALLY shady shit and many of her supporters swore they would not vote for Obama but did anyway because he tried to win their support.
I wasn't a "Bernie Bro" but her message was always "I'm better than Trump" which while true doesn't really help when she was swirling in her own controversy. I do think that her gender had A LOT to do with people not changing over, but so did her personality and her past.
I wasn't a "Bernie Bro" but her message was always "I'm better than Trump" which while true doesn't really help when she was swirling in her own controversy. I do think that her gender had A LOT to do with people not changing over, but so did her personality and her past.
Audioboxer
Member
Is that her book out now then? I posted in the topic on GAF about it as an outsider to the US pretty much saying please don't be fighting 2016 into 2018. Trumps approval ratings are garbage but the left constantly fighting itself right up to 2020 isn't going to help.
Hillary could've at least waited a bit longer before releasing this book to make her loss be argued again fairly shortly after it happened. It always seems like everything is about Hillary. As big a career politician as you can get, but yes, a trillion times better if America voted her in instead of Trump.
Hillary could've at least waited a bit longer before releasing this book to make her loss be argued again fairly shortly after it happened. It always seems like everything is about Hillary. As big a career politician as you can get, but yes, a trillion times better if America voted her in instead of Trump.
DOWN
Banned
Lets not. The book is not one page long.
SolidSnakex
Member
It certainly paints a bad picture of her campaign. Can you actually think of a single reason why it would make sense to not campaign in a state that was vital to her path to victory? One that she actually lost to Bernie in the primaries by 13%? Her campaigning in Michigan was also shit. This is something that Michael Moore pointed out in his appearance on Real Time when people here accused him of fear mongering when he straight up said that Trump was going to win by doing what he called the Brexit strategy, which was to pick off the so-called "blue-wall".
You know how much blame Bernie should shoulder for Hillary losing? Not a fucking thing. Just like Hillary shouldn't have shouldered any of the blame had Obama lost in 2008. The difference is that Obama was actually a good candidate and went out and busted his ass to make sure that he won so that we weren't potentially stuck with President Sarah Fuckin' Palin. Can Hillary say the same? Apparently not since she can't stop pointing fingers at Comey, Russians, Bernie and so on.
NorthAndSouth
Member
I know most of y'all are Clinton defenders, but this is petty and screams of just trying to assign blame on someone else.
Girl needs to accept that she was just unlikeable and lost an election that literally no one should have lost
Girl needs to accept that she was just unlikeable and lost an election that literally no one should have lost
psychowave
Member
I feel like that 48% should've cared enough about not fucking over their minority brothers and sisters to show up even if Hillary was a shit candidate. They didn't because they only cared about themselves, and they were privileged enough that they thought that Trump being president wouldn't affect them. That is the real problem.
and yet she still won the most votes.
The problem was she lost in states she needed by a handful of votes because she couldn't be bothered and ran a shit campaign and that is 100% her fault. end of.
HighResTomato
Member
Not only the DNC. Almost every left leaning media group was mocking Bernie all the time.
Backfired on them though.
most of the people who don't vote are poor and lots of them are minorities
Not wrong, but a LOT of those individual points could be rolled into the media focusing attention on the wrong things. Plenty has already been discussed about how so much noise had silenced or drained the important issues from public conscience.
For instance, Hillary didn't 'lack' policies or messaging clarity, they just couldn't rise above the bullshit to get proper discussion or discourse. Thus no one really knew any of it because fucking emails or a campaign trail cold became more relevant.
Yes, with 8 weeks to go till the primaries. After his supports we're openly trying to disrupt the DNC.
Sanders should have started the healing much, much, much sooner. He was done on Super Tuesday.
It was pretty much my only problem with how he ran his campaign. Those promises of a Hail Mary were nonsense, and the attacks, when you know the end game, were nothing but counterproductive.
He should have cut a deal and focused on downticket races and the platform.
That's because 'she', alone, isn't the reason why she lost.
Taking responsibility does not mean being blind to the complexity of what happened.
But in the end, it was hers to lose (if you believe polls, which is an entirely different debate), and she lost.
Now, the most direct reason she lost is also obvious: because many progressives in three states chose to either stay home or vote blank.
If you are from Wi, Mi or Pa and chose to abstain... Much of that blame rests on you.
Moreso than Clinton even.
i wonder if any of the repub candidates actually care about more than just winning and legacy, like did any of them really have a fondness for the country and want to prove themselves to their people? maybe jeb i guess which is why Trump treated him like a bully in school making fun of a nerd
but like, Trump won the bloodbath because he was the most nihilistic one there. the outcome didnt matter to him either way so he just did whatever dumb theatric shit he wanted, and since no one was genuinely different or standing for something in that entire race of course the biggest spectacle won
i think maybe the republicans realize they are all voting for the exact same thing, how can you really be a different candidate when your platform is of being conservative and not changing things and keeping everything the same for white people, so its like well Trump made a good show of it so good on him, he gets to win
meanwhile on the democrat side where people actually have empathy everyone is tearing themselves and each other apart for our failures
Vincent Grayson
Member
This is true. But those stupid people vote. If your strategy doesn't include getting those people, you lose.
It's a sad truth of democracy that you must cater even to total fucking idiots at times.
PdotMichael
Banned
The left should just shut up!
thestopsign
Member
People that are saying that 2008 was even more vicious... you are right. That said I think the political landscape has changed enough in those 8 years with the fast evolution of social media, that more tact and thought needed to be used in the aftermath of the primaries. Especially once it was clear that Trump was the candidate that the left was up against. Bernie needed to come out and quell the uncertainty around whether he would back Hillary among his supporters faster then he did and with more conviction than he did.
Before I get jumped on, obviously it wasn't the only reason.
Before I get jumped on, obviously it wasn't the only reason.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
You know that that 48% includes people of color as well right?
Trump had more minority support than Romney.
Clinton lost minority votes compared to Obama.
You wanna tell them that they don't care about minorities and that they're privileged?
MetalGearZed
Member
I completely agree with this take. People (especially the poorly educated) want quick fixes. not of the meandering "we'll see how it goes" stuff. Trump simplistic '1-2 bing-bong done' answers to complex issues gave Trump the appearance of being decisive, when in actuality he was just a simpleton
I stll can't believe that 30 day isis thing. I also remember Ted Cruz saying ACA was gonna be torn up day zero if he was elected. What happened with the repeal vote leaves me doubtful. (but them again, we didn't have post-cancer Maverick McCain in January so who knows.)
VendettaRed07
Member
Great post once again Pigeon
psychowave
Member
If that's the case then it makes even less sense to blame it entirely on Hillary.
A lot of people fall into "that will never happen-itis" as well. It happened in the Bush years, it's happening again.
Usually it takes something scary like the great recession to snap them out of it.
It's true, even Obama won on promising an era of Harmony and change. He had actual policy, but he had a hopeful message on top of that.
I don't disagree with the specific arguments Hillary is making now, but in much the same way that she doesn't understand macro campaign messaging, she's oblivious to what actual party unity is if it's not unifying under her. What she's doing now is exactly what she's accusing Bernie of having done. What's the point in any of this.
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