I am tired of hearing how Hillary blew it

[edhopper]

(not here, in other places)
The choice was clear and she was clearly the choice of the voters.
No, in select States, we blew it, we let HER down.
And we will pay the price for our failings.

[Sherman A1]

1. Okay

There is never just one answer, but I do believe that it was more a series of events that led to the end result. Hillary and the DNC were in part responsible for some of those events. I do not agree that "we blew it" however, it is the responsibly of the candidate and the campaign to make their case to the voters, it is not the responsibility of the voters to support the candidate.

[zipplewrath]

2. Exactly

If I'm tired of anything, it is the constant explanation that everyone and everything EXCEPT HRC was responsible.

[Sherman A1]

8. Agreed

It is ultimately the responsibility of the candidate and the campaign. The success or failure comes down to them, their vision, their efforts and their ability to communicate.

Hillary certainly had some significant headwinds to overcome courtesy of the disinformation campaign and the hacks, but it still is the candidate and the campaign.

[metroins]

27. That's how I see it

The buck stops at the top.

I was and am a Hillary supporter, but I think she is the reason she lost. I think the Comey letter did her in, but she failed to end the witch hunt early on.

[edhopper]

31. How exactly could she do that

nothing stopped the Benghazi witch hunt. What possible thing could she have done to stop the Media and the Repukes from keeping that bullshit alive.
The Russian hacking story was kept silent by the same people who couldn't mention Hillary without the Emails.

[metroins]

33. Ok.

She could have deflected, like Trump did every time his stuff was brought up.

Hillary needed to speak with the press more openly about the topic. Not condescending or waving it off, she needed to address it normally. She either spoke too legalize, or too condescending. Joking about it doesn't help.

But to be honest, it's not my job to tell you what she should have done. The fact is, this story hurt her and she didn't figure it out. That's on her and that was her job.

[edhopper]

36. No

like Benghazi it was a nonstory to begin with that the press would not let go of, with the Repukes cheering them on.

Nothing she would say would have ended them hammering her with it. It's what has been done to her since she and Bill came to Washington.

[WhiteTara]

43. FBI, Russia, Voter Suppression

Crosscheck, gerrymandered districts, fake news and a complacent/complicit media who followed fake news drowned out any message that she had. Of course it was her fault.

[zipplewrath]

89. Blameless

Of course, she was absolutely blameless and did nothing wrong.

[Walk away]

63. Really, does the same hold true for Bernie?

[zipplewrath]

88. Yes

He made many mistakes very early on that cost him dearly. Quite honestly, I suspect he was guilty of the virtual opposite of HRC. She went in with a sort of "presumptiveness" attitude. He, alternately, went in presuming he didn't have a prayer. That cost him, especially down south.

[edhopper]

5. Those debates alone

where she showed herself to be a smart, capable leader and trump showed himself to be unhinged, should have been enough for the voters.
With the help of Russia, Comey and the Media, making her case was blocked again and again.

And still she won the vote. The people who voted for Trump, or didn't vote because "it wouldn't matter" show a willful ignorance that is hard to fathom.

[unblock]

6. she made her case, and it was a damn good one. trump made his, and his case sucked.

hillary led throughout the entire campaign and got hefty leads after the only reasonable side-by-side comparisons -- the conventions and the debates.

the media gave 90% of the coverage to toxic trump, and 90% of the coverage they gave to hillary was about made-up scandals like how an it person in the state department didn't keep up with microsoft security updates, thereby allowing podesta's risotto recipe to become public knowledge after donnie criminally solicited foreign espionage against america for his personal gain.

hillary ran a fine campaign with a deck heavily stacked against her and she still got a sizeable plurality of the votes. she only lost after numerous unprecedented crimes and policy violations against her, and an incredibly biased media.

[edhopper]

9. Not to mention

voter suppression in places like WI and NC.

[unblock]

12. and i still don't trust the actual counting of votes.

[edhopper]

16. neither do I

[KPN]

35. "deck heavily stacked against her"?

... excuses don't fix things

[unblock]

52. i'm all for fixing things, but ignoring the problems is not helping.

we had the most qualified candidate in ages, she ran a solid campaign, and with the backdrop of an improving economy, a near tripling of the stock market, unemployment cut in half, the longest period of job growth ever, etc.

the problems that need fixing do not include that we need our candidate to be superhuman.

the problems that need fixing involve the media, the money in politics, the frames and narratives, the voting laws, the voting machines, the foreign influence, and so on that allowed maybe the worst candidate ever to claim victory over one of the best candidates ever.



it's simply crazy to play a completely unfair game with referees on the take and rules slanted in favor of the opposition and then insist that the problem is that we needed a better player.

fdr would have lost, jfk would have lost, bill clinton would have lost. please, enough of telling us we needed a better candidate.

[KPN]

61. FDR would have lost? You know that how?

Hey, I'm only pointing out what I have observed over my 46 years of being a loyal Democratic Party member and voter. Despite all of the things that were unscrupulous, we could have and should have won this election if we had only won the votes of former Democrats and Independents. We did not -- because they were not inspired or because they voted against the "system" -- much like what happened on the GOP side by the way. It was a populist election and Democrats failed to appeal to the people who made the difference in this year's election -- 80,000 people in MI, WI and PA.

Relentlessly holding to the notion that we had the most qualified candidate in the face of those conditions is a recipe for future disappointment if not just plain silly. It strikes me that she lost in part because she WAS the most highly qualified person -- in a system that more and more voters (if not most) view as 100% corrupt and self-serving. That's the reality that we faced this year ... and we, the voters in the Democratic Party primary, made the wrong choice this year. It's on us. Nobody else.

That's the way I see it. Are we going to learn anything from this election? I really wonder given some of what I read here at DU.

[unblock]

65. you seriously think fdr, or sanders, or jfk, would have gotten better treatment from the media?

whoever was our candidate, they would have thrown comparable crap at them.

how is it that republicans can run a candidate in 2016 that violates every basic campaigning rule and win; they ran a completely inept and inexperienced and uninspiring nitwit in 2000 and won; they ran an experienced but inept and uninspiring bonehead in 1988 and won?

how is it that republicans keep running horrible candidates and win and yet democrats have to run perfection in order to win?

we've won with bill clinton and barack obama, two of the most charismatic and inspiring candidates in ages. sure, fine, yes, by all means, we should run the best candidate. but how is it that perfection is a requirement for democrats but not remotely a requirement for republicans?

because they cheat, and they have the media on their side. not a level playing field.


the appropriate response to a game that's not on a level playing field and where the opponent cheats is *not* well, let's just pick a better player for our side.

they'll just cheat harder.


that's how i know fdr would have lost. they would have relentlessly questioned his ability to "stand up for america", put out rumors about his wife and his affairs, and perhaps implied that he sent some mysterious letters and forgot to dot the i's, so how can we trust him in the oval office, and he would have lost.

[KPN]

68. I don't believe we lost because of the media.

We lost because we didn't appeal to the needs, wants, desires, convictions and principles of too many people. All we needed was 80,001 more votes.

I understand and agree with your frustration about "cheating" by the GOP. That's a reality we have always had to deal with. We lost by 80,000 votes. Not a lot. We should have won by 20,000,000. We didn't. That can't all be blamed on media, cheating, etc. In my mind, the Democratic Party has been losing membership for decades because it has moved right and in the process left working and middle class communities behind. It's not about the income level of the average Trump voter, its about how they view the economic future of their children/grandchildren given the past trends, and about inspiring those Democrats who did not come out because the party already failed them.

[unblock]

69. then we'll lose every election going forward by a similar margin.

seriously, you think the media was fair???

[KPN]

75. It is what it is.

We should have won despite the media. The media sucks, but they didn't cause people to vote or not vote. Results in people's lives matter too. We lost by 80,000 votes in 3 States.

Yeah, we can and should pressure the media to do a better job -- but there's no guarantees that we'll have any effect in that regard. The reality is we ran an establishment candidate in a populist election year. And Hillary and her campaign are part of and do deserve some of the blame for failure.

The party needs to change.

[unblock]

79. quite dismissive of what was, by far, the single biggest factor in the election.

"they didn't cause people to vote or not vote"??????????

the media has a huge impact on whether or not people vote, how they vote, why the vote, what they think the important issues are, etc.


notice that hillary had a sizable lead after the conventions and the debates, the only times the media slant wasn't going full blast.

[KPN]

87. quite dismissive of voters

[unblock]

95. not in the least.

voters rely on the media for much of the information upon which they make their decision. what i'd like to see is a media that presents relevant information in the genuinely unbiased fashion and lets the voters make proper, informed decisions. but that's not even close to the media we have.

of course voters can make up their own minds regardless, and many do notwithstanding the media's best efforts. but many can't be superhuman and accurately adjust for all the media bias, misinformation, disinformation, etc.

surely you'll agree that the media at least has the power to affect the decisions of at least 80,000 people....

at a minimum, powerful people throughout world history have gained and preserved power against the interests of the people by abusing the power of the press.

[AtheistCrusader]

106. In washington state the media narrative was that Hillary was a foregone conclusion and trump a laugh

ingstock. I went to bed at 8pm, election night confident that trump was losing. I was SUPREMELY confident he'd lose.

I got a text at 11pm telling a different tale.



In other states, in other parts of the country, the narrative/media coverage may vary. Here, in WA, Hillary could not possibly lose. I did not see this coming. I've almost given up politics over it. How. How the fuck does this happen? It was like getting blind sided by a 5mph steam roller.

[LisaM]

81. Ummm, when the media spent 100 minutes of its coverage of the election on emails

and what, 22 minutes on every other topic combined, this is not a problem? When Matt Lauer spends 11 minutes of that bogus "commander in chief" forum talking about emails, that is not a problem? When climate change is not brought up once as a debate topic by the moderators (all members of the media), that is not a problem? When cameras are set up at every whistle stop DT made but Hillary's interactions with the voters are ignored, that is not a problem?

I can't even. I've never seen such slanted coverage.

[SammyWinstonJack]

21. +1

[Arazi]

25. +1000 Eom

[treestar]

38. your last sentence is astounding

if we don't get out and support a candidate, they get nowhere. If we don't see that's in our interests rather than sitting back waiting to be courted we will get the kind of losses we are getting.

If a candidate does not have some support they cannot attract more. We think we are the extra interested in politics people, the ones who are more involved. We had to be out there and enthusiastic to support the candidate and attract more support.

[Sherman A1]

53. I supported the candidate but the argument

that it is my job to do so is much more astounding. I am not applying for the job, they are and it's their job to sell themselves and their ideas. I may contribute to their effort either monetarily or by other means, but it is not my campaign.

[treestar]

71. Politics is just not like that

It's not a pure "sale" or consumer item. Yes they have to do as well as they can to convince voters, but once you are convinced, if you want that person in office, you have to support them and it seems nowadays, very enthusiastically.

What use is it saying Hillary did not do enough? Orange Donald will still be sworn in. We should ask ourselves what did WE do wrong, too. Ask what you can do for your country.

[Sherman A1]

96. I'm sorry, however

I am not accepting responsibility for the loss of the Democratic Party in the 2016 election. If you choose to do so that is entirely up to you. I did what I could, where I could and when I could do so. I believe the Party seriously lost it's way in this cycle and is rather tone deaf and needs to make some very fundamental changes before the 2018 mid terms, but that is up to the Party Chair and Management to find a path forward.

[treestar]

98. I didn't mean it personally

Just in a way that everybody is responsible, or it is more directed at those posters who mistakenly in my view treat it like they have to be sold on it. It's tough enough for the Democrats to win given the media slants and horse races and republican access to right wing money.

But notably the right wing is rabid, pays attention to downticket and goes to the representatives office all year, and that gets them somewhere - lets them win when most voters don't really want their policies. We can learn from that.

[randr]

3. Thanks, most of us here are sick of this narative

How about we blame all the people who did not vote? How about we fine people who don't vote like Australia does?

[still_one]

10. and what is interesting is most of those self-identified progressives who refused to vote for

Hillary, either by voting third party, write in, or not voting, have no regrets

They are a pathetic and selfish group

Of course the FBI, media, and Russians significant contributors, along with the 14 states who made it more difficult to vote after 2013, which included Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina

[edhopper]

18. I have run into a few of those

they blame Hillary and are still proud they didn't vote for her.

[WhiteTara]

45. and I know a few who are now concerned

about their SS, medicare, pension plans, and the coming cost of their health insurance. But they are SO proud they didn't vote for that "corporatist" Hillary. I have trouble talking to them.

[lostnfound]

80. I voted for that corporatist Hillary.

She's not perfect but then neither am I.
She fought pretty damned hard and so did her allies.

[WhiteTara]

83. I voted for Hillary in the primaries and

in the general. I wanted her to be president for MANY reasons; now I'm afraid there will be no other presidents because Shitler will finish the coup that began on December 12, 2000.

[KPN]

37. deflection deflection deflection deflection ...

ad infinitum it seems

Anyone seen a poster here who didn't vote for Hillary?

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. How about we fine those to refuse to let people vote, who restrict their

right to vote?

[citood]

4. The days are counting down

Most people (myself included) simply cannot fathom what is about to happen on the 20th....and are looking to point a finger somewhere.

[randome]

7. Yeah, the voters failed us. How anyone could vote for Trump even in protest just blows my mind.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[KPN]

39. Now there's a solution ...

blame the voters.

[randr]

54. Ultimately that is when the chips fall

[Raster]

11. And I am tired of various posters giving the Clinton campaign blanket absolution.

Many factors went into the Clinton loss, INCLUDING a campaign so out of touch with swathes of previous Democratic voters that no one in the campaign even had a clue there were issues right up to election day, EVEN AFTER admonishment from Bill Clinton himself, among others.

MOVE ON, we have far bigger fish to fry.

[uponit7771]

13. WHAT BIGGER FISH?!!? 18?!?! You're kidding right?!! Russia is going to do LESS hacking in 18?!?!?

REALLY?!!

[Raster]

14. That is one of the bigger fish, among others. Russia WAS NOT THE ONLY REASON CLINTON LOST.

Russia and hacking join the list. As does FBI interference. As does the "we got this" hubris displayed by the campaign.

AGAIN: TIME FOR US ALL TO MOVE ON! We have far bigger fish to fry.

[uponit7771]

15. We agree, Comey and voter suppression were the other EMPIRICAL reasons she lost all other

... crap is guessing and its crap.

There's no getting the "white working class" when someone hacks your systems (NOT JUST EMAILS) and then hacks state and local level electoral resources!!!

Either people believe the INTEL report and what's in it or they don't, they can't say the believe the intel report and turn around and place any onus on the Clinton campaign...

That makes no sense

[Raster]

17. You have your opinions and are certainly entitled to them.

Moving on...

[uponit7771]

28. The hacking isn't opinion... that's "fake news" to call it such

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. +1000000!

[KPN]

41. Exactly!

Sadly, denial, deflection and projection seem to be ruling the roost at the moment.

[Raster]

51. Not to mention online bullying if you don't toe the line.

[HughBeaumont]

66. this was the part that angered me the most.

Especially in an election that should have truthfully been over after "Pussygate".

Ignore progressives at your own peril.

[TheCowsCameHome]

19. So am I.

I wish she hadn't.

[fescuerescue]

20. It was our duty to elect her

And as a people we failed her.

History will judge us harshly.

[edhopper]

22. Not just history

we will reap the whirlwind from this election in very short order.

[world wide wally]

26. It finally dawned on me why so many Republicans hate Hillary

The truth is that they DON'T really hate Hillary. They just cannot think for themselves.
They are just dyed in the wool Republicans who knew that Trump was a joke right from the start but they felt they had to justify their vote so the only path they had was to vilify Hillary.
I never once heard a sustantive explanation of what she did wrong. Did you?

[edhopper]

29. no, I never did

though i did here some Dems blame her for not responded to the phony Email bullshit with 100% perfection.

As if any response she had would have stopped the Repukes from keeping that crap alive.

[KPN]

46. What she did wrong when? During the campaign?

I don't know ... I've seen and heard a lot. For example, her campaign banked on Trumps negatives and deplorables instead of what people really wanted to hear -- how she would make their lives better. "I have laid out a comprehensive plan ... [for this and for that] -- just go to my campaign web page" wasn't an effective way to tell people what they wanted to hear. Another example, she was absent throughout most of the midwest throughout most of the campaign -- she didn't bring herself to the people. Another, she was never able to counter and at least minimize if not negate the perception that she had a too-cozy relationship with the big money interests.

[world wide wally]

48. So,you couldn't come up with anything either?

I was talking about her whole life basically.
I know there are about 10 million people who claim they could have run her campaign differently and then she would have won, but that was not what Trump voters were complaining about. They questioned her whole moral character as they defended Trump's,

[KPN]

57. Oh, her whole life?

Well, yeah, I think people had a lot of problems on that level as well. This was a populist election that was largely fueled by mass disenchantment with the system -- she was a huge player in that system and has been for most of her adult life. That's real. Her attachment to Bill who ushered in NAFTA and promoted "globalism". Her too-cozy relationship with big money; her $200k speeches to Wall Street, the very people who's unaccountability fueled populism. Those were things that she did wrong given the context of the times. She miscalculated in those regards it seems.

[world wide wally]

62. And ultimately she was penalized for giving speeches to Wall St while Trump put them in charge

Face it. All the negative appearances and BS was manufactured by RW media and altogether too many Dems and progressives bought the bill of goods. She didn't break any laws or really do anything "wrong"…….Unwise at worst

[KPN]

67. Didn't break any laws? That's hardly an argument when

so many people view the laws as the problem! Take the blinders off man. This wasn't stuff manufactured by anyone -- it's the facts. People are fed up with the same old same old yielding poorer and poorer results. Being complacent will get us nowhere. And too many democrats are too complacent with their own positions in life as far as I can tell.

[Sparkly]

76. I think it's because she was an older woman, seeking the presidency.

And an older woman who'd spoken out for women from her youth on.

All the analyses keep forgetting that part. She'd have been our first woman president, and that was not nothing.

[JHan]

91. That doesn't fly ..

This election wasn't between two qualified candidates or public servants: It was between a qualified candidate and an orange shithead. I'll probably end up using strong language here and it's not directed at you but the situation:

The choices were clear. The CONTRAST was clear. The "lesser of the two evils"rhetoric because Hillary sent emails from the wrong server and all the talk about Clinton being "flawed" helped drag her to the level of Trump and people swallowed that crap. She ran a decent campaign, she didn't lie on Trump. Could she have won over the flyover states if she had more rallies there? Yeah maybe. But there's also the TV and the internet and other means through which voters can find out simple shit like what a candidate stands for... #NoExcuses

Trump insulted groups, insulted people to their faces, so I am mighty fine with blaming voters for their fuckery instead of Hillary. My doing so doesn't exonerate the hubris of her campaign like Mook ignoring Bill ( supposedly). Still, people willingly chose to allow the election of a shithead because they were ignorant, couldn't be bothered and lazy, narcissistic, plain fucking stupid, racist, sexist and xenophobic or a combination of all those damn things.

How on earth is getting a ton of benjamins for a speech because you're hot stuff the same or worse than an orange jackass, who shits in a gold toilet, stiffing ordinary Americans and who thinks he's too good to pay his fair share in taxes?

The political and moral calculus of millions of voters were fucked up.

[Paladin]

30. I'm sick of the Hillary trashing, here and elsewhere.

In the end, there's no accounting for, nor predicting of, the sort of mass insanity that afflicted enough voters to put trump in office---with some obvious help from certain government bureaucrats, a bought-and-paid-for media, and a hostile foreign power. The thing to do now is get angry and resist this corrupt, dangerous, brain-dead regime in as many ways as possible.

[KPN]

47. Oh, so its useless, futile. Let's just give up.

Trying to understand what didn't go well and why in order to avoid the same negative outcome in the future is called problem solving. If you and too many other Democrats see that as bashing, then you are right, there "is no accounting for" what happened and the future is hopeless.

[Paladin]

60. I've been voting and participating in presidential elections since 1972.

In all that time, I never witnessed a single campaign or candidate that was without flaws. Certainly, mistakes were made by the Clinton campaign, and those mistakes should be avoided in the future. But any campaign which results in somebody like Trump prevailing has some unique and bizarre elements that cannot be blamed on Hillary Clinton, or her staff, or her supporters.

I'd appreciate your backing off the "let's just give up" comments as far as I'm concerned. I'm a lifelong Democrat, a loyal Clinton supporter, and the last thing I'm in the mood for right now is throwing in the towel.

[KPN]

64. And I'd appreciate others backing off on

defending Hillary and ignoring real reasons why we lost the election. I voted for Hillary -- but I always had the feeling this was going to go south largely because she is the ultimate when it comes to "establishment" and it seemed quite obvious to me that this was going to be an anti-establishment election. When you say that there's no accounting for election results given the mass-insanity, I simply disagree. There's a lot wwe can learn and better learn in my opinion.

By the way, I too have voted in every election since 1972 -- always Democrat.

[Blanks]

32. She didn't beat up on Trump...

Because she didn't need to beat up on Trump. Hardly anyone predicted he would win.

She would have risked being perceived as too mean spirited if she'd have pulled out all the stops. She was only as aggressive as she needed to be to win.

I blame the hackers, and whatever else the Russians were doing on social media (and here).

There was a lot of Hillary bashing that went unchecked because it was so clear that she would win.

I hope she runs again.

[treestar]

34. I agree, Democrats need to learn

they have to show up and be supportive, not sit there taking pot shots. This and this alone is why we lose. Most voters agree with Democratic policies, not Republican. Yet they are uninspired and sit home because we have elements trashing our own candidates, let alone the media already doing so.

[KPN]

55. Democrats do need to show up. But keep in mind that typical Democrats are

very different from typical Republicans ... they (Democrats/past Democrats who are now Independents) are generally more "thoughtful" and therefore tend to think for themselves, and they act accordingly. Those who intentionally sat home or didn't vote for Hillary did not do so because other Democrats or the media were trashing Hillary. They did so either because they were not inspired enough to go to the polls, or they voted according to their own thoughtful conviction and principles.

The only way we will get their votes is by inspiring them to vote ... and that means appealing to their values, convictions and principles. As long as we continue to downplay the populist nature of this election we (the Democratic Party) we will continue to come up short of our goals.

[Iggo]

42. What's this WE bullshit? I didn't let her down. I didn't blow it.

How did YOU let her down?

How did YOU blow it?

[edhopper]

100. We

the collective American voter. Not we DU members.

[JHan]

44. Thing is there are any number of reasons why she lost,

A combination of a ton of things in her control and out of her control.

My problem is with some folks who focus on one particular narrative as to why she lost - it exposes their bias.

[True_Blue]

49. Hillary ran an excellent campaign

She had a great ground game and had the best people working for her. All the polls had Hillary ahead by 15 pts right before Comey's email announcement. That brought her down in the polls, but even then she still had a 85% chance of winning.

They stole this election. This is a Russian coup. This was a well thought out plan by Putin to install Trump as POTUS and he left nothing to chance. Who knows how much of this country has all ready been infiltrated by Putin. I suspect the MSM, pols, FBI.

[StevieM]

93. It was more like 8-10 points or so, but your points are taken.

She did indeed run a great campaign.

Other things that happened towards the end might have led to a closing of the margin. Maybe she would have won by as little as 6 points nationally, and 333 electoral votes, the same margin Obama had over Romney. But she would have won, and carried in a Democratic Senate.

Comey's dishonesty and criminal activity definitely changed the outcome of the race, and not just by a small amount. That goes for Jason Chaffetz too.

[onyxw]

99. Sorry, no

She had a very flawed ground game that over emphasized certain areas and underemphasized others and for a campaign that was raising hundreds of millions of dollars had a strange aversion to providing campaign literature and signage for purposes of door to door campaigning. They didn't campaign hard in Michigan because they didn't want to signal to Republicans it was soft and was a battleground state. She gets hit for using resources in red states like Arizona, and I'll actually defend them on it as I think you need to make some investments in places like that to build a more 50 state strategy. Spending resources to run up the score in blue areas in California and places around Chicago rather than battlegrounds probably deserve some heat.

I don't know if you were estimating 15% number, pretty sure it was closer to 7-8 pts before letter, it dropped about 4-5 points to 2-3pts with Comey's letter and rebounded slightly (1-2 pts) back to a 2-4pt lead two or three days before election once Comey indicated nothing new found. Comey letter had about a 3 pt impact, it didn't erase 15 points.

The percentage predictors were garbage metrics because they're based on current election going similar to past elections. It's hard to put a Trump candidacy in context with prior elections. Pollsters should have seen Trump as anomaly/outlier and didn't. So I think polls got a bad rap, as they were okay at a national level. There's some state level polling that need to be looked at, but the Nate Silvers should be hammered for their predictor percentages as I think that gave a very false sense. Even in the case where Trump were a normal candidate, people don't have a good sense of odds. Even at 85% that's still 15% chance at Trump. At a glance, you'd feel pretty good at 5 or 6-1 until you put it into context that it's roughly your odds for Russian Roulette.

"They stole this election."
No they didn't. In terms of Russia solely, Russia at best released emails that our intelligence community's investigation indicated weren't faked. In terms of a Russia/Trump team up, they played for electoral college victory and they got it. They didn't steal Pennsylvania. They didn't steal Ohio. They didn't steal Florida. They didn't steal Iowa. WE LOST. We need to look to combat NC and WI legislation for the voting restrictions they put in, but those were known going into it. MI with the broken machines is really the only place where something might have swung, but even if that flipped to us Trump still hits 270.

"This was a well thought out plan by Putin to install Trump as POTUS and he left nothing to chance. Who knows how much of this country has all ready been infiltrated by Putin. I suspect the MSM, pols, FBI."

We'd need to add the DNC too. Our strategy was to prop up Trump during the Republican primaries. We tried to play the Claire McCaskill Todd Akin strategy. The difference is, if McCaskill's plan failed, there's 99 other senators to mitigate the failed strategy. When it fails at the presidential level, there's no mitigation. We played with fire at the highest role in government. We got burned.

As to a really well thought out plan by Putin with nothing left to chance, here's basically the things that needed to go right for Russia's diabolical plan to succeed:

• Years in advance, Democratic President Barack Obama to decide to appoint James Comey as FBI director.
• Years in advance as Secretary of State, Clinton to decide to use private server. Then when made public, deflect on addressing for several months.
• Hillary Clinton’s own husband Bill deciding to meet with the DOJ’s Loretta Lynch on an airplane tarmac causing potential conflict of interest leading to removing a layer of oversight on Comey
• Former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner decides to sext and Huma Abedin fails to have previously turned over their joint computers.
• Prominent Democrats don’t run against Hillary Clinton and clear the field.
• Over 13.2M Democrats to conclude even with the recent FBI email investigation ongoing/recently resolved Clinton still a better option than Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
• Hillary Clinton’s campaign to decide to deemphasize/not campaign significantly in Wisconsin or Michigan.
• Hillary Clinton calls half of Donald Trump supporters “deplorable”.
• >2.2M voters in Michigan and >1.3M voters in Wisconsin had to find the emails so influential that they view Donald Trump a better option. Otherwise they already viewed Trump as a better option than Hillary even without the email influence.

Beyond those essentials, here's some more that debatably also had to go right for Putin to have a chance to install Trump.
• Millions of Americans in states Romney lost, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa to view Donald Trump a better option than Clinton.
• Hillary Clinton having challenges with her own base at & post convention. (Picking Kaine as VP over progressive, silence on DAPL, unwillingness to support $15 min wage, blocking anti-TPP language from platform, promoting support from neocons like Kissinger)
• Voters attributing Bill Clinton’s involvement in NAFTA and its impact on the Rust Belt to Hillary Clinton.
• Overplaying “Donald Trump says mean things” in her ads instead of covering policy of why they should vote for her.


That's a lot of items to account for by Putin. I mean the way he made sure Weiner would sext people and the way he was able to get Bill to taint Lynch's ability to oversee the investigation is borderline mind control. Either he's a crazy mastermind that threaded the needle perfectly, or we need to recognize Putin wasn't really a primary factor in this and that there were a lot of things that went wrong for Dems, many in our control. I'd rather not just throw our hands in the air and say "Russia released embarrassing emails we couldn't do anything to possibly overcome it, let's move on". The things in our control we need to reflect on and figure out what to correct and figure out better ways to guard against things we can't control.

[HoneyBadger]

103. This is not a popular narrative

[onyxw]

114. That's okay.

I guess I felt the popular narrative had some holes/blind spots in it, so offered my assessment.

I welcome folks to disagree with it. I'd rather us have the conversation and disagree than paper over things as being fine when it's just going to fester under the surface if not addressed.

If it helps us do some introspection and sets us up better to tackle '18 and '20 then it'll have served its purpose.

[Raster]

107. Outstanding post!!! Welcome to DU!

Brilliant essay... not going to be popular with certain segments of DU, but hey, what is these days, eh?

[onyxw]

116. Thanks

Been a member for a bit, but primarily just read. Have a fairly good sense of what I was likely stepping into, just think it needed to be said. Hopefully it's viewed by folks constructively (though I've been reading long enough to know that can be a challenge). Appreciate the heads up though.

[spin]

113. While your analysis may be unpopular with many posters here ...

we do need to examine how what looked like a certain win turned out to be a loss. I personally don't think it was just one event or item but a combination of a number of factors that led to the result. Most importantly we need to be totally and brutality honest in our appraisal.

[zipplewrath]

115. Nice analysis but

I do think to some degree you need to look a little beyond just her as the candidate. The dems have been taking a beating up and down the ticket for years. We are now in the worst condition we've been in decades. Clinton may have contributed to that over the years, but I suspect there is much more to it.

[onyxw]

117. Agree

oh absolutely agree. I don't mean to lay everything at Clinton's feet. There's plenty of soul searching to go around.

Some of the losses we've seen is a result of having the presidency and there's some natural attrition/people that vote to have GOP congress while there's a Dem president. Some is us getting complacent with having the presidency, and dividing focus to that whereas GOP could focus on making Congressional & state level gains. Some of that's normal. But I'd say we hemorrhaged seats. 2010 redistricting was huge impact on House and likely some at the state level that will endure through at least 2020. Beyond that impact, 2 things I think we haven't done so well: 1) Abandoning 50 state strategy and ceding where we'd compete was a bad call. 2) I know this isn't a new insight, but Democrats' tendency toward voting every four years rather than every two years vs Republicans reliably voting every 2 yr cycle is also a big hamstring.

I also think we massively screwed up optics in 2008 in doing healthcare reform while we were bleeding jobs. I thought it was a bad call at the time to not do a full throated jobs bill out of the gate. I've come to realize I was wrong and it was the right call in that Dems realized Obama only had enough political capital to get one and healthcare was the once in 30 years issue and we somewhat banked on that if the economy worsened there'd be more support later to do jobs/more stimulus if needed. But the optics were terribly bad and a lot of folks have held that fact and compounded with no banker prosecutions as Democrats being tone deaf and we did a poor job addressing those optics.

Then in 2010 we didn't do a good job defending Obamacare in re-election campaigns. We spent a year and did the heavy lifting to get it passed, then everybody pretty much abandoned it which allowed Republicans to whipsaw us by attacking all the flaws with nobody defending the good points. Add to it that we spent so much time to get Obamacare through that if you weren't willing to defend that, you were basically running on a bunch of post office namings. I think those two things have lingered as to why we have been less successful than we should be given what we've accomplished, economy improving etc.

Unfortunately I don't know that there's an easy answer to reverse the trend. The 2010 redistricting slants things against us, making it tougher, and '18 Senate isn't favorable so we're going to have to grind it out in '18 and '20. Some of it may be us capitalizing on GOP being drunk on power and overstepping and we need to fiercely defend SS, Medicare, Medicaid and ACA from being cut/gutted. DNC chair being full time role going forward would also be good.

I think at the Gov level we ought to be highlighting that when KY went from DEM to GOP, GOP gutted Kynect, when it went from GOP to DEM in Louisiana and NC the first actions were to expand Medicaid. I'm not sure at the state legislature level what's broadly driven those losses, but 50 state strategy and working to make sure we run candidates and don't leave races unopposed ought to be an initial step.

[HoneyBadger]

102. Polls are meaningless

Votes are what count

[TheDebbieDee]

50. Sec Clinton got 3 million more votes!

[INdemo]

56. It was her incompetent staff

and Im a liitle tired of hearing that it was all Bernie Sanders fault that she lost.
Democrats sat back and refused to allow a real Democratic Primary and did nothing but "bash" Bernie Sanders when he entered the primary race.
The truth is..Republicans had been waiting for Hillary for 20 years with all the negatives against her and they were determined that she was not going to win..Hillary took for granted the three main states she lost in that determined the election..She thought (her campaign staff should have known better)PA,Mich. NC, and Wisc. was in the bag...the Clinton campaign took the Union/Blue Collar vote for granted and that is why she lost. If James Carville would have been running her campaign she would have won.
Hillary Clinton chose loyalists instead of real experienced professionals to run her campaign and thus the end result was a loss.

[DonCoquixote]

59. I will agree

James carville may be many things, but there is no way he would have allowed the "blue wall" to go to Trump. Clinton's staff sucked, especially the people we dare not name because some people have their ban fingers cocked.

[blue cat]

58. Thank you

[Sparkly]

70. Thank you!!

The only people to blame for Trump are the people who voted for him -- PERIOD.

[Paladin]

73. Yes, thank you edhopper.

Even though this thread has caused the Hillary-bashers to come out, en masse......

[WestCoastDem42]

74. Agreed!

😂😂😂

[Proud Liberal Dem]

77. Me too

n/t

[lostnfound]

78. As a Bernie supporter, I completely agree.

No second guessing what she did or didn't do -- it's pointless now. She was our candidate and piling on her is not going to encourage other democrats.

Only people who have been in the ring have a right to criticize when the fight is over.

Have to look forward at what should come next.

[AtheistCrusader]

104. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. We MUST second guess. We MUST learn from this.

We have to start getting our ducks in a row for 2020, NOW. Not at the primary. NOW.

We need winnable talent on deck NOW. We need people who are recognizable and trustworthy opposing Trump every step of the way in a VERY public manner.

THIS data set needs to be understood NOW.

Edit: not criticizing you, just man oh man we need to get out of this 'don't criticize hillary' rut, we have to look at EVERY reason, and there is no single reason. There are many.

We won the popular vote, we outspent him 2:1, and we lost. We lost. This is uncharted territory. We have to get our bearings fast.

[INdemo]

110. We should remember the election of 2000

and just how crocked the Republicans are...They made their mind up that by God they were not going to have another Democrat in the White House ..period..
They were willing to do anything to keep that from happening..Their plan just didn't come together in 2000 on election night.The cards were on the table and Jeb Bush was the one stacking the deck...

The same thing happened here in 2016..The Republicans made up their mind a Democrat was not going to win the White House again and they were willing to do anything to stop it..and they did.There again their plan did not just come together on election day.
***With that damn crooked son-of- bitch Reince Priebus their plan to steal this damn thing was in the works for a long time.

There are Democrats on the hill that know this election was swept away but they,like 2000 and 2004,are not going to do a damn thing about it.The only thing that matters to them is keeping their corporate war chest full.

[kenfrequed]

82. We walked into a 15 year old pit trap.

The Republicans have been setting it up since at least 2000, and had been running negative ads since the early 90's against Hillary. Hillary hate was multi-generational. Her unpopularity numbers were readily visible and out in the open. It was hubris and nostalgia that made so many people convinced that she absolutely had to be the candidate.

She was defeated by a little known Senator from Illinois whose middle name was Hussein, less than eight years after 9/11. I was actually intensely proud of my party and my country when we did manage to get President Obama elected. And I would ask how likely a president with an intensely Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, German, or even a Russian name would have been elected at various times so close to war? Our country went beyond that and proved who we could be as a people.

But it should have been a wake up call to Senator Clinton. She should have nodded and sought to get back into the Senate when the opportunity presented itself. 2016 should have been an open nomination without such a large percentage of superdelegates being virtually on lock by July of 2015. Had the DNC political machine not worked so hard to beat the bushes and drive away other candidates from even considering a run then Bernie might not have even bothered.

----

I showed up. I supported Bernie in the primary and I voted Hillary in the general.

If we made a mistake it was in nominating her. But it is a candidates job to get votes. She had a crappy team around her. They avoided even talking about Crosscheck or voter suppression as they were the biggest problems this election. Even now, Brazile and her war room are not even bothering to speak of Crosscheck. To them it is all Russia, all the time and the most Russia did was dump some internal emails on a media outlet.

[Lee-Lee]

84. Hillary's downfall was trusting the wrong people

And not just for the campaign, but well before.

The whole email mess should have never been an issue because the people who advised her to do it and managed it for her should have been smart enough to grasp that a private server and the mixing of all her State business with private emails was a recipie for a big headache and hassle. They should have pushed State to get their IT up to meet her needs even if just for her and kept personal stuff separate.

I don't expect she knew the first thing of how a server works or how email policies worked. She said what she wanted and trusted people to make it work.

She wasn't foolish enough to click on a phishing email that ended up exposing the inner workings of the campaign to everyone. But someone on her staff was.

She wasn't the one who had pretty lax IT security for DNC servers and then didn't take warnings from the FBI seriously- but DNC staff did.

The same dynamic played out in the election. She listened to advisors who told her that states like NC were in the bag and didn't focus on the key states she needed to stop him. Sure, she won the popular vote- but that wasn't the task at hand. Her team seemed more focused on that than winning the electoral votes almost, for reasons I can't fathom.

No, she didn't lose the race. Her staff did. Her main fault was being overly loyal to people who have been loyal to her, but who were not the best people for the jobs at hand.

[karynnj]

97. This is actually more damning than posts blaming her

A President has to be good at delegation. The ability to select good people will determine the quality of job done in the administration.

[LanternWaste]

85. Bear in mind, criticism of Clinton's campaign is simply analysis and game-planning the next election

Bear in mind, criticism of Clinton's campaign is simply analysis and game-planning the next election cycle; criticizing Sanders campaign to the same effect however, is little more "THIS ISN'T HELPING!!! The Primaries Are OVER!!!! So STOP It!!!!"

The dramatic disconnect is so obvious I get the sense that the "this isn't helping" contingent is simply playing us.

[HoneyBadger]

86. 3 takeaways

Polling is meaningless, it has become all about picking whatever poll fits your narrative

Corporate fundraising is not worth the trade off. Raising your money via more small donations=more votes

A Democratic nominee that is not a person of color will lower turnout

[Raster]

109. I don't think polling is meaningless....

...it just has to be fairly and equitably done... don't just poll the places you want to hear the results from... and NO AMOUT OF PHONE POLLS will ever completely replace boots on the ground. You have to have door-to-door and face-to-face.

Corporate fundraising certainly has its place, but certainly it is NOT the only valid form of fundraising.

And finally, a Democratic nominee that is not a person of color does not necessarily indicate a lower turnout, ESPECIALLY if all members of the Democratic coalition (POC, all genders, all creed and religions) believe that the nominee is there for them and appreciates their struggles and their situation in life.

[Motown_Johnny]

90. So my flip flops on trade let.her down?

Oh wait..... I have never supported free trade.

Never mind

[Aristus]

92. Pissy bullshit from Bernie-bots.

I could never trust anyone who honestly believes a Hillary Clinton Presidency would be the same or worse than a Donald Trump Presidency.

And they never change. You still see smug horseshit online from Nader-voters. They've convinced themselves that a Gore Presidency would have been indistinguishable from the dreadful GWB administration.

[Ligyron]

94. Why don't we quit talking about Hillary period?

She's the past. She lost.

We need to figure out how to fight Trump and Co and start winning elections for a change.

If anyone is to blame it is the DNC and that much we should be able to control.

[edhopper]

101. If we don't acknowledge

how far the GOP and the Media have stacked the deck, we will never win.

[Raster]

105. We can fully acknowledge how far the GOP and the M$Media have stacked the deck...

...without intoning the sacred words of "Hilary Clinton."

She WAS our nominee, emphasis on the WAS. Time to move this forward.

[edhopper]

108. You can

I will not make her a pariah.

I still value Al Gore as well and will not forget he won as well.

[Raster]

111. I IN NO WAY ARE MAKING SECRETARY CLINTON A PARIAH...

...(1) that is HIGHLY illogical; and (2) I have far too much respect for Hillary Clinton for something like that.

Secretary Clinton WAS our nominee. Unfortunately due to a number of factors, she did not win. That does not mean the fight is over. No, it has just begun. We MUST pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and gird ourselves to fight the next battle.

There is no sense crying of spilt Hillary. That is done. Move on. We have bigger fish to fry.

[Ligyron]

112. Who here doesn't acknowledge how far the GOP and Media have stacked the deck?

We all know that and most of us know we have to win by another 15-20% to break even or pull ahead - just like a woman or a AA has to do the extra 15-20% to be considered equal to a (white) man.

Yeah, the deck is stacked against us so we can't afford screw-ups.

Look, I think Hills would have made an awesum President but it just didn't happen. Not fair but then it almost never is.

We need to push our issues which, BTW, most Americans agree with and a have plan to communicate them effectively.

Stick with messaging and not so much personalities (although we could use a few new, talented ones).