She's Back, And There Is No Sour Grapes in Her Garden

[TexasTowelie]

Young women who weren’t excited about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy are energized by her loss in ways they probably never could have imagined. They’re showing up at town halls, signing up for candidate training, and joining activist groups. And it’s not only millennial women waking up and fueling the resistance. Women across the spectrum—schoolteachers, nurses, IT workers—are turning up the political heat, and Clinton is taking notice.

FORMER AIDE

“There’s a realization that when she speaks, she speaks for the majority of the country,” a former aide told The Daily Beast. “It’s a platform we’ve never had,” the aide enthused, until reminded about Al Gore’s popular vote margin in the 2000 election.

GORE MORE VOTES

Gore garnered 540,000 more votes than George W. Bush in an election that turned on faulty ballots in Florida and was settled by the Supreme Court in Bush’s favor. Gore didn’t hang around to see if anyone wanted to hear from him. He grew a beard and gave up on national politics.

CLINTON WALKING WOODS

Clinton spent some time walking in the woods, but she’s not a dreamer and she’s not a wounded loner. She’s a practical woman determined to figure out how she can use the platform that she gained by winning almost 3 million votes more than Donald Trump in the November election.

Read more: https://maboulette.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/shes-back-and-there-is-no-sour-grapes-in-her-garden/

[elleng]

1. 'she speaks for the majority of the country,

It’s a platform we’ve never had,'??? she’s not a dreamer?

[pnwmom]

6. Women are the majority in the country, and we've never had a platform like this before.

And the Dems who voted for her outnumbered the GOP by almost 2.9 million -- which also gives her an important platform.

Is this so hard to understand?

[elleng]

7. It seems that this was NOT understood.

[JHan]

16. It was understood among most women of color.

White women not so much.

[leftynyc]

24. This white woman

understood it perfectly. All the white woman in my family - not a republican in the bunch.

[JHan]

32. I Know :) I mean statistically as a group..

Trump's hold on the white demographic across income and gender lines is telling. But there were also millions of woke white women who saw through the BS.

[leftynyc]

42. I will never understand

republican women. They're freaks of nature as far as I'm concerned.

[spooky3]

45. Yes, the vote for Trump was very similar to the vote for Republican candidates in prior

elections.

[LakeArenal]

47. Don't give them that much credit... Just plain old freaks...

[calimary]

48. So did this white woman!

I read her loud and clear. But she struck a chord with me a long time ago - 1992, during her husband's campaign.

She had me at "I guess I could have stayed home and baked cookies..."

[leftynyc]

50. BOTH my parents

worked her campaign in 2008. We've been fans (like you) since she's been first lady.

[calimary]

59. She hit me like a thunderbolt!

First time in my life that I realized I could actually relate to a First Lady. We're not too far apart in age. We share the same views. Both college-educated. We worked when we were single and when we were married but childless. We kept working, after we'd given birth. Sometimes we brought home more than our husbands did. We kept our own names as professionals. We even shared the same general sense of style for work-wear - pantsuits in particular. And every time she spoke, it rocked my world - what she'd say, how she'd say it, and the points she'd make. Riveting! Always eloquent, passionate, informed, and making total sense. And often so warm, compassionate, practical, and of such good humor. And I love her laugh. I have a loud one, too.

I've admired Hillary since I first discovered her.

[leftynyc]

62. LOL

I laugh like woody woodpecker (I can use that reference with you, we share close timeframes for popular culture). I hate it but it seems to make others laugh so it's all good. I so wanted HER to be president. What she put up with for decades and just shook it off and moved forward impressed me beyond measure. And she's brilliant. My heart still hurts that we have this repulsive degenerate in the Oval Office.

[calimary]

64. I'm with you, my friend.

I badly wanted her to be President. For what it would say about America - that we were willing to do away with that last ridiculous glass ceiling. What it would say to our daughters, and to women everywhere. We NEEDED that triumph over the vulgar asshole who grabbed about groping. We needed that for what IT would say about America; what it would say to all such sexual predators. We already know what the message is, through the future, for candidates releasing their tax returns. That precedent has now been set. (What if a Democrat had done that?!?!?!?)

I also badly wanted those brains in the Oval Office. You would NOT be seeing any of the slip-ups and stupid avoidable mistakes that seem to rain down on us week by week from this bunch, and in particular, this jerk! I hate wasting valuable resources.

[synergie]

19. Did you forget that she had millions more votes? And that we are all so angry

and upset because we know this was a stolen election? It's why we are all organizing and out on the streets marching. This is a platform we gave never had, with the twisted corruption of the the GOP and the misogyny of the entire spectrum undeniably laid before us.

I guess you did not know what all the fuss was about, somehow. Unless it was being falsely attributed to some other guy and not the woman who garnered 66 million votes despite unimaginable factors working against her from foreign interference, media bias, vote suppression, loss of the VRA, and equal levels of pure, identical nastiness from the right and the so called left?

[elleng]

20. Shattered Charts Hillary Clintons Course Into the Iceberg Books of The Times By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

'Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in November came as a shock to the world. Polls, news reports and everything the Clinton campaign was hearing in the final days pointed to her becoming the first female president in American history.

In their compelling new book, “Shattered,” the journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes write that Clinton’s loss suddenly made sense of all the reporting they had been doing for a year and a half — reporting that had turned up all sorts of “foreboding signs” that often seemed at odds, in real time, with indications that Clinton was the favorite to win. Although the Clinton campaign was widely covered, and many autopsies have been conducted in the last several months, the blow-by-blow details in “Shattered” — and the observations made here by campaign and Democratic Party insiders — are nothing less than devastating, sure to dismay not just her supporters but also everyone who cares about the outcome and momentous consequences of the election.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/books/shattered-charts-hillary-clintons-course-into-the-iceberg.html?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016183428

[Maven]

29. Really? You're promoting that shit here? nt

[VOX]

30. Please don't post that crap on DU.

From the product description over at Amazon: "...Shattered will offer an object lesson in how Hillary herself made victory an uphill battle..."

Doesn't sound very fair or favorable. And attacking Democratic figures and candidates is a a ground-rule no-no.

[JHan]

34. I'm fine with discussion about the book...

I read their previous book which, for the most part, was fair.

In this rounds, it sounds like the book glides over certain factors and mirrors what conventional pundits have assessed ( not all I agree with because they conveniently ignore the big stench in the room - all the ISMs that still shape our politics)

There was hubris, I didn't find Mook effective at times and she lost control of the narrative with Sanders - I wanted her to take him on more aggressively on certain issues. But the political media also lost its mind in the coverage of both candidates, which is inexcusable. And disinformation wasn't a "maybe" factor, it was a major factor that affected enthusiasm among millennials and other groups dems usually rely on to vote. And of course an election with a gutted Voting Rights Act didn't help.

[lapucelle]

55. Hi Jhan! Read the excerpt from Bordo's book

The Destruction of Hillary Clinton that's at the Guardian website. Her perspective is very different.

[JHan]

57. Yep aware of that one too, I plan on getting it! :)

[radius777]

65. Mook and Podesta were awful,

too wimpy, clueless, generic.

The campaign needed tougher/sharper people like Carville/Begala, Plouffe/Axelrod types, who really get hardball politics, and know how to win. They would've taken on Sanders much harder, fought the email/Comey issue harder, and would've destroyed Trump - all while presenting Hillary as the clear choice.

[elleng]

69. Yes, radius, they were.

Thanks for recognizing this fact.

[JHan]

74. yes..

can't really disagree with you there.. an axelrod type may have been more agile in their response to the pressures the campaign faced.

[lapucelle]

53. Feminist theorist Susan Bordo has a book on

the election that has a very different perspective. Its title is The Destruction of Hillary Clinton You can read excepts online.
From the blurb:

A play-by-play of the political forces and media culture that vilified and ultimately brought down Hillary Clinton during her 2016 Presidential campaign

The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an answer to the question many have been asking: How did an extraordinarily well-qualified, experienced, and admired candidate—whose victory would have been as historic as Barack Obama's—come to be seen as a tool of the establishment, a chronic liar, and a talentless politician?

How, indeed.

Given the cottage industry of make-a-buck Clinton books, we'll be seeing stuff like Shattered for at least the rest of the year. There's always a market for superficial, facile, gossipy, anti-Clinton "journalism", more so now that the potential buyers include the Sarandon dead enders looking for anything that confirms their bias that the Trump presidency is not (at least) in part their doing. Add those consumers to the usual-suspect Trumpsters and the alt-right purchasers and it spells one hyphenated word: cha-ching!

I'll wait for the analysis of historians and cultural / gender theorists and, of course, for Hillary's memoir. I put more stock in what serious people have to say.

[VOX]

86. *Cha-ching* is indeed the onomatopoeic guiding principle...

But the Susan Bordo book sounds interesting, I will give it a read. Thanks for the tip!

[anneboleyn]

33. Don't post a review of an anti-Hillary book on DU in GD. Not appropriate for this forum.

[Lyricalinklines]

68. I consider this a good place to discuss differences. Thereby, we can all understand in broader...

...sense the thinking behind a idea. Yes?

I do believe we need be vigilant lest complacency leads to bashing/promoting anti democratic ideas. Meanwhile, I gain perspective/ideas from fellow democrats here in addressing anti-democratic messages.

In our need to protect, we need not become isolated in our unity. IMHO

[synergie]

43. So given the level of dysfunction in Trump's campaign, one wonders how

he managed to win. Might it have to do with the things I mentioned which were somehow ignored in the reply? Very odd argument to make, considering what went on. The anti HRC bias is rather astounding though, no amount of reality, logic or critical thought can pierce it.

[radius777]

66. the betting markets had her as a 2:1 to 3:1 favorite

to win the presidency, consistently, going back thru the primaries and the general election.

the betting markets are rarely wrong, as they are taking in all forms of information.

and most reputable scientific predictive models showed she was coasting easily to victory.

the fact is, nobody could've known Comey/FBI/Rudy would violate the Hatch Act and interfere at the last moment, shifting the election a good 3% or so (her turnout was depressed and late deciders shifted sharply to Trump/GOP senate candidates).

[Lokilooney]

70. When talking about predictions

It should be pointed out that "prediction professor" Allan Lichtman predicted this election correctly as he has every election since 1984. He has been in the news lately as he recently predicted that trump will be impeached.

[mcar]

22. +1000!

[brer cat]

26. I read the entire article

and no where did it say that she speaks for elleng. You are probably safe ignoring this subject???

[elleng]

37. Thanks, brer cat.

As to the 'subject,' as I see it as being how a much favored Democrat lost the election, I think it's incumbent upon us all to try to understand. I speak for elleng, as you likely know!

[synergie]

44. But why do all the people seeking this examination

delibetately and repeatedly ignire the actual factors that played a role here? Is it not incumbent upon all those who seek to understand, to stop denying the factors at play here?

[LiberalLovinLug]

46. But there was a whole perfect storm of "actual factors"

It makes sense to study every factor that lost us the election. Even the uncomfortable ones.

[lapucelle]

54. Gender Studies/Cultural Studies theorist Susan Bordo

also has a work out on the election, and it has a very different perspective. Its title is The Destruction of Hillary Clinton. You can read excepts online. From the blurb:

A play-by-play of the political forces and media culture that vilified and ultimately brought down Hillary Clinton during her 2016 Presidential campaign.

The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an answer to the question many have been asking: How did an extraordinarily well-qualified, experienced, and admired candidate—whose victory would have been as historic as Barack Obama's—come to be seen as a tool of the establishment, a chronic liar, and a talentless politician?

How, indeed.

Given the cottage industry of make-a-buck Clinton books, we'll be seeing stuff like Shattered for at least the rest of the year. There's always a market for superficial, facile, gossipy, anti-Clinton "journalism", more so now that the potential buyers include the Sarandon dead enders looking for anything that confirms their bias that the Trump presidency is not (at least) in part their doing. Add those consumers to the usual-suspect Trumpsters and the alt-right purchasers and it spells one hyphenated word: cha-ching!

I'll wait for the analysis of historians and cultural / gender theorists and, of course, for Hillary's memoir. I put more stock in what serious people have to say.

[JHan]

38. [phone]

[Jamaal510]

2. K&R

[murielm99]

3. Yes, she's back!

She will always be back. She is a strong woman and a great leader.

K&R

[Cha]

4. Hillary Won the Most Votes so she speaks for the Majority of

the Country.

Al Gore.. another Democrat who won the popular vote went on to do amazing work on our Environment.

Both amazingly productive, brilliant Dems.

NEXT CHAPTER

Clinton is charting this next chapter in her life like any other campaign. There will be a book in the fall that draws on her favorite quotes over a lifetime for a series of essays that she said in a statement are “the words I live by.” One chapter will be about why she lost and could be titled, “From Russia with Misogyny.”

LOTS OF SPEECHES

Her calendar is filling up with speeches before audiences sure to greet her like a conquering hero. Next week, she’ll be at an LGBT Community Center in New York City. Next month, she’ll keynote a Planned Parenthood gala and the Children’s Health Fund annual benefit in New York City. On May 26, she’ll give the commencement speech at her alma mater, Wellesley College.

Mahalo, TexasT!

[Hekate]

10. Maybe Hillary can sign on for our UCSB Arts & Lectures series this Fall. Honestly, that would be ...

...my only chance to get to see her, since Santa Barbara is out of the way for luminaries like HRC (except for folks swinging through to meet big Dem donors). UCSB puts together a sterling A&L series every year, tho -- and a fangirl can dream.

[ashling]

5. There ARE no sour grapes in her garden

The first thing I use to judge the credibility - or gravitas - of a piece is whether or not the author includes obvious grammar mistakes in their title,

just sayin'

[greyl]

8. Is that just sour grapes?

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/sour-grapes.1842357/

[ashling]

11. Could be

Comes from reading too many essays written by college students, most of whom were unaware that

grammar is the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.

[TexasTowelie]

12. ...

[Beartracks]

14. If only I had a coffee to spit out in laughter...! n/t

[Rhiannon12866]

17. Thank you! Makes me crazy, too!

I'm saving this...

[ashling]

61. Unfortunately, if they gave out Cat Ass Trophies at my college

it would seriously deplete the cat population

[TexasTowelie]

63. If you are still at the university that I think you are at

they would also run out of space on the dorm walls to hang those trophies. The valedictorian of my high school class went there and married a chicken rancher.

[ashling]

79. My wife teaches there (though she is on medical leave this semester)

I am retired out here in the country and just look after the chickens ... you see, I ARE a chicken rancher! We have about 22. But your point is well taken (though quite the understatement)

Makes me think of a verse from Cantebury tales (the prologue)

Whan that Aprille with his showeres soote
the drought of March has pierced to the roote,
and bathed every veyne in suiche licuour
of which vertu engendered is the flour
Whan Zephyrus eke weth hees sweet breeth
inspired in every holt and heath
the tenderre croppes to comeand the younge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve course yronne
And smale fowles maken melodye
that slepen all nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgramages ...

[greyl]

13. If "is that just sour grapes?" was okay, then... nt

[PBass]

41. "is" is correct, sorry.

Sour Grapes is not plural, it's singular. It's slang for bitterness or jealousy.

[NurseJackie]

60. Thank you!! (You beat me to it!) :-)

The writer is using an idiom for a singular noun (bitterness) ... not the literal plural grapes on a vine.

[JCanete]

81. I don't have a problem with it either way, because at the end of the day, communication

is the point of language. Did you get what the writer was saying? Well then, the writer was able to communicate to you....

but wouldn't sour grapes still assume a plurality of bitterness? Like a whole vintage blend of differently distasteful grapes?

[NurseJackie]

84. Wouldn't have bothered me either way either.

The original, and correct, version was perfectly fine with me.

Did you get what the writer was saying? Well then, the writer was able to communicate to you....

You're asking me? Or was this intended for the one who went out of their way to offer an incorrect correction?

but wouldn't sour grapes still assume a plurality of bitterness? Like a whole vintage blend of differently distasteful grapes?

I don't know and I don't care.

[ashling]

80. I respectfully - though most vehemently - disgree

though I give you credit for your somewhat strained parsing.

The phrase "sour grapes" is not "slang" , but is a classic metaphor from Aesop's Fables (The Fox and the Grapes) and indicates the disdain someone has for an item (the bunch of grapes in this fable) that he or she is not able to obtain. This is the context within which this metaphor is used, and though it is possible to mix one's metaphors. That, however, is not in any way advisable and is - in fact - wrong.

While it is possible for there to be one (singular) sour grape in a bunch of grapes, the classic metaphor used here refers to grapes (plural) - and not to the disdain, jealousy, or whatever, represented by the grapes. To determine the character (i.e, sigular / plural) of the verb (is / are) you need to look to the grapes - plural.

[DesertRat]

9. K&R

[Beartracks]

15. Doesn't matter if she runs again or not, I just didn't want her to go away!

It is great to see her out and about, and rested -- still making a positive difference and having a powerful impact.

================

[es35]

18. Hooray and she's getting stronger

Why did we ever doubt her. She has the energy and intelligence to come back and fight for us now more strongly than ever.

[calimary]

49. I'm glad she's back in the public eye again.

It'll remind people of the grace and class of her campaign - and the woman herself. Especially now that we have trump to which to compare her. I suspect the more people see her in public, the sharper and more cruel the contrast, and the bigger the expanding sense of buyer's remorse.

[brer cat]

21. K&R

[mcar]

23. K&R

[Tom Rinaldo]

25. Good story. K&R n/t

[NurseJackie]

27. She speaks for me. She inspires me. She invigorates me.

?26ecd1

[oasis]

71. Hillary's continued composure and dignity has secured her a place

in the "Role Model Hall of Fame".

[Gothmog]

28. Yeah for Hillary Clinton

[sheshe2]

31. K&R

[George II]

35. She's an amazing woman, no wonder she's been the world's most admired woman for 20 years.

[karynnj]

36. I wish the author you quoted had left out the attack on Gore - he DID continue to fight

Gore went through two months disputing the election. Though he ultimately, months too late, was shown by a consortium of FL newspapers to have actually won FL, which would have made him the President. After the Supreme Court intervened and Gore, as VP, presided over Bush being awarded the Presidency, he made a wonderful speech, selflessly designed to heal the country.

He then opted to stay quiet for a year. Unlike now, early 2000 did not seem to be a time of crisis anything like the present time. The big issue was designing tax cuts. The Democrats in the House and Senate forced Bush to add some credits that benefited the low income, even as the overall tax program gave bigger cuts to the rich. Remember that Gore himself had agreed to tax cuts - though he wanted to secure Social Security and Medicare as well. People forget that because Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" and Gore was a centrist Democrat, the gap was less than the current chasm that exists between the parties.

However, Gore did not retreat to a desert island, he went deeper into learning from scientists the facts of climate change, developed talks that he could give that explained the science at a level that non scientists (like him, even if not as committed or as smart) could understand. This culminated in his film that educated millions and which earned him a Nobel Prize. For Gore, the right way to fight, which continues to this day, is to do the hard work spreading information to change minds and help others to become activists on climate change, an issue that was important to him throughout his whole career. Sadly, even with his efforts and those of others, this is still not a strong voting issue.

Some may forget that this was not the only thing he did. In 2002, as Bush pushed for war, Gore was a strong voice against Bush's push to attack Iraq. In addition, his book Assault on Reason was published in 2007. On Amazon, the following description is attributed to Wikipedia: "The Assault on Reason is a 2007 book by Al Gore which brands conservatives as "enemies of justice and truth" engaged in a "systematic attack on the role of reasoned debate in policy and public life" in America." That was 2007 -- and it sounds like what we are speaking of now in the world of alt facts.

I would argue that rather than dismissing Al Gore, that what this person wants is for HRC to do what Gore actually did.

[NastyRiffraff]

39. I'm so glad she's still working for all of us

as well as speaking for us. Of course, in my mind that was never in doubt. I was devastated with her loss, but I always thought she'd continue to work for the good of the country, as she's done all her adult life.

[niyad]

40. she won the popular vote by nearly three million. she is Madam President.

[triron]

58. And except for the election thievery she won the electoral college as well

Probably handily. Bet if Russians and traitor repukes hadn't messed with the vote
she won Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and maybe Arizona and North Carolina.

[niyad]

85. exactly. there is no way the polls could have been that far off. in any other country, if

the polls and the actual results are that wildly off, we are outraged. seems we need international election monitors here.

[democratisphere]

51. Incredible, that's what she is..........

[ehrnst]

52. +1000. (nt)

[William769]

56. kick & recommended.

[iluvtennis]

72. That's my girl...thanks for posting this!

[TexasTowelie]

73. You're welcome.

I don't think that anyone believed that she would be unavailable for public appearances for a great length of time.

[JHan]

75. have to thank you as well. This cheered me up :)

[TexasTowelie]

77. You're welcome.

All of us can use some good news while Trump is in office.

[Cha]

76. KICK!

[Dammit Jim]

78. If she runs in 2020, she's got my vote

/

[oasis]

82. Welcome to DU Dammit Jim.

[Dammit Jim]

83. Thank you

But I do have to ask: Are you Liam or Noel?