I am so SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of everyone armchair quarterbacking Hillary!!!!

[Stonepounder]

I made the mistake of flipping on the TV to some news show and had to turn it off after about two minutes. They were discussing 'what Hillary did wrong'.

She DIDN'T FUCKING do ANYTHING wrong!! Every damn reputable poll showed her winning. She won the popular vote by 3 MILLION votes. What the Hell was she supposed to do? Go campaign in North Dakota or something? Was she supposed to go campaign in California? Or New York? Was she supposed to visit the coal fields of Kentucky? When all the polls are going your way and everyone is saying you have it in the bag, why on earth would you suddenly change your strategy?????

Hillary didn't lose the election, she had it stolen from her by the USSR, the GOP through gerrymandering and voter suppression, and the MSM giving the Orange asshole something like $2 Billion in free campaign time.

So instead of figuring out 'what Hillary did wrong', lets get on the phone, the email, and the snail mail, and tell our Democratic legislators in Washington to take a look at people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and grow a pair and show the GOP what obstruction looks when it is being used by 'the other side'!!!!!

(Sorry, just feeling really bummed out tonight and had to rant.)

[triron]

1. Count me in!

[YoungDemCA]

2. ...

[onecaliberal]

3. Co-sign

[LisaM]

4. Agreed.

I had to bite my tongue a bit over the holidays.

[MO_Dem]

5. Me too!

Plus the effingBI (Comey and pals) were devastating

[radical noodle]

6. Like you, I just don't listen to it anymore

I've spent the evening at CNN listening to a documentary about the Obama administration.

[oasis]

7. MSM Assholes are attempting to bail Comey out of his responsibility for

throwing the election to Trump.

NO Comey, you own this.

[OldYallow]

13. Prosecute The Asshole Comey

He broke the god damn law.

To hell with only prosecuting the poor and the powerless.

The world will suffer from his crime like there is no tomorrow.

Prosecute him now.

[oasis]

15. Comey will live with the enormous stain on his reputation.

However there is no way he will be brought to court to answer for his crime against the American people.

[OldYallow]

18. Only The Poor And Powerless Go To Prison

Justice, my ass.

I am sick of this sh*t.

Hillary didn't have a chance as we found out.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. We - more accurately, the Democratic party - are making a huge mistake

if it does not carefully examine with complete objectivity every single factor that could have contributed to a loss that should not have happened. One of the most well-qualified candidates to run for president in years was defeated by an ignorant, bigoted boor who shouldn't have been able to win the dogcatcher election in Bumfuck, Kansas. THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED! Why did it? I don't know, and my opinion wouldn't matter anyhow. BUT: It's absurd to say the Clinton campaign didn't make any mistakes because all campaigns make mistakes. There has never, ever been a perfectly-run campaign, and there has never, ever been a perfect candidate. It is essential to identify those mistakes and determine whether and how they may have contributed to the loss. Maybe they didn't at all; maybe it was entirely the meddling of Comey and the Russians and other external forces. But there should be no sacred cows when it comes to figuring out what happened.

And yes, do whatever is necessary to resist Trump.

[YoungDemCA]

9. +1000

nt

[ms liberty]

31. This. n/t

[Yurovsky]

33. You are 100% correct...

and people need to understand that critiquing Hillary's campaign is not synonymous with critiquing Hillary. I know we need to work hard to ensure this never happens again, but those in denial and attacking any critique will only ensure that it happens again.

My armchair QB take is that her senior campaign staff - most notably Robby Mook & John Podesta - screwed the pooch, especially in the last 30 days. 7-10 days in the Midwest shoring up support would have sealed the deal. No less a political genius than Bill Clinton was calling for this. The take home message is to NEVER take your support for granted. Hell, Trump & Co. stated - multiple times - that the Midwest was their only path to victory.

I know people are still pissed, but we need to get this figured out and quit blaming the Russians or Comey or racism... excuses don't win election or fix what's broken. And our party is broken. We are not a factor outside of the coasts, major urban areas, and college towns. That won't work for us long term folks...

[LaydeeBug]

36. We're making a bigger mistake by pretending the fine tooth comb is what we need

when the hair is on fire with cyber war. Which *IS* war.

And treasonous to enable it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

45. Why not do both?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

39. Well said and an excellent idea... which is why it prolly won't ever happen, sorry to say.

[Crunchy Frog]

65. I'm in the Heretics camp with you.

[Raine]

71. TOTALLY agree!!! nt

[AmericanActivist]

10. This isn't Hillary's fault. The system failed Hillary.

The Democrats aren't to blame and Hillary isn't to blame. People are blaming the victim. Someone described blaming Hillary like blaming a victim of rape, obviously these are not the same, but the way a rape victim is scapegoated with questions about details after the fact, what was she wearing, who was she with, wear did she go, was she drinking, blah blah blah.

People who want to place blame w Hillary and Dems are missing the bigger picture and failing to address the difficult realities of foreign interference, the FBI politicizing itself, and a dozen other systemic problems that coincidentally all converged to benefit tRump.

Also, blaming Hillary and Dems is a way to participate in the gaslighting of Americans.

So, I agree with you, I'm sick of it too.

[AgadorSparticus]

11. I SO AGREE with you!

[Phoenix61]

12. Agreed!

So, so tired of it. She has been subjected to a level scrutiny that is nothing short of obscene throughout her career.

[Hekate]

14. I'm with you, Stonepounder

I wish we could get some respite from it here.

[pnwmom]

16. And she also lost because James Comey tossed his letter bombs

in the final 11 days before the election -- which caused her support to plunge, and led undecided voters to break for DT.

And his action was unprecedented and against Justice Dept policy and wasn't something HRC could have predicted.

[mythology]

34. I disagree strongly that she couldn't have predicted it

Republicans have been after her for 25 years. She had to have known that if they found she was using a private email server as Secretary of State, it would be an issue. If she didn't have the email server, there wouldn't have been a Comey announcement.

That is absolutely on her, especially given she was all but certain to run for President.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

41. No question Hillary shuda known better, esply in light of the Rethug's history. Hillary all but admitted as much in her apologizing 4 havin had a private server & explicitly callin it a "mistake".

Gave the Rethugs "fuel for the fire"... anyone who didn't think they'd use it is just fooling themselves.

[pnwmom]

60. She could not have known that they would publicly re-open the closed investigation

and make an announcement to that effect days before the election. That action went against all historical precedent and Department of Justice policy.

[pnwmom]

59. She could NOT have predicted James Comey's last minute interference

with his unprecedented announcements, against justice Department policy.

In October, he had just told Congress that he couldn't announce that Russia was interfering in the election, because THAT would interfere in the election. And then he went the opposite way and deliberately interfered in the last few days -- to help Trump

Of course she knew her emails were an issue. But she could NOT know that -- just as the press was focusing on the pussy-grabbing videos -- James Comey would make an announcement that they had re-opened their investigation, that there were hundreds of thousands of more emails to look at, and that it might not be finished before the election.

All of which was really a lie. They already knew from the meta-data that only a small fraction were Huma's and the vast majority were duplicates. This was all just a show and Comey knew it.

[Curtis]

17. Completely agree

And, the media just keeps its crap going too. Saw a Tweet from MSNBC today that said, "Trump upends tradition of 'one president at a time." I was blown away. TRADITION??? It's law, I told them, the Local Act makes sure of that.

I hate that they normalize this bullshit

[BeyondGeography]

19. She lost the campaign where it actually happened

She won the PV by two points, but lost the swing states by two points. That's why we're looking at President Trump for the next four years. Minimum.

She was indeed undermined by outside forces. She also did a number of things to hurt herself. So we talk about that here, which I think is the purpose of this board.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

42. Like the saying goes... those who fail to study history are bound to repeat it. Plain and simple.

[TheBlackAdder]

72. And what fomented the loss of Indys, X-Over Reps and Millennials? HRC selecting Kaine over Sanders

.


Before the flamers hit, I am a staunch Democrat & voted and promoted for her election.


It completely overlooks the sentiment of many towards HRC, the resentment of the DNC and political institutions.


There were a multitude of factors that led to the stars aligning the way they did.


While Sanders attracted more Indys, Cross-over Republicans, Millennials, and true progressives, HRC was more centered on traditional Democratic base support. As public perception changed though the primary, when people actually saw that there might be a valid alternative, HRC selectively co-opted Sanders' positions only when they were politically expedient to win a state. One state she'd denounce his positions, because they were Dem strongholds, then she'd co-opt him in coal country or areas of extreme liberalism to neutralize any difference between the two. Then, she'd switch back. This behavior fed into the GOP narrative that she'd do anything to win. This is political reality, if one were to step out of the Democratic Party lens for a moment.


But, without me writing a 10 page dissertation, I'll summarize it in a short paragraph.


Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush really fucking hated each other, to the point where it created a schism in the party. Instead of remaining divisive, they came together to defeat Carter and win three presidential elections. Clinton chose to kick dirt in the Sanders' supporters eyes by selecting Kaine, not learning from political history. She took the gamble that voters would go binary and not vote for Trump, because he is, well... Trump. That act prevented her from having a 60-40 win, something that would have survived any Comey or other last minute trick, by jettisoning those Indys and disillusioned voters. The belief that women would side with her, when the past 45 years, since ERA, shows a solid 45% of women vote GOP--due mainly from evangelical/orthodox support for paternalism. This trend denial is an astonishing contortion of political historical fact. This was a tactical failure on HRC's part, as the collective nation gasped and then said, "Who the fuck is Tim Kaine?"


Her camp was advised of these dynamics, prior to the selection of Kaine, and a conscious decision was made.


.

[AlexSFCA]

20. facts hurt too

For starters, she could have campaigned in Wisconsin and her message could have been fine tuned with laser sharp focus on jobs in those states. Bernie did better in that regard, he was almost a single issue campaigner.

It was during this election cycle that I realized that Hillary is just not all that great at campaigning compared to Bill, Obama, Reagan and, yes, Trump (better than Bushes and Romneys though).

I do beleive she absolutely could have done better in rust belt states.

Gosh, so many posts discussing the same thing. Let's try to be open minded and accept all possibilities and the fact that Hillary was far from a perfect candidate even if most experienced. Don't fool yourself that you never questioned that she was doing negative campaigning almost exclusively for weeks, doubling down on free media exposure for trump. You literally have to go to her website to find out her proposals instead of hearing it from her. Facts can hurt too.

I love Hillary as a policy expert not as a politician. She didn't lose anything, America did.

P.S. This was NOT a popular vote election but EC election; popular vote had exactly zero relevance in determining the winner.

[elmac]

21. The sick, F-ing so called news networks will blame everything on Hill

When we have a financial crash it will be her fault
when we get attacked by terrorists it will be her fault
When WWIII breaks out it will be her fault
When we are nothing but mounds of ash it will be her fault
They might blame sniffles for burning in hell.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

46. Pretty hard to blame someone who never took office.

They'll blame Obama, of course.

[killbotfactory]

22. I'm pissed off that we lost, and we lost more than the presidency

Gerrymandering wasn't invented for this election
Voter suppression wasn't invented for this election
Dirty tricks weren't invented for this election
Campaign leaks weren't invented for this election
Smear campaigns weren't invented for this election
The electoral college wasn't invented for this election

Our democratic representatives have kept their powder dry for so long they forgot where they left it.

A billion fucking dollars in campaign donations, and they fucking blew it. Against the worst piece of shit the republicans could have chosen. And who the Clinton's WANTED to run against.

It's a fucking disgrace.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that the same democratic strategic geniuses who blew the Iraq war vote, and Gore and Kerry campaigns, also somehow managed to lose this one, but for fucks sake.

[ucrdem]

23. You left out the modems.

She won fair and square and they stole it. It's that simple.

[recount now]

24. after election day

Democrats were begging clinton campaign to contest the result and after anomalies were found in wi. penn. and especially michigan voting. 75,000 votes have still not been counted in detroit! The clinton campaign could have got the necessary voter requirements in penn's 9,000 precints that overwhelmed jill stein's small party. After democrats across the country begged the clinton campaign too join in the recounts they would agree to only observe steins efforts which michigan courts stopped because clinton campaign did not join in as aggrieved party. Michigan would have flipped and maybe penn. and trump would be down to 268 as two texas electors refused to vote for trump. We would now be heading for a decision in the house and it would be lets make deal time. This is after election day when every knew what would happen if we didn't try and fight back.

[C Moon]

25. I think we need to quit being pissed off about the past primary...

and focus on what the GOP is about to do to our country.
It's going to get VERY ugly in the U.S. because the GOP is going to focus on making sure they remain in power—by enacting new laws.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

43. Channel that anger into opposing the Fuhrer-Elect... what else is there?!

[Tatiana]

26. Hillary Clinton is not the President-Elect. So, yes, she did something wrong.

There were several factors regarding why we lost, but to suggest that the candidate and/or the campaign did nothing wrong is delusional.

Comey, Russian hacks, negative media scrutiny --- YES, huge factors.

Lack of volunteers to phone bank and knock on doors, competent IT security staff, rapid response to negative media, intelligent campaign strategy -- those factors are THE CANDIDATE'S fault.

We have to analyze every single thing that led to this horrendous loss (and there are many) to prevent this from happening again.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

44. Precisely! Hillary was FAR superior to the Fuhrer-Elect, but also FAR from the perfect candidate... we must be realistic in evaluating what went wrong if we want to avoid a repeat in 2020.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

47. It never should have been close enough for there to have been

an effective "October surprise." One of my concerns is that apparently the campaign didn't know, or didn't believe, that it was as close as it was and therefore took too much for granted. I couldn't even find a local office where I could get a lawn sign because of course Minnesota was a sure thing - but surprise, she won by only a tiny margin in a state that usually goes for Dems in a landslide.

[Tatiana]

50. Absolutely! This is a very important point.

I know the campaign was concerned with some of the western states such as Nevada and Colorado. But the fact that they were completely oblivious to what was going in the Midwest when Michael Moore released a MOVIE essentially describing exactly what happened... It's inexcusable. I didn't receive one phone call from the campaign and I am on every Democratic phone and mailing list. During 2012 I'm sure I received at least 6 or 7 calls from the Obama campaign. And the phone calls didn't just ask me to vote for Obama--- they asked me to help them by going to Michigan and Indiana and Minnesota. They made it easy to volunteer, providing scripts for phone banking and transportation and meals to neighboring states.

Remember when Trump spoke to his people and said something along the line she of "Folks, we need your help. We have a problem in Utah." It was a reliably Repiblican state but his campaign accurately read the polling data and knew they had to shore up their base or they could lose that state. We were clueless about Michigan and Pennsylvania. Completely blind sighted. But Trump's campaign knew. That's why Kellyanne Conway (a pollster by trade) encouraged her client to reach out to disenchanted Sanders voters. She saw that Clinton was tanking in the Midwest... an area where Sanders had done well.

There is no excuse to win a state like Minnesota by such a small margin. They have strong Democratic leadership in Gov. Dayton and are the poster child for good, clean government.

I'm not only afraid of what Trump will do. I'm afraid of the blinders many Democrats refuse to take off. This is a real wake-up call. We lost to the worst candidate in American presidential history.

[uponit7771]

49. Outside of Comey, Voter suppression and Russia there are no metrics to back up those claims, its jus

... guessing

[Tatiana]

52. This lack of self-reflection will ensure we continue to lose elections.

It should not have been that close.

No one doubts Obama would have won a third term if he had run.

Something was amiss with the staff and campaign that Hillary Clinton ran. We should have been looking at a landslide victory with coattails down ticket. Instead we have the same obstructionist Republicans returning to Congress and a traitor as President.

That is the candidate's fault.

[bowens43]

27. Hillary lost. Period.

She was not the right candidate for the times. The political atmosphere in this country needed someone out of the mainstream, hillary IS the mainstream.


I can't comment beyond that because the current rules do not allow objective discussion of Democratic candidates

[Sienna86]

28. If we don't understand why voters chose Trump, we cannot move forward.

We must all examine what happened.

[denbot]

29. I don't care how you feel.

The end result of her campaign resulted in President Elect Donald Fucking Trump.

[Orsino]

30. The 2016 Post-Mortem forum may not be for you.

Its charter is Wednesday morning quarterbacking, and everyone will be blaming favorite bogeymen.

[blue cat]

32. Thank you

I agree with your sentiments.

[LaydeeBug]

35. She was supposed to bend over for Putin, because there are motherfuckers who pretend

this election would not have been different without Russian intervention.

[LaydeeBug]

37. HILLARY WAS NOT THE ESTABLISHMENT. THE ESTABLISHMENT WENT AFTER HER FOR 25 YEARS

Holy. fucking. shit.

[Sancho]

38. Absolutely correct....Hillary did nothing wrong...it was a hacked, stolen, and fraudulent election.

You can pick which item of cheating was the most responsible - but combined they resulted in yet another historic mistake:

1.) Hacked DREs and tabulators
2.) FBI interference
3.) Crosscheck and voter suppression
4.) GOP controlling the media
5.) Russian interference
6.) Gerrymandering
7.) Race-based Electoral College

This was not a fair or verified election.

OTOH, we've seen this crap since 2000 - and I blame the DNC, Gore, Obama, the Clintons, Bernie, and all Democrats for allowing it to continue. Democrats should not concede or maintain the myth that these elections make sense. Our elected leaders don't seem to want to make the election process the primary part of every interview and debate, but it's the big elephant in the room.

Gore, Kerry, and Hillary won...and none sat in the chair. What would the US have been like if the real winner would have won?

[kcdoug1]

56. Russian interference

No credible proof that had anything to do with anything. The rest of your points are bs. NONE of these points where new this election, not one. A competent candidate would have taken every one of these points on constantly. Instead the candate and large numbers of supporters decided that candidate was pre-destined for office, and could ignore reality. THUS is why president Trump was elected. Thus is completely the fault of the candidate, unrealistic supporters and the entire DNC. The point is, it's time to gut and rebuild our party.

[Sancho]

61. The points aren't new, but they are credible...

and everyone one of them has evidence of various types that has generally been on the back burner of the party leadership.

There may be a question about which item was the "cause" or the "greatest cause", but there's no BS as to the cumulative result.

It's not the fault of the candidate that we have a lousy election process. Fair and verified elections that include all eligible voters is the only way a democracy can reasonably exist.

I agree that the DNC (and a variety of alphabet soup groups) should have hammered the election process starting decades ago as the number one issue.

The Russians hacking the DNC and giving ammo to wikileaks changed the election. We may not know how much, but it happened. Other Russian influence may yet surface, but we'll see.

[Crunchy Frog]

66. It's the fault of the candidate

For not taking the well known and long understood realities of our lousy election system into account while running their campaign.

[Reality101]

63. Hacked DRE's? and Tabulators ?

Is there some article or something I missed where they have examples of this? I know the term Hack is being used pretty widespread however I didn't think there was actual proof totals were changed. While anything is possible I think it strains credibility when there are multiple states that went unexpectedly for Trump this year. One state maybe but a trifecta I just don't think so.

Other than the Gerrymandering though your thoughts seem to be consistent with what I have read here.

[hughee99]

64. Please explain how gerrymandering affected the outcome of the presidential election.

I've heard several people throw this out there and have yet to hear anyone explain this in a way that didn't make it sound like they don't know what they're talking about.

[mcar]

40. K&R

[Gothmog]

48. K&R

[treestar]

51. Hindsight is 20/20

Too easy to declare exactly which states she "should" have spent more time there.

[Squinch]

53. knr

[karynnj]

54. Every year, the time between Christmas and New Years is filled with analysis on the past year

Every election year, there is a look at the election. It is ALWAYS done almost as if the goal is to agree on a narrative that ends with the winner winning. In these summaries, any comments of voter suppression or irregularities are never included. That defeats the goal of creating a narrative.

Any close election is especially painful, because NO campaign is completely flawless. For the winner, even glaring errors or revelations are treated as something the President elect overcame - almost making his ascension to power a better story. The difference this year is that, unlike any Democrat or Republican nominee, Trump is really really outside what is mainstream. His use of the alt right and the far right - retweeting them personally is exceptional. This makes the tradition, "let's recap the election, clean up the nastiness and create a narrative that in America, the right person always wins."

For the loser, if the election is a blowout -- very little has to be said. The media can focus almost entirely on the winner. Very little was said about how bad the McCain campaign was -- and it was terrible. It was all Obama and how much the country had turned against the war and the Republicans. Even without a big blow out, but where the winner was obvious for a few months, the story is not campaign mistakes. Consider that Begala and Carville turned a very bumpy path to election for Bill Clinton into a story of a stunning victory won because they had a "war machine" to kill negative stories. Clearly a better story than pointing out GHWB, who was at 39% in approval ran a very weak campaign. Perrot was likely more significant during the months before Clinton even became the nominee when he absolutely battered GHWB -- later to seem nearly crazy accusing GHWB of wanting to ruin his daughter's wedding and dropping out.

Here is my advice as someone who had become ever more aware in 2004 that John Kerry was an exceptional man. That is just as I should not have tortured myself watching TV this time of year 12 years ago is that it might be good to TURN OFF THE TV. There will be good analyses done later that examine what we need to do in the future - looking back at this election and other recent elections, plus whatever is happening in that future present time. These are NOT that and they are puff pieces for the victor. What they year end summaries do is show every misstep of the loser, even if that involves mischaracterizing them, and edit out any negatives of the victor.

[George Eliot]

55. She chose politics. End of story.

[jberryhill]

57. Then why do you keep watching it?

[Me.]

58. Truly

And here are the questions I want answered....Where are BS's tax returns and how many votes would he have actually received if he had released them?

[hamsterjill]

62. Well put!

"Hillary didn't lose the election, she had it stolen from her by the USSR, the GOP through gerrymandering and voter suppression, and the MSM giving the Orange asshole something like $2 Billion in free campaign time."

I agree 100%. She was also up against a 30-year (minimum) smear campaign by the "good ole boys" network who hate her because she is a STRONG woman.

[sheshe2]

67. KnR

[ismnotwasm]

68. I don't mind intelligent analysis or constructive criticism of her campaign

I just so rarely see it...

[okieinpain]

69. ignoring calls to check Michigan and her campaign spending

priorities was a big mistake and she should be held accountable for handling that correctly.

[Cha]

70. Mahalo, Stonepounder