Hillary Rodham Clinton: 2016 Democratic Presidential Nominee

[Blergh]

Frankly, I'd have  prefered to get scorched yet again by Senator Clinton  over being thrown into the blast furnace by someone who openly believes we should vilify entire segments of our citizenry rather than attempt to consider the need to evaluate individuals' actions fairly. 

[moonb]

1 hour ago, LoneHaranguer said:

If that's what you want to call someone who respects a person's right to hold whatever opinion they want, no matter what anyone else may think of it. That's a founding principle of this country that Clinton and the Democratic leadership don't seem to understand.

To be fair, the Republicans weren't pleased about Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright or Van Jones' advisory position in Obama's first administration. 

[slf]

4 hours ago, Jordan27 said:

And you can be sure these manufactured protests going on now are with her blessing.

How can you be sure? And in what way are they manufactured?

2 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

If that's what you want to call someone who respects a person's right to hold whatever opinion they want, no matter what anyone else may think of it. That's a founding principle of this country that Clinton and the Democratic leadership don't seem to understand.

Trump? Trump has repeatedly attacked people for their beliefs and opinions, lol. And your beliefs aren't sacrosanct when they involve camps and mass deportations and allying yourself with factions and individuals involved with Nazism and the Klan. You can have whatever opinion you want but it isn't above criticism and there's no founding principle to suggest otherwise.

[Apprentice79]

2 hours ago, moonb said:

To be fair, the Republicans weren't pleased about Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright or Van Jones' advisory position in Obama's first administration. 

I never understood why everybody was so angry about Jeremiah Wright. He was venting about his frustrations about being a Black man in America. He was talking about his feelings about a country that treated him like he was less than human.   In his sermon, that the right played ad nauseam, to cast aspersions on Obama, he  was referencing  his feelings, about just coming back, from fighting in a war, to defend his country and he was denied a basic right of being able to get a cab, in that country.   It is the same way, that, Jackie Robinson, refused to acknowledge, the National anthem, when he played baseball, where he was routinely spat on, hit, jeered and treated with racism. I have never understood why some people in the right, get so offended, to learn that, sometimes, Black people may have ambivalent feelings about this country. It does not mean that they don't love the USA or want to see it destroyed...It is like when people of color complain about police brutality and we get accused of being anti-police.  It is just not fair...

Edited November 19, 2016 by Apprentice79

[Duke Silver]

6 minutes ago, Apprentice79 said:

I never understood why everybody was so angry about Jeremiah Wright. 

[snip]

Heh, it's because thinking/talking about all of that requires just some basic nuance.  The Right is not capable of that.  Seriously, I don't really mean that as some ad hominem shade.  The very nature of ultra-Conservative thought makes such creative thinking, I'm having trouble articulating it....incomprehensible, I guess?  I'm probably not wording things correctly.

[Apprentice79]

1 minute ago, Duke Silver said:

Heh, it's because thinking/talking about all of that requires just some basic nuance.  The Right is not capable of that.  Seriously, I don't really mean that as some ad hominem shade.  The very nature of ultra-Conservative thought makes such creative thinking, I'm having trouble articulating it....incomprehensible, I guess?  I'm probably not wording things correctly.

They are incapable of seeing and understanding another point of view. 

[Moose135]

I never understood how they went from blasting President Obama over something his minister said to claiming he was a Muslim.  You would think that if he had attended that church for any length of time, it would be an indication that he wasn't Muslim, but I guess I shouldn't trying to make sense out things like that.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Moose135

[shok]

19 hours ago, NextIteration said:

The only positive thing about Hillary losing is that CGI and the Foundation will remain intact.  Hopefully they'll set their sites on helping Americans with some of the policies, ideas and funding that reflect what Hillary proffered during the campaign.

They already do a great deal of work in the US. Not all of their charitable programs are overseas. Many of their projects do indeed support policies that Hillary championed in her campaign such as childhood education and voters rights.

14 hours ago, pivot said:

Worst Dem candidate in my lifetime and probably the worst since McGovern. Thankfully, the media is finally calling out the BS that Hillary was not responsible for her loss. She ran a terrible campaign.

Yeah, such an awful campaign. She only got 2,000,000 more votes than the orange buffoon...so far. Only Barack Obama in 2008 has gotten more votes from the American electorate than Hillary did this year.

[Ceindreadh]

8 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

If that's what you want to call someone who respects a person's right to hold whatever opinion they want, no matter what anyone else may think of it. That's a founding principle of this country that Clinton and the Democratic leadership don't seem to understand.

You can respect somebody's right to hold an opinion. You do not have to respect that person if it's a vile ignorant racist selfish opinion. 

[slf]

9 hours ago, Duke Silver said:

Heh, it's because thinking/talking about all of that requires just some basic nuance.  The Right is not capable of that.  Seriously, I don't really mean that as some ad hominem shade.  The very nature of ultra-Conservative thought makes such creative thinking, I'm having trouble articulating it....incomprehensible, I guess?  I'm probably not wording things correctly.

You actually are right. It might surprise people to learn that there have been countless experiments and studies into the ways liberals and conservatives think. Conservatives have consistently shown what is called negativity bias, meaning "that they are physiologically more attuned to negative (threatening, disgusting) stimuli in their environments" [1]. Their brains are predisposed to fear. University College London [2] performed a study on the brains of conservatives and liberals utilizing MRI scans and found that conservatives have a larger right amygdala than liberals. The right amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals have more, and more active, grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity. Or a more thorough explanation: "ACC has a variety of functions in the brain, including error detection, conflict monitoring, and evaluating or weighing different competing choices. It’s also very important for both emotion regulation and cognitive control(often referred to as ‘executive functioning’)—controlling the level of emotional arousal or response to an emotional event (keeping it in check), as to allow your cognitive processes to work most effectively."

Studies on ideology [3] have produced "evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety." Each of these studies consistently show that conservatives often dislike ambiguity and compromise. And there are many more studies that have reinforced the old stereotypes that conservatives tend to be anti-intellectual and prioritize obedience as the most important value to be taught to children while liberal value intellectualism and prioritize empathy as the most important value to be taught to children.

(To clarify this isn't genetic, it's due to experience. Our experiences, socializations, childhoods, etc, shape our brains.)

[Duke Silver]

@slf  I knew I wasn't making that up out of whole cloth, hahahaha!  I vaguely recall reading some study about 6 or 7 years ago while I was in grad school (though obviously not the specific one you cite, and it was probably me merely perusing something my then girlfriend would have been reading for a class).  Thanks for sharing that.

[pivot]

7 hours ago, shok said:

They already do a great deal of work in the US. Not all of their charitable programs are overseas. Many of their projects do indeed support policies that Hillary championed in her campaign such as childhood education and voters rights.

Yeah, such an awful campaign. She only got 2,000,000 more votes than the orange buffoon...so far. Only Barack Obama in 2008 has gotten more votes from the American electorate than Hillary did this year.

She lost. Clinging to the # of the votes she got as proof she was a good candidate is a bit silly. She was running against the worst presidential candidate in over a century and she lost. Any other Dem would have done better than her. Her campaign was arrogant and out of touch and she was a terrible candidate. 

[slf]

3 minutes ago, pivot said:

She lost. Clinging to the # of the votes she got as proof she was a good candidate is a bit silly. She was running against the worst presidential candidate in over a century and she lost. Any other Dem would have done better than her. Her campaign was arrogant and out of touch and she was a terrible candidate. 

Yes, she lost. Why? You've, I believe, expressed disbelief that "identity" politics had anything to do with it and favor the idea she's "out of touch". In what ways? And which Democrats could have done better?

[khyber]

8 hours ago, Ceindreadh said:

You can respect somebody's right to hold an opinion. You do not have to respect that person if it's a vile ignorant racist selfish opinion. 

I've spent 25 years holding my tongue when around a certain branch of the in-laws. No more. My spouse can choose whether he wants to deal with the fallout or whether I will never have to spend a moment with those evil haters and bigots again. 

[Ceindreadh]

1 hour ago, pivot said:

She lost. Clinging to the # of the votes she got as proof she was a good candidate is a bit silly. She was running against the worst presidential candidate in over a century and she lost. Any other Dem would have done better than her. Her campaign was arrogant and out of touch and she was a terrible candidate. 

The number of votes she got proves that she's more popular or less unpopular than Trump when you look st the country as a whole. I really hope that Trump keeps being reminded of that, because I'm sure it's gonna burn. 

[Ohwell]

4 hours ago, pivot said:

Her campaign was arrogant and out of touch and she was a terrible candidate. 

Yup.  And it's pretty reminiscent of her (losing) 2008 campaign against President Obama:  Arrogant and out of touch.  

She can blame her defeat on Comey 'til the cows come home but, in the final analysis, it's all on her.  She was a bad candidate with too much baggage.  Now whether all of the negative stuff about her was justified or not, it is still baggage.

[FilmTVGeek80]

10 hours ago, pivot said:

She lost. Clinging to the # of the votes she got as proof she was a good candidate is a bit silly. She was running against the worst presidential candidate in over a century and she lost. Any other Dem would have done better than her. Her campaign was arrogant and out of touch and she was a terrible candidate. 

 

How exactly is it silly? You're trying to say she was so out of touch and act as if she lost in some blow out to prove how unpopular she was. Pointing out she won the majority of Americans votes is not silly. And, unless you have some type of crystal ball, you have no idea how other Dems would have faired. To act like another Dem would have certainly won is, to use your word, silly.

 

6 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Yup.  And it's pretty reminiscent of her (losing) 2008 campaign against President Obama:  Arrogant and out of touch.  

She can blame her defeat on Comey 'til the cows come home but, in the final analysis, it's all on her.  She was a bad candidate with too much baggage.  Now whether all of the negative stuff about her was justified or not, it is still baggage.

 

How exactly was she "out of touch?" In whose final analysis - yours? There are a lot of factors to why she lost - some are on her, but no it's not all on her. That's basically ignoring all the bullshit that happened in this campaign.

[Nysha]

18 hours ago, shok said:

On 11/18/2016 at 10:40 AM, pivot said:

Worst Dem candidate in my lifetime and probably the worst since McGovern. Thankfully, the media is finally calling out the BS that Hillary was not responsible for her loss. She ran a terrible campaign.

Yeah, such an awful campaign. She only got 2,000,000 more votes than the orange buffoon...so far. Only Barack Obama in 2008 has gotten more votes from the American electorate than Hillary did this year.

I think both points are valid, though. Hillary did great with the popular vote, but mostly she seemed to hide and let Trump run his mouth, thinking that the outrage over his comments would translate into votes for her. 

[Blergh]

Then, too, one must consider what proportions of Senator Clinton's vote were between the '  she can do no wrong'   and the 'lesser of two evils, ' crowds. Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of her voters fell closer to the latter category, then add all those voters whom voted for third parties as well as those who voted but refused to cast lots for the Presidency as well as roughly 80 million registered voters who didn't vote at all, then one  must consider that she didn't exactly inspire enthusiastic confidence in the mass of potential voters. Again, I want to remind everyone I DID vote for her albeit in the 'lesser of two evils' category.

[pivot]

13 hours ago, slf said:

Yes, she lost. Why? You've, I believe, expressed disbelief that "identity" politics had anything to do with it and favor the idea she's "out of touch". In what ways? And which Democrats could have done better?

Biden, Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar, O'Malley, Gillibrand, etc. Hillary was a uniquely terrible candidate.

9 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Yup.  And it's pretty reminiscent of her (losing) 2008 campaign against President Obama:  Arrogant and out of touch.  

She can blame her defeat on Comey 'til the cows come home but, in the final analysis, it's all on her.  She was a bad candidate with too much baggage.  Now whether all of the negative stuff about her was justified or not, it is still baggage.

She truly learned nothing from her 2008 loss. She replaced many of her top staffers and made the same mistakes.

[theredhead77]

On 11/18/2016 at 4:58 PM, LoneHaranguer said:

If that's what you want to call someone who respects a person's right to hold whatever opinion they want, no matter what anyone else may think of it. That's a founding principle of this country that Clinton and the Democratic leadership don't seem to understand.

Oh, the irony. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/799974635274194947

[slf]

48 minutes ago, pivot said:

Biden, Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar, O'Malley, Gillibrand, etc. Hillary was a uniquely terrible candidate.

...Sanders? You think the man who failed to secure the nomination would have won the presidency?

[Menrva]

I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind here. But I wanted to share this article because it lays out, far better than I could, how I feel about Hillary Clinton and how I believe she's been treated by everyone. I will be perfectly honest, I was never a Bernie supporter. I didn't have anything against him personally, but I resented him running as a Democrat when he wasn't one. I was also very turned off by the slavish devotion of his most ardent supporters and the rampant misogyny displayed by the BernieBros. I disliked how Bernie was portrayed as the "cool kids" candidate and I instinctually did not want to be a part of that. I think he would have been destroyed if he'd been the Democratic candidate and he would have lost by a huge margin. Again - this is all my personal opinion. People are free to disagree with me.

But I do maintain that Clinton was abused horribly by the media, the voters and the GOP machine. And that is not, I believe, an opinion, but fact. And I despair for the next woman who runs for president because how can we prevail if this is what happens?

Anyway, thanks for giving me a space to vent and share my views.

http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-11/hillary-clinton-image-deconstruction-susan-bordo

[Chicken Wing]

11 hours ago, Nysha said:

I think both points are valid, though. Hillary did great with the popular vote, but mostly she seemed to hide and let Trump run his mouth, thinking that the outrage over his comments would translate into votes for her. 

Yes, this. I was bothered for weeks prior to the election that virtually all of her ads were indictments against Donald Trump's character rather than a testimony to herself and her qualifications as a president who would do X, Y, Z. She and her campaign thought it would be good strategy to just hang back and let Trump hang himself out to dry with his big mouth and the litany of scandals that kept coming out, but showing people why they should not vote for Trump doesn't do much to persuade them to vote for her. It's like Clinton/the campaign forgot that people don't actually have to vote and they don't have to pick between the two of them if they do. She didn't make a good case for herself at all. You can't persuade people to vote for you on the basis of "Donald Trump is unfit. I'm not Donald Trump. Pick me."

Not for nothing, she is leading the national vote by close to 2 million and counting but in the end, as we know, it means nothing more than bragging rights. (And I hope the Dems brag in Trump's face every time they get.) But she would have won, period, had she kept her firewall intact. It burns me that she lost Penn, Wisconsin and Michigan (though Michigan for some reason still has not been officially called) by a combined one percent of their total vote, but it never should have been even close. It wasn't even thought to be close now, based on the polls, but they shouldn't have taken victory there for granted with so many undecided voters still wavering in the final days and weeks. We saw Trump making a direct connection to the working class and blue-collar folks and the "coal country" workers in those states and elsewhere; Clinton should have countered. She didn't. She was even advised to, from what I've read, by Bill, and she and the campaign didn't take his advice. Didn't think it was a necessary use of time and resources, I guess. Sigh. One percent...

[ShellSeeker]

On 11/19/2016 at 2:13 PM, Ohwell said:

She can blame her defeat on Comey 'til the cows come home but, in the final analysis, it's all on her.  She was a bad candidate with too much baggage.  Now whether all of the negative stuff about her was justified or not, it is still baggage.

Yes, this. I've spent the last week and a half reading and listening to a lot of news stories because I wanted to understand how this happened. It seems to come down to 3 big things. First, people were pissed about the DNC stealing the nomination from Bernie, and it translated into people voting for 3rd party candidates, writing his name in, or just staying home and not voting at all.

Then there's Hillary herself, and she just had too much baggage. Like you said, much of it was quite possibly unjustified, but it still added to the perception of baggage, and in politics, perception is reality. But I'm not even really talking about emails and Benghazi. You can't talk about how much you care about working families and want to help them, and then turn around and cozy up to Wall Street and take their big donations. I don't doubt her sincerity about that, but you can't have it both ways. The days of "what's good for Wall Street is good for Main Street" thinking are long gone. It made her look very disingenuous.

And finally, people want jobs, and Trump tapped into that much more successfully than the Democrats did. I heard a really good story on NPR the other night talking about that. Trump was out there talking about how he was going to bring all these jobs back, and painted this hopeful rosy picture. People latched onto that. The Democrats (as a group, not just Hillary) said, "The steel jobs are gone, and they're not coming back, but we're going to get you training for new jobs," and then didn't elaborate on what steps they were going to take to make that happen. It played as lip service, and to a certain extent it probably was. There were no concrete plans laid out for how people were going to get all this great training that would allow them to start working again, or even what those jobs were going to be.  

[NextIteration]

15 hours ago, pivot said:

Klobuchar

Klobuchar is far far to the right of Hillary and Kaine as well.  Senator Amy may be beloved by Rachel Maddow - but Rachel always shows Claire McCaskill (another DINO or shall we say blue dog Democrat) a lot of love as well.

6 hours ago, Chicken Wing said:

Yes, this. I was bothered for weeks prior to the election that virtually all of her ads were indictments against Donald Trump's character rather than a testimony to herself and her qualifications as a president who would do X, Y, Z. She and her campaign thought it would be good strategy to just hang back and let Trump hang himself out to dry with his big mouth and the litany of scandals that kept coming out, but showing people why they should not vote for Trump doesn't do much to persuade them to vote for her.

That's odd, the rope-a-dope strategy was so well appreciated when Obama used it.

29 minutes ago, Queasy-bo said:

Then there's Hillary herself, and she just had too much baggage. Like you said, much of it was quite possibly unjustified, but it still added to the perception of baggage, and in politics, perception is reality.

No none of it was justified, the only "perception" that existed was the weight of 28 years of persecution from the GOP with the added vengeance of Sanders during the primaries and the oh so many progressives that very publicly had tantrums when she became the nominee.  If I never hear the term neoliberal again - it will be way too soon.

[NextIteration]

35 minutes ago, Queasy-bo said:

I heard a really good story on NPR the other night talking about that. Trump was out there talking about how he was going to bring all these jobs back, and painted this hopeful rosy picture. People latched onto that. The Democrats (as a group, not just Hillary) said, "The steel jobs are gone, and they're not coming back, but we're going to get you training for new jobs," and then didn't elaborate on what steps they were going to take to make that happen. It played as lip service, and to a certain extent it probably was. There were no concrete plans laid out for how people were going to get all this great training that would allow them to start working again, or even what those jobs were going to be.  

NPR is too busy normalizing Bannon and tRump to have any credibility left.

Yes, in many of the speeches that Clinton gave which were never aired on CNN and MSNBC (or only aired in small snippets) she outlined very detailed policy about how she proposed to make that happen - infrastructure and clean technologies two of her biggest proposals.  She also proposed a bridge of benefits for coal miners until they could retrain properly - or until retirement if they were of a certain age.  The biggest problem is that CNN and MSNBC aired full speeches by tRump all the time, even choosing to blather on showing an empty podium instead of airing a Sanders acceptance speech.

[windsprints]

Quote

She can blame her defeat on Comey 'til the cows come home

When did she blame Comey? Link please. I would like to read what she said. Thanks.

Edited November 20, 2016 by windsprints

[pivot]

36 minutes ago, NextIteration said:

Klobuchar is far far to the right of Hillary and Kaine as well.  Senator Amy may be beloved by Rachel Maddow - but Rachel always shows Claire McCaskill (another DINO or shall we say blue dog Democrat) a lot of love as well.

That's odd, the rope-a-dope strategy was so well appreciated when Obama used it.

No none of it was justified, the only "perception" that existed was the weight of 28 years of persecution from the GOP with the added vengeance of Sanders during the primaries and the oh so many progressives that very publicly had tantrums when she became the nominee.  If I never hear the term neoliberal again - it will be way too soon.

It isn't about ideology or even policy. It's about charisma, likability and trust. Plus, personal baggage. Amy Klobuchar is squeaky clean, incredibly well liked, and has charisma. None of those things apply to Hillary. People are making a mistake in saying Hillary lost because of her gender. Any other female Dem would have won with plenty of electoral college votes to spare. Hillary was a uniquely terrible candidate who had never won a tough election in her life. To see Hillary supporters try to blame her loss on progressives or claim that all her baggage was made up seems more like wishful thinking than reality IMO. Kerry didn't lose because of Dean's progressive opposition to the war. He lost because he ran a bad campaign. Same with Hillary.

And the rope-a-dope worked with Obama because people like him, he has tons of charisma, is trusted by the public, is scandal-free and still managed to give people a reason to vote for him. He generated more enthusiasm on the trail as a Hillary surrogate than Hillary herself could. That was a huge problem.

[ShellSeeker]

39 minutes ago, NextIteration said:

Yes, in many of the speeches that Clinton gave which were never aired on CNN and MSNBC (or only aired in small snippets) she outlined very detailed policy about how she proposed to make that happen - infrastructure and clean technologies two of her biggest proposals.  She also proposed a bridge of benefits for coal miners until they could retrain properly - or until retirement if they were of a certain age.  The biggest problem is that CNN and MSNBC aired full speeches by tRump all the time, even choosing to blather on showing an empty podium instead of airing a Sanders acceptance speech.

Her campaign, then, did a terrible job of getting that message out. Like others have said, their approach was to let Trump keep running his mouth and let him hang himself. I don't really blame them; like everyone else, I figured that's exactly what would happen. Boy were we all wrong. I heard Howard Dean interviewed recently, and a few years ago, and both times he talked about how the Democrats were able to take control after the 2006 mid-term elections. He said they campaigned in all 50 states. They didn't really believe they could win in places like Utah or Texas, but he said that if they hadn't gotten out there and defined their message, Rush Limbaugh would have done it for them. I think that's what the new political landscape is now. This election proved that any state can be a swing state. You could probably throw out Texas and California, but other than that, all bets are off, and you can't take anything for granted. There's been a lot of talk about how outdated the Electoral College is, and there may be some truth to that, but on the other hand, on the news on election night they were talking about how the Clinton campaign had to rush back into Michigan at the last minute because the polls showed the race tightening. They hadn't spent any time or money there in weeks because they assumed they had it locked up since Michigan has been a reliably blue state in the past. You can't blame that on the EC.

[pivot]

20 minutes ago, windsprints said:

When did she blame Comey? Link please. I would like to read what she said. Thanks.

In her call with House Dems, she blamed it on Comey's letter as have many of her staffers and top surrogates. 

[NextIteration]

56 minutes ago, pivot said:

Amy Klobuchar is squeaky clean, incredibly well liked, and has charisma.

Senator Amy is nice and all, and I vote for her - but she actually has zilch in the charisma department, her claim to fame is being nice ergo the title of her book The Senator Next Door.  She's also horrible on many policies - but she's always the lesser of two evils.  There is a good reason why so many Republicans vote for her.

56 minutes ago, Queasy-bo said:

Her campaign, then, did a terrible job of getting that message out.

I heard Howard Dean interviewed recently, and a few years ago, and both times he talked about how the Democrats were able to take control after the 2006 mid-term elections. He said they campaigned in all 50 states.

They hadn't spent any time or money there in weeks because they assumed they had it locked up since Michigan has been a reliably blue state in the past. You can't blame that on the EC.

No they really didn't, as I previously stated - tRump got so many more hours of coverage, if you weren't paying attention or wanted to find reasons to dislike her or her campaign - that's all you heard.  Morning Joe spent a whole year slamming Clinton and promoting tRump.

The 50 State Strategy was to bring about a change in the House and the Senate - it also included putting up extremely conservative Democrats in red districts in order to win.  It should be remembered that Obama ousted Dean the minute he won the nomination.

I agree, Clinton had no business spending time and money in AZ, MO and IN when she should have been concentrating on WI, OH, PA and MI.

Edited November 20, 2016 by NextIteration

[Ohwell]

1 hour ago, windsprints said:

When did she blame Comey? Link please. I would like to read what she said. Thanks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/politics/hillary-clinton-james-comey.html?_r=0

[ShellSeeker]

I wasn't looking for reasons to dislike Hillary. I voted for her, but my first choice would have been Bernie. But I still think her campaign didn't do a good enough job getting her message out. In the debates, she would talk about what she wanted to do in pretty broad, general terms, and I heard her say many times that people should go to her website to learn more about her plans. Who has time to do that? Not me. Like plenty of people, I work full time, and like everyone else I have to get to the grocery store, get the laundry done, plan/make dinners for the week, get my daughter to school, to and from all of her activities, make sure she gets her homework done, gets through the shower, makes her lunch for school, and gets into bed at a reasonable time. And I'm quite fortunate to have a husband who is very supportive and pitches in and does his share. And my mother-in-law lives with us too and is always willing to help out if I have an early meeting or if I'm travelling for business. Single parents, or people who have to work more than one job to make ends meet sure don't have the time or interest to go to someone's website to read up on how a candidate is going to make things better for them. I just don't think that was a realistic strategy. Sure, you need website for people who want to do further research, and to head off any accusations from the opposition that you're not being transparent, or that you're talking out of your ass. But you can't assume that everyone's going to do that.

There is no doubt that the media played a huge role in how this election turned out, on that we can agree. The Clinton campaign made a tactical error in thinking that much of the media was helping them by detailing all of his outrageous behavior, but in the age of the Kardashians and reality TV celebrities, the old saying is more true than ever: any publicity is good publicity.

[NextIteration]

6 minutes ago, Queasy-bo said:

I heard her say many times that people should go to her website to learn more about her plans. Who has time to do that?

 

Quote

BOOK REVIEW by OnTheIssues.org:

This campaign booklet is not actually a printed book, but a 64-page PDF that the Obama campaign would like voters to treat like a book. Since we here at OnTheIssues.org are happy to have candidates lay out their platforms in writing, we DO treat it like a book. It's available for download on Obama's campaign website.

Each of a couple dozen issue topics has a speech excerpt summarizing Obama's stance on the issue; then an "At a Glance" bullet list; Obama's definition of "The Problem"; "Obama's Plan" for details on how he would address the problem; then finally "Obama's Record" for a list of his accomplishments on the issue.

Obama has been accused of generalizations instead of policy. He could counter, "All the policy details are there in my 64-page booklet." But that would not sound like Obama. It WOULD sound like Al Gore, who said that so many times about his campaign booklet that the press took to calling it his191-page Economic Plan. George Bush's considerably shorter campaign booklet,Blueprint for the Middle Class is, like Obama's booklet, full of bullet points and vision. It's clear from Obama's choice of the term "Blueprint" in his title which model he chooses to emulate. Unlike Gore's wonkish level of detail, Obama's booklet is indeed very long on rhetoric and short on policy. This booklet is DETAILED in the sense that Obama lays out his vision clearly and explicitly. How exactly that vision will get accomplished is not here. Perhaps Gore proved that being a policy wonk is not a good way to get elected, and that Bush's vision-without-details is.

We'll close with an excerpt from Obama's "Opening Letter", a 2-page-long signed statement entitled "A Message from Barack":

"Thank you for taking a look at this booklet. I believe it's critically important that those of us who want to lead this nation be open, candid, and clear with the American people about how we will move forward. So I hope this booklet gives you a good sense about where I stand on the fundamental issues facing our country.

"But I also hope that this booklet sparks a dialogue and that after you've finished reading it, you get in touch with our campaign and give us your thoughts on the policies you find here. It's time to put government back in your hands, where it belongs. If we want to have policies that are good for the American people, then we need the American people to help shape those policies."

[Blergh]

OK, I'd like to know how many folks in 'lesser of two evils'  voters category got swayed to Senator Clinton's side due to revelations re the then-Mr. Trump's behaviors and 'tudes towards women. Were there many folks who were on the verge of voting for the latter until  said revelations?

   Speaking for myself,  there was ZERO possibility of me voting for him from the time he first announced his intention to run but I wonder if there were others who were considering voting for him until that stuff came out.

[windsprints]

Thanks for the link.

Quote

I heard her say many times that people should go to her website to learn more about her plans. Who has time to do that?

I made the time. I had months and months. 

[Macbeth]

On 11/19/2016 at 4:09 AM, shok said:

Yeah, such an awful campaign. She only got 2,000,000 more votes than the orange buffoon...so far. Only Barack Obama in 2008 has gotten more votes from the American electorate than Hillary did this year.

And this is what terrifies me about the Democrats' attitude.  She really won, so we really don't need to change our game plan.

No.  The Clown Prince Trump is your opponent, taking time out of his busy schedule of opening resort hotels and going into bankruptcy, and you only beat him by $2,000,000.  That is a massive fail for your candidacy.

The Democrats lost the House, White  House, the Senate, and control over many states' capitals.  Their entire campaign strategy sucked.

As long as the Democrats remain firmly in Wall Street's pockets - they will continue to lose.

And given that Schumer, Wall Street's bestie, has been chosen by the Democrats to  be the Minority Leader in the Senate - I have no hope that the dawn will break on marblehead any time soon.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Macbeth

[slf]

What's that old saying? "Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love"? Republicans will always vote, and vote down-ballot, but Democrats have to be negotiated with. And it doesn't matter what's at stake locally and nationally. Most Dems will not research their local Democrats, support them, vote for the ones they think will do a good job. Democratic turnout during midterm elections is notoriously abysmal. And those same Democrats will, after every presidential election, complain about there not being enough gains. (This is not directed at you @Macbeth, you seem very well-informed. Just wanted to clarify since my post follows yours, lol.) Green Party supporters and liberal independents are even worse. 

There are no perfect politicians. But there are many doing important, difficult work and yet receive very little support from their own constituents. People want a revolution but only during an election year.

Edited November 21, 2016 by slf

[Keepitmoving]

1 hour ago, slf said:

What's that old saying? "Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love"? Republicans will always vote, and vote down-ballot, but Democrats have to be negotiated with. And it doesn't matter what's at stake locally and nationally. Most Dems will not research their local Democrats, support them, vote for the ones they think will do a good job. Democratic turnout during midterm elections is notoriously abysmal. And those same Democrats will, after every presidential election, complain about there not being enough gains. (This is not directed at you @Macbeth, you seem very well-informed. Just wanted to clarify since my post follows yours, lol.) Green Party supporters and liberal independents are even worse. 

There are no perfect politicians. But there are many doing important, difficult work and yet receive very little support from their own constituents. People want a revolution but only during an election year.

There goes that sense of entitlement that gets in our way. Well not mine, cause I vote democrat, even if I'm not "in love," because I am an adult, politicians aren't your friend, and I don't need a changing circus act to motivate me to stay informed.  Dems. act like they're in fucking high school.

Progressives need to be wooed, give me a break. They need to fall in love, give me  fucking break.  This was about hate on the progressive side as well, NOT the neo nazi hate, but hate nonetheless. Clinton got equal if not more vitriol from the likes of Susan fucking Sarandon. As a matter a fact, "Perfect Progressive Sue" was on Chris Hayes talking shit about if not Bernie then maybe yes Trump because any revolution would do. In other words, maybe we need to fall, be brought down before it all gets better, she'd rather that, like her phony progressive buddy Jimmy Dore and the likes of him, would rather that, than Clinton, yeah, OK.  Tell that to all the groups that did vote for Clinton because they were afraid of policies that would be put in place for them as the "other." But Perfect  Progressive Sue and Dore are white and not poor and not other. Yeah the groups that Perfect Progressive Sue likes to stand on her moral high horse supposedly in support of, well a lot of those folks in those groups who actually voted for the democrat even holding their noses, are scared shitless right now.   Where the fuck is Sue by the way?  Haven't seen her morally superior ass in a long time. And Perfect Sue won't be needing an abortion given her age, so she won't be affected if Roe v Wade is overturned.  Fact of the matter is, they wanted to believe the worse about Hillary and that she was even worse than a man who pals around with white supremacist and pretends he doesn't know who David Duke is the list is endless.... 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Keepitmoving

[NextIteration]

Perfect Progressive Sue is making buck shilling for L'Oreal and Tylenol all day everyday.  And Jimmy Dore, well I've pretty much lost any respect I ever had for Cenk - he might as well go to the dark side with Ed Schulz and Thom Hartmann and put TYT on RT.

Privileged white-assed folks that had nothing to lose if tRump won.

[slf]

54 minutes ago, Keepitmoving said:

There goes that sense of entitlement that gets in our way. Well not mine, cause I vote democrat, even if I'm not "in love," because I am an adult, politicians aren't your friend, and I don't need a changing circus act to motivate me to stay informed.  Dems. act like they're in fucking high school.

Progressives need to be wooed, give me a break. They need to fall in love, give me  fucking break.

It's maddening. I've been politically active for 15 years, since I was a teen, and have always been a leftist; I've worked with the Green party, independents, various small socialist groups, and the Democrats. And what I've learned is that liberals are just as much about the cult of personality as Republicans are and are not that much more likely to research policies and verify facts. There very much is a sense of entitlement, that politicians should come to your town and speak to you directly, explain their policies to you one point at a time, should appeal to you personally. And if the party fails it's always the politicians, never the voters- the customer is always right. There was an interesting post I saw on Tumblr that I'd like to quote here, it's brief:

"I wonder from where so many Americans get the idea that voting is supposed to be some expression of your deepest, most beloved values and virtues rather than a pragmatic, political move meant to shift your country as much closer to your ideal as possible. This strikes me as another example of extreme individualism. Voting isn’t about *you*. It’s about your city, state, and/or country. It doesn’t have to feel transcendently good deep down in your bones. It just has to *do* as much good as you can do, in this particular moment in time."

Which is how I vote. As I've said before, Sanders is closer to me politically than Clinton is but I voted for her because I knew she had the better chance of winning. She's not super charismatic or cool, but she has the experience and support and I knew she'd protect the gains we've made in the past eight years better than anyone else in the field.

1 hour ago, Keepitmoving said:

This was about hate on the progressive side as well, NOT the neo nazi hate, but hate nonetheless. Clinton got equal if not more vitriol from the likes of Susan fucking Sarandon. As a matter a fact, "Perfect Progressive Sue" was on Chris Hayes talking shit about if not Bernie then maybe yes Trump because any revolution would do. In other words, maybe we need to fall, be brought down before it all gets better, she'd rather that, like her phony progressive buddy Jimmy Dore and the likes of him, would rather that, than Clinton, yeah, OK.  Tell that to all the groups that did vote for Clinton because they were afraid of policies that would be put in place for them as the "other." But Perfect  Progressive Sue and Dore are white and not poor and not other. Yeah the groups that Perfect Progressive Sue likes to stand on her moral high horse supposedly in support of, well a lot of those folks in those groups who actually voted for the democrat even holding their noses, are scared shitless right now.

I won't rehash my opinions 'cause I've done that in the Democratic Party thread and I know people must be sick of hearing about them, lol, but: agreed, very much so. But I will post this again, from MLK:

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

[backformore]

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, Keepitmoving said:

 Haven't seen her morally superior ass in a long time. And Perfect Sue won't be needing an abortion given her age, so she won't be affected if Roe v Wade is overturned.  Fact of the matter is, they wanted to believe the worse about Hillary and that she was even worse than a man who pals around with white supremacist and pretends he doesn't know who David Duke is the list is endless.... 

Isn't SS currently suggesting we "reach out" to Trump and work with him? I think she and Debra Messing are fighting about it on Twitter. Guess she herself wasn't planning on joining that revolution other people were supposed to start when Trump got elected.

I'm also somebody who's confused at Democrats' entitlement when it comes to voting. Republicans could not have offered a clearer example over the years of the power of voting. They've shifted so many things so far to the right their party is nuts and elected Donald Trump. But there are Democrats who even complained that HRC wasn't good enough when she adopted Bernie's policies because she was only doing it to get their vote. Um, yeah. Count that as a win and vote for her. That's how it's supposed to work. You're not marrying her. Also ridiculous is holding her positions on crime in the 90s against her when she's openly saying that she sees the damage it did--while Trump's advocating for more stop and frisk and filling up prisons, private or otherwise.

[NextIteration]

The purists that are mocking folks that knew that Clinton would win the primary and saw all the hate blown all over in the primary, that knew it would damage her and warned said purists - are now blaming the folks that understood how politics works for losing to tRump.

Seriously?  Once again, the progressive purists have handed us hell - just like they did in 2000.  9/11 and the Iraq War should have taught them, but no - 100s of thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars further in debt didn't do anything to poke their bubble of purity.

These are the folks that are responsible for convincing millennials that Hillary was the evil wicked witch of the west.  They even managed to make Dolores Huerta one of the enemies of progressiveness.  Along with SoS Albright and Gloria Steinem. 

Edited November 21, 2016 by NextIteration

[slf]

I would just like to state in this thread because this has come up elsewhere:

HRC won the majority of pledged delegates. Superdelegates did not steal away the nomination for her. It was in fact Sanders who was trying to clinch the superdelegates' votes toward the end, because they were the only way he was going to win. If we did away with superdelegates, HRC still would have been the party nominee.

[ruby24]

It hurts me to post this update constantly, but now they're saying she will wind up with about 65 million votes, on par with Obama in '12, and will win the pop vote by 2.5 million.

That makes me want to cry. The majority is ignored.

[Ohwell]

Most of those votes still being counted are coming from California, so her support was deep but not broad enough. 

[PatsyandEddie]

So the orange dickhead is announcing that he will not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton or their foundation. Of course Ghouliani is spinning what drumpf said as a not right now sort of thing. Probably to keep the supporters who screamed "Lock her up" for months won't turn on them. Give them time to clue in. Hopefully it's sooner than later. 

Guess what rudi? There is nothing to find! People have been trying for years to make some POS stick to the wall on that family and it hasn't worked so enough with but Bengazhi, but but but emails and but Bill. 

[Danny Franks]

12 hours ago, ruby24 said:

It hurts me to post this update constantly, but now they're saying she will wind up with about 65 million votes, on par with Obama in '12, and will win the pop vote by 2.5 million.

That makes me want to cry. The majority is ignored.

It would be fine if each state had a number of electoral votes in proportion to its population, which I assume was the original setup. But California has 38 million people living in it, and 55 electoral votes, while Montana has 1 million people and 3 electoral votes. They have one electoral vote per 330,000 people, while California has one per 690,000. How is that democratic?