Guns is a hard no. Free speech is a hard no. The other things I could bend on. Whether that’s mostly or not, I don’t know. Free speech is more important than guns to me, hands down.
Yes. But just one of many reasons. She still doesn’t realize that you don’t get to be president because you deserve it. You can’t ‘earn’ it by paying ‘dues’, it isn’t given to you in back rooms (anymore). You have to convince enough people in enough states to vote for you, and she failed at that.
You’re making the bad assumption that everyone either voted for Hillary or Trump. Lots of people stayed home - about as many eligible voters didn’t turn up as voted for either candidate, voted for a third party - in a lot of contested states, more people voted third party than the difference between the two major candidates, or just didn’t vote for president (don’t have numbers for that one, but it happens). And this isn’t just your assumption, her campaign seemed to make the same assumption, as well as supporters like…
If you want to be president you have to convince people to vote FOR you, it’s not just enough to convince people not to vote for the other candidate. While a third party is effectively not going to win, and ‘none of the above’ can’t win, you can’t just neglect both of those categories.
Also, her gun stance was actually “Wants DC-style gun bans for the entire country” to people who paid attention (that is, people who care enough that the issue affects their vote) based on the few policy statements she made, which is extremely radical compared to the “common sense” gun control stance that her supporters tend to talk about. People who don’t follow gun news probably don’t realize that Heller is the equivalent of Roe vs Wade for gun rights, and Hillary (who was going to get multiple SC nominations) specifically condemned the decision and wanted to reverse it. Why she didn’t just take a moderate stance (“Heller is great, it confirms that we can implement common-sense gun control and we aren’t trying for bans in the first place”) on the issue is beyond me, I know a number of single-issue voters who turned out specifically because of her stated desire to reverse Heller. She’s done actual flip-flops on other issues in the past, like gay marriage, so avoiding extremist rhetoric on an issue that she wasn’t going to get congress to budge on anyway seems like a no-brainer to me.
46.6% of eligible voters in the 2016 election did not vote. And I honour them.
Had I a chance to to vote I also would have steered between Scylla and Charybdis — or in this case, Sulla and Crassus. Both of these disgusting incompetent vulgarians make me retch.
Nearly half of eligible voters (231,556,622 people) did not vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Mashable 2016 11 09
Nobody automatically deserves support, even to stop the loathely other.
By the same token, voting with little enthusiasm may not mean voting solely in opposition to the other camp. I voted for (IMO) the best candidate among those running for office. I tried that “vote against the other guy” crap the first time I ever voted (Kerry v. Bush) and it didn’t feel right. Not voting at all will never feel right.
Whenever I took people to task for voting for Trump, they’d start raving about how terrible Hillary is. I said I’m not asking you to vote for Hillary. I’m asking you not to vote for Trump. We’ve become so politically polarized that people seem to have a really difficult time understanding the difference. It’s like they truly believe they only have two choices.
But I am rather rigid in my approach to voting. I must vote, and I don’t think the potential outcome of the other guy winning should be a factor in my decision. It’s the same kind of objectivity I would feel obligated to have as a juror, acknowledging the undesirable individual outcome of the case is secondary to upholding the priciple.
If I had genuinely believed any other third party candidate would do a better job, they would have had my vote.
I know a couple of women who hell yes, it was all about her being a woman. They talked about being “in tears” and holding hands with their daughters as she accepted the democratic nomination at the convention and talking up about how far they had come.
Yes, but that’s a far cry from the campaign focusing “too much” on it.
But did those women being excited for a first woman President cost Hillary the election? That seems to be the question.
I guess my response would be… Why would it?
Also, do you think those women would have voted for Sarah Palin with equal enthusiasm? Do you think they might have voted for Trump if the Democratic front-runner were a man?
Pithy and on point! 
The whole country was focused on her being a woman, and the press played it up a lot. I think people are projecting that on Clinton and her campaign. Other than that rather embarrassing moment with Madeline Albright*, I think Clinton and her campaign tried to stay away from the whole woman angle as much as possible.
*There’s a a special place in hell for women who don’t support each other (to paraphrase)
How exactly did she “cheat” during the primaries?
What e-mails by Hillary Clinton did “Russia reveal” which showed she cheated?
Agreed. I cringed at that moment with Albright and wondered if they realized the number of women who work in clerical or customer service related positions heavily outnumbered women who worked in professional or managerial positions, but if anything I think she made far more of a deal of it in 2008 against Obama.
Agreed, I always thought her campaign slogan should have been “It’s her turn!” rather than “I’m With Her”.
The latter would be an annoyance to me only because it sounds as silly as “Democrat politicians.” Using “woman” as an adjective won’t somehow bring balance to using “female” as a noun. Sure, as an adjective it sounds clinical but in the instances where you need to specify gender, “female” is perfectly fine,
as long as there isn’t a focus on gender where there needn’t be.
I don’t recall either the campaign or supporters dwelling on gender. Certainly not compared to the orders of magnitude greater dwelling on the supposed focus that we get from trumpets and “concerned” people.
Or maybe I’m oblivious since up until now it didn’t even cross my mind that “I’m with her” might emphasize gender. For me I guess it was just a bumper stickerable phrase that made it immediately obvious who you were “with”.
That is a good point and I’m pretty sure if it had been a republican woman they would have come up with some excuse not to support her.
Its a common theme for women on the left to never, EVER, acknowledge a woman on the right. They held anti-Palin rallies when she came to speak around here. Although recently the Girl Scouts, reluctantly, in their guide to “women to admire” have again, reluctantly, put Palin in that category.
I suspect women on the left also don’t acknowledge men on the right. The problem with “women on the right” is they often support policies that are actively harmful to women, yet try to capitalize upon their gender as if it is a marker of progressive thinking. There is nothing about Sarah Palin that is good for women.
My earlier point was, almost nobody supported Hillary solely because she was a woman. It’s much more likely that she would enjoy support regardless of gender, but that her gender made already supportive candidates more enthusiastic about her candidacy.
I also think her gender largely was a detriment to her campaign more than helpful. A frightening percentage of liberal men aren’t comfortable with women holding high level political positions. Unfortunately the newer generations seem to be even worse than the older generations, as 41% of millennial men report they are uncomfortable with women as US Senators.
I certainly don’t believe sexism is the only factor that contributed to her loss, but given these statistics it very likely was a factor.
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Sorry, I misspoke. 41% of millennial men are comfortable with female US Senators. Meaning 59% are not.
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God I hate trying to cite things on Tapatalk. Just read the article! The support for female President was even lower.