Anyone Obama could have nominated would have been better than everyone Trump actually did nominate. It might not have been enough to save Roe, but at least we’d be looking at a 5-4 ballgame instead of 6-3.
Lifetime appointments are nothing to fuck around with. It’s the height of irresponsibility for a Ginsburg or Breyer to say “eh, I probably won’t die under a terrible president, and if I do it’s not my problem anymore.”
You criticize your own side by asking what went wrong and how you might do better in the future.
You don’t do it by identifying some scapegoats within your ranks and braying “FUCK YOU!” at them.
Saw a funny quip on Twitter today, something to the effect of:
They’re responsible for how they vote. I’m responsible for how I vote. If they want to present themselves as such delicate little hothouse flowers that they say they would’ve voted for Clinton but then didn’t because Oh Gosh Oh Golly Let Me Clutch My Pearls they heard that someone was voting for her because Trump is worse — well, look, that’s (a) on them, as well as (b) absurd.
On top of that, the character assassination of a mostly honorable and decent Romney in 2012 by the D’s also played a big role in Trumpism. The R’s realized that the D’s were going to play the “he’s a horrific sexist right-wing extremist” card no matter what, so they threw up their hands and decided to nominate the real deal.
Moving away from the circular firing squad, this is a real dispatch from Bizarro World. Yes, it was the Democrats in 2012 who first introduced character assassination into Presidential politics. Birtherism, Swift Boating, and Clinton’s impeachment never happened!
Also, I like the tacit admission that Republicans had always secretly WANTED to nominate a sexist right-wing extremist, but had previously refrained from doing so for strategic reasons.
Seemed to be.
Probably more frustration than anger, but sure.
There were quite a number on the SDMB back in 2016. I don’t remember all the names, I was a @DoggyDunnit who was very proud of their non-vote for HRC. They were not the only one, but the one that I found most memorable. If you want to go back to a specific thread, you can try
They were not the only one in that thread talking poorly of HRC.
I knew a number of people IRL who would say, “I’m not voting for either of them.” When asked why they wouldn’t vote for HRC, they’d bring up right wing talking points about her, or often not even be that specific, just that she’s a nasty woman, or that she’s just riding her husband’s coattails.
Like I said, @What_Exit probably personally did not affect many votes, if any. The attitude that @What_Exit hold absolutely did.
Well, I think that we voted in the primaries, and the candidate that got the most votes in the primaries should be the nominee. Or do you think that that should have been ignored?
I think that it is unreliable. At the time, Bernie was being supported by various actors who were doing their best to tear down HRC. If Bernie had won the nomination, then that machine would have gone after him.
And if you think that we were going to elect a self proclaimed socialist in the general, especially after the smear campaign starts up against him, I think that it is you that lives in a fantasy world.
Okay, so how would you like to tell what voters think? Do you think that we should have them all come out and make some marks on a piece of paper, and then we count up those pieces of paper and determine who the voters want?
If so, that’s exactly what we did, and how we got HRC nominated. If not, then how do you want to nominate candidates going forward? Ignore the actual will of the voters, and instead go based on opinion polls?
If Hillary was such a bad candidate, in what possible way was Trump a good candidate? Likewise, their respective abilities to communicate- in what world is Trump a better communicator than Hillary?
I was talking about from @What_Exit’s position, not yours. I suppose I shouldn’t have posed it to you, but you did decide to speak up in their place.
Right, and if Biden had lost, then that would have show his candidacy to have been terrible executed.
I agree. I don’t know if @What_Exit would, though.
Which is what happened. That’s the process by which HRC was nominated.
I don’t know, but if you think it would help you to understand, maybe it’s worth a shot.
“Look what you made me do,” eh?
If they didn’t vote for her, it wasn’t What_Exit’s attitude that was the problem; it was their decision to make, and their decision was the problem.
“All I have to say is FUCK YOU!” reads “more like frustration than anger” to you? OK.
I knew a number of people IRL who would say, “I’m not voting for either of them.” When asked why they wouldn’t vote for HRC, they’d bring up right wing talking points about her, or often not even be that specific, just that she’s a nasty woman, or that she’s just riding her husband’s coattails.
It seems like you’re goalpost moving here. “I’m not voting” and “I’m voting for Clinton” are very different statements, even if the latter is followed by a qualifier about nose-holding. And were the people who said this registered Democrats? Because you seem to be sliding back and forth between being pissed at the broad universe of people who didn’t vote for Clinton and being pissed specifically at the group of committed Democrats who didn’t vote for her; a group which I maintain is numerically insignificant.
But I don’t know anyone like that IRL (at least not anyone dumb enough to say that within earshot of me), so I guess I should just count my blessings there.
Explain how a few complaints about how HRC wasn’t a good communicator/motivator would outweigh hundreds of complaints about everything wrong with Trump. I bad mouthed Trump constantly. No redeeming value at all. I doubt I influenced anyone on either side, but if I did it was likely to get a few people to not vote for the snake oil salesman.
I’m saying HRC was a bad candidate as she was not charismatic. I do think she was solid on policy and experience. Do you get the difference?
Starting this by saying: I think this is less binary than the discussion indicates, and I think both “sides” (as represented by k9befriender and What_Exit) have valuable perspectives.
That said, you make a good point about a generic “office job”. But, on the other hand, if I’m hiring for a leadership position that by definition required an element of consensus building, then maybe vehement opposition by a vocal minority (or lack of ability to convince the hiring committee that the person could achieve productivity despite that opposition) is an important factor in deciding if a person is the right candidate for the job.
But maybe, as you say, all candidates are “bad candidates”. Perhaps we are in a place where unity/productivity is impossible without overwhelming majority, and part of the issue is that in 2016 (and maybe now still) too many people don’t appreciate that fact, or are too Polyanna-ish about the way forward for US Democracy. Maybe folks need to give up an illusion that anything other than political party matters.
What makes that position hard to fully embrace is that it assumes that our Democracy is already failed- that we have a supposed option between destruction and survival, which is no option at all.
I feel that way at times, but I still cling to a sense that my vote is more nuanced or relevant than simply putting another finger in the dike. Otherwise, why bother forming an opinion or getting educated about anything?
I don’t know, but if you think it would help you to understand, maybe it’s worth a shot.
Damn, now my monitor is all smeary! 
Hillary won the most primary votes, and earned the nomination. She was very popular among Democrats. I don’t have a problem with the system, I just wish Democratic primary voters had been smarter and taken into consideration the fact that she was very unpopular with independents, who you actually need to win elections.
So, to rephrase, you ask INDEPENDENT voters what they think of candidates, in order to find the ones who the smears didn’t work on. Then you nominate those candidates.
And I don’t buy the handwaving about “Well, all candidates will be damaged by the smear machine!” Sure, it’s quite possible that Bernie’s popularity might have sagged if he had been nominated and become the sole target of the bullshit machine…but maybe it wouldn’t have. Obama’s didn’t. Why would you pick the candidate whose name is ALREADY tarnished over the candidate who MIGHT be tarnished in the future?
This is just an excuse to ignore reality and justify voting for the person you want to vote for, even if it costs the party an election. And then after you lose, you can blame it on the stupid voters not knowing what’s good for them.
As far as the bad campaigner meme…it seemed to me in 2008 that Hillary went in expecting to be coronated on Super Tuesday and seemed, at first unwilling, and later unable to deal with a serious challenger to the nomination. Against Obama’s youth and charisma and his campaign’s extraordinary ground game, she came off as stodgy. She had to reach into her sock and pull out cash to fund her campaign in the last month before the DNC convention.
In some ways, 2016 was an indication that she did not learn the lessons from the 2008 primary, or didn’t apply them correctly. She took a lot of the midwest states for granted, and that bit her in the ass.
I knew a number of people IRL who would say, “I’m not voting for either of them.” When asked why they wouldn’t vote for HRC, they’d bring up right wing talking points about her, or often not even be that specific, just that she’s a nasty woman, or that she’s just riding her husband’s coattails.
Like I said, @What_Exit probably personally did not affect many votes, if any. The attitude that @What_Exit hold absolutely did.
So your claim is that What Exit repeated right wing talking points about Hillary and called her a nasty woman who was riding on her husband’s coattails? I think you need to either quote him doing so or apologize to him.
If that is not your claim, then why did you describe these people in one paragraph and then bring up What Exit in the next, as if to imply some connection or equivalence?
It does also encourage that attitude.
Depends on what you mean by “real life” as to how much I heard it. I heard it from numerous pundits, and their audience was not necessarily committed Clinton voters. I think that did some damage. But I did hear it from acquaintances, the whole “Hold my nose and voter for her”, as though undertaking some deeply unpleasant task. Though more often, what I heard was that they were not going to vote for her because she was such a terrible candidate.
I’ll admit I didn’t hear it from family, but that’s because they are all strongly Republican, and never would have voted for the Democratic candidate, even though a few did actually abstain from voting for Trump.
I’m doubly mad at them, as at the time, Ohio was still considered to be a bit of a battleground state. If you are in California, and didn’t vote for HRC, that’s annoying, but I don’t think it’s going to make a difference. In a closer state, maybe your vote does make a difference.
I know a bunch of people that claimed to be Democrat that stayed home in 2016. To be fair, there weren’t many that I know personally that actually voted for Clinton while talking bad about her. They just took what they heard other people saying about her as a reason not to vote for her.
And, as I am always saying politics is local, this made me even more annoyed at them, as that meant that they sat out local and congressional elections as well.
Then how did she win the primary?
Anyway, my point is that she is unpopular not because of things that she has done, things she has said, or even the way she has said them. Her unpopularity comes directly from the right wing smear machine. That machine can target anyone. Had someone else been the nominee, they would have been just as loathed.
Where were you in the primaries? Had Covid not come along and brought them more or less to a close, I don’t think that he would have gotten the nomination.
He certainly was not my first, second, third, or fourth choice. Maybe tied around fifth. Even though he was not my favorite candidate, once he had the nomination, I supported him wholeheartedly. I would have much rather have been voting for someone else on election day, but I didn’t have to hold my nose or complain about the choice I was being forced to make.
You have an “objective measure” of something that is entirely subjective.
So, the reason that she lost was not because she was a bad candidate, then?
Personally, I think it’s because Democrats decided that they didn’t like her, because she was so unpopular, that they didn’t bother to vote.
Sure, it’s an objective thing. I can tell the difference when someone says that someone is a terrible candidate vs when they say that someone is a good candidate. That doesn’t mean that I agree with the criteria by which they came to that conclusion.
I mean, your reason for saying that she’s a bad candidate is due to her opinion polls. Not based on anything that she said or did. Not based on her policies that she advocated for, but solely based on how other people felt about her.
Everybody hates her, there must be a good reason for that, right? Right?
You talk about “objective measures”, but you only reference opinion polls, which are the opposite of an objective measure, they are purely subjective.
So, what made her so unpopular? What did she actually do that is objectionable?
I don’t actually see what was wrong with Gore’s communication skills. He seemed to give speeches just fine. Impromptu responses he did well enough. I’m honestly not sure what you are saying his problem was.
Now, people did sometimes take stuff he said out of context, or they emphasised parts of speeches or answers that had a pause or utterance, but most people do that, especially if they are thinking.
If Gore was bad at communication, then Obama was virtually mute.
Well, I see this as a flaw in our electorate. That people decide to focus on “folksyness”, rather than ability to run a nation.
We get the government we deserve, I suppose.
You’re correct. Our election system is very flawed. The Electoral College is a bad joke and I was ranting about it back in the days when I was a Republican.
But the election of politicians is not logical as we all know.
Also if you didn’t see Gore as stiff in that election, fair enough. I did see him as stiff. I was also pissed that a less than stellar candidate had handlers that successfully manipulated the Republican Nomination for W. from a much more worthy candidate in McCain. In 2000 I was ready to campaign for either Bradley or McCain, whichever one got the nomination. Instead I got Gore vs. Bush the Lesser and I voted for Nader (Green Party).
Before you go too deep over that part, I’m in NJ where Gore was way ahead and at the time I was still a registered Republican, so technically it was Cheney (I mean W.) that lost my vote.
I was also still harboring somewhat silly resentment towards Tipper Gore and didn’t want to see her as First Lady.
I just love it when people quote my post and then ask a question that was literally answered in the part they snipped. She won the primary because she was popular among Democrats.
Opinion polls may measure subjective opinions, but they offer objective measures of those opinions. A politician’s job is to win elections, and if people aren’t going to vote for them, they are by definition bad at their job, no matter how smart they are and how good a job they would do if they did get elected. It’s ridiculous to say things like “a great candidate may lose by running a bad campaign”, because the definition of a great candidate is one who doesn’t run bad campaigns.
What made her unpopular is completely beside the point. It doesn’t matter why people hate her. It doesn’t matter if you or I think they have good reasons. What matters is that they don’t like her, and it’s a lot harder to change their already formed opinions than it is to start over with someone new. It sucks that she’s been unfairly attacked, but we need to be focused on winning elections, not on doing what’s fair to Hillary personally.
Where was I in the primaries? Reading polls. That’s why Biden was my second choice, because his numbers were best with independents. Bernie was only slightly behind, and they were far ahead of all the others, so that narrowed my options to two. I thought Bernie would do a much better job, so I was willing to take a small calculated risk by voting for him in the primary (I also didn’t expect the election to be as close as it ended up being).
And Biden came out of Super Tuesday with an almost insurmountable delegate lead, so I’m not sure why you think things would have gone differently if not for COVID.