# Hillary 2020 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 14, 2018, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873 "2018-07-14T00:42:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/101 "2018-07-18T19:51:23Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > There weren’t many candidates the Democrats could have trotted out that would have lost to Trump in 2016. There may have only been one, actually. For Hillary to run again would be a comically egregious blunder. > . See, this is what I am talking about. Actually, yes, Sanders would have lost even worse. Maybe her Veep might have won, Kaine, since he is rather bland and a Southerner. Same with OMalley. Sanders would have been called a Commie. If you dont think the Kremlin can fake up a communist party ID card with Sander’s name on it, you are sadly naive. The fake news would have had a field day. Combined with other Sanders issues, he wouldn’t have even carried half the states Clinton did. Fake news and propaganda by Karl Rove and the Kremlin could work vs any candidate. Appeals to the white laid off factory workers in the rust belt, and appeals to the racists and the xenophobes would still have gotten Trump his votes. Sure, I guess a different plan of attack, not being over confident and working for Electoral College votes instead of Popular votes might have won. Maybe. But that was a tactical error by the DNC and Hillaries advisors. Likely the same people would have given the same bad advice. Trump was indeed a perfect candidate at that time. His charisma, his not being a Washington insider, and the fake news would have made it tough sledding for any Dem candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/102 "2018-07-18T20:25:19Z")
I didn’t sense that the anti-Bernie sentiment was as strong as the anti-Hillary sentiment in 2016. I think he might have been able to take Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But I guess if you assume that fake news was going to drum up a bunch of stuff, anything could’a happened. Honestly, during the primaries, I thought O’Malley was probably the best choice. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/103 "2018-07-18T20:30:46Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > I didn’t sense that the anti-Bernie sentiment was as strong as the anti-Hillary sentiment in 2016. I think he might have been able to take Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But I guess if you assume that fake news was going to drum up a bunch of stuff, anything could’a happened. Honestly, during the primaries, I thought O’Malley was probably the best choice. No, because Rove and the Russians ain’t stupid, they knew Clinton would be the candidate, not Sanders. So they started fake news and lies vs Clinton, not Sanders. In fact, they, in effect, helped Sanders. Few Americans would vote for a Communist. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/104 "2018-07-18T22:52:32Z")
Is Bernie a fake Communist or a real Communist? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/105 "2018-07-18T22:54:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No, because Rove and the Russians ain’t stupid, they knew Clinton would be the candidate, not Sanders. So they started fake news and lies vs Clinton, not Sanders. In fact, they, in effect, helped Sanders. > > Few Americans would vote for a Communist. Socialist = Communist? I mean I know Socialist is a very hard sell in the US but I don’t think they are considered the same by most people. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/106 "2018-07-18T23:23:08Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > I didn’t sense that the anti-Bernie sentiment was as strong as the anti-Hillary sentiment in 2016. I think he might have been able to take Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But I guess if you assume that fake news was going to drum up a bunch of stuff, anything could’a happened. Honestly, during the primaries, I thought O’Malley was probably the best choice. Clinton refrained from going negative on Bernie, especially after Super Tuesday when Sanders was all but mathematically eliminated. Her campaign incorrectly assumed that Sanders would soon drop out like most normal candidates do. Bernie should have been thoroughly embarrassed by his ass kicking in New York, but instead continued his vanity show including his, ‘take it to the convention’ nonsense ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/107 "2018-07-18T23:24:52Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Is Bernie a fake Communist or a real Communist? The Kremlin would make very very sure that about half of Americans thought he was a real Commie. Fake ID card. Find some old pictures of him attending a rally or meeting in his college years, maybe he checked out a book or took a course by a pinko… If none can be found , make them up. Make him deny it. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/108 "2018-07-18T23:25:57Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Socialist = Communist? I mean I know Socialist is a very hard sell in the US but I don’t think they are considered the same by most people. Did you read? Look, I know Bernie is not a Commie. But the Kremlin could make a bunch of Americans believe he was one. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/109 "2018-07-19T03:02:00Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > :dubious: > > You know, it’s possible for someone to believe both that Clinton was a bad and uninspiring candidate AND that Trump was obviously far worse. > > Given Whack-a-Mole’s sig line, I’m guessing he didn’t vote for Trump, as you seem to be assuming he did. …I didn’t assume anything. I know perfectly well who Whack-a-Mole voted for. The narrative that "Clinton was a “bad and uninspiring candidate” is simply that, “a narrative.” A story. Like how she didn’t articulate a vision. Or how “Bernie would’ve won.” The reality is that a whole lot of things happened at the last election and you can’t point to a single one and say “that’s why Trump is President.” The gerrymandering. The voter suppression. Whatever it is that the Russians did (and I suspect it will be years before we really know the full extent of what they did.) And you can’t escape the reality that millions of people in America support Trump, they support his policies, they support his white supremacist rhetoric, they don’t care about the poor or the marginalized. The Republicans have been planning this for decades. They are now systematically attempting to destroy from within the institutions that that many hold dear. They are ignoring laws, replacing career civil servants with partisan hacks and broadcasting propaganda daily. So lets stop pretending that this is all the fault of one person and realize that as a nation you bought this on yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/110 "2018-07-19T19:01:30Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …I didn’t assume anything. I know perfectly well who Whack-a-Mole voted for. > > The narrative that "Clinton was a “bad and uninspiring candidate” is simply that, “a narrative.” A story. Like how she didn’t articulate a vision. Or how “Bernie would’ve won.” > > The reality is that a whole lot of things happened at the last election and you can’t point to a single one and say “that’s why Trump is President.” The gerrymandering. The voter suppression. Whatever it is that the Russians did (and I suspect it will be years before we really know the full extent of what they did.) And you can’t escape the reality that millions of people in America support Trump, they support his policies, they support his white supremacist rhetoric, they don’t care about the poor or the marginalized. > > The Republicans have been planning this for decades. They are now systematically attempting to destroy from within the institutions that that many hold dear. They are ignoring laws, replacing career civil servants with partisan hacks and broadcasting propaganda daily. So lets stop pretending that this is all the fault of one person and realize that as a nation you bought this on yourself. Yes, I don’t disagree with anything you say in the last two paragraphs. It was a very close election, and there are innumerable factors that might hypothetically have tipped the balance the other way. What I don’t understand is how pointing out that the Democrats nominating a bad and uninspiring candidate is one of those factors constitutes “pretending that this is all the fault of one person”. You may say that her being bad and uninspiring is only my opinion, but the data clearly shows that, unlike any major party candidate in history (other than her opponent), she had a _negative_ net approval rating at the time of her nomination. This is democracy; if the majority think that someone is a bad\* candidate, they are by definition correct. \*“Bad” in the sense of “unlikely to win election”, not in the sense of “not smart or well qualified”. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/111 "2018-07-19T19:18:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > See, this is what I am talking about. Actually, yes, Sanders would have lost even worse. Maybe her Veep might have won, Kaine, since he is rather bland and a Southerner. Same with OMalley. I don’t understand why you’re framing blandness as a virtue, or a desirable trait for a candidate to have. At least in my lifetime, the bland candidates (Gore, Kerry, H Clinton) have lost, and the charismatic ones (W Clinton, GW Bush, Obama) have won. Marketing a presidential candidate isn’t all that different from marketing a car or a toothbrush, and blandness is not a good starting point. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/112 "2018-07-19T19:23:04Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > I don’t understand why you’re framing blandness as a virtue, or a desirable trait for a candidate to have. At least in my lifetime, the bland candidates (Gore, Kerry, H Clinton) have lost, and the charismatic ones (W Clinton, GW Bush, Obama) have won. Marketing a presidential candidate isn’t all that different from marketing a car or a toothbrush, and blandness is not a good starting point. Because things have changed. The Rove/Kremlin hate machine was a major player in the last election. Bill was pretty bland, \*politically. \* GW Bush was about as charismatic as a dead shrub. Hillary was anything but bland. But I am talking bland _politically_, not personally. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/113 "2018-07-19T23:21:17Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Yes, I don’t disagree with anything you say in the last two paragraphs. It was a very close election, and there are innumerable factors that might hypothetically have tipped the balance the other way. What I don’t understand is how pointing out that the Democrats nominating a bad and uninspiring candidate is one of those factors constitutes “pretending that this is all the fault of one person”. …“bad and uninspiring” is only your opinion. Millions considered otherwise. > [@](#): > > You may say that her being bad and uninspiring is only my opinion, I just did! > [@](#): > > but the data clearly shows that, unlike any major party candidate in history (other than her opponent), she had a _negative_ net approval rating at the time of her nomination. This is democracy; if the majority think that someone is a bad\* candidate, they are by definition correct. You are citing a single data-point that in isolation doesn’t tell us a lot. Considering the totality of the things that were going on behind the scenes of the last election I’m not going to take something that what appears to be a statistical outlier as particularly important. > [@](#): > > \*“Bad” in the sense of “unlikely to win election”, not in the sense of “not smart or well qualified”. Clinton was very likely to win the election. Every poll said so. So if we are using “likeliness” as a metric then Clinton wasn’t a bad candidate at all but a very very good one. Trump was unlikely to win the election, but it was possible that he might and he did. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/114 "2018-07-19T23:39:05Z")
That’s like saying that if Goliath defeats David, that proves that Goliath is a “very very good warrior.” A Goliath, by definition, has the tremendous upper hand over David. It would take a very bad Goliath to only narrowly defeat David - and in this instance, Goliath actually lost. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/115 "2018-07-20T00:19:24Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > That’s like saying that if Goliath defeats David, that proves that Goliath is a “very very good warrior.” A Goliath, by definition, has the tremendous upper hand over David. It would take a very bad Goliath to only narrowly defeat David - and in this instance, Goliath actually lost. …“likeliness to win” was the metric used by Thing Fish to quantify that Clinton was a “bad candidate.” But it didn’t do that, it did the opposite. That was all I’m pointing out. Its a bad metric. And you’ve just proven that for me. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/116 "2018-07-20T00:34:16Z")
Hillary, no. But Chaffee should take another run at it. He was by far the best part of the Democratic primary. Chaffee was clearly chiefin’ the cheeba before that first debate, and God bless him for it. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/117 "2018-07-20T01:08:35Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > … > The reality is that a whole lot of things happened at the last election and you can’t point to a single one and say “that’s why Trump is President.” The gerrymandering. The voter suppression. Figure I’ll point out for the billionth time since the election: gerrymandering doesn’t affect the Presidential vote. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/118 "2018-07-20T02:33:12Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …“bad and uninspiring” is only your opinion. Millions considered otherwise. > > I just did! > > You are citing a single data-point that in isolation doesn’t tell us a lot. Considering the totality of the things that were going on behind the scenes of the last election I’m not going to take something that what appears to be a statistical outlier as particularly important. > > Clinton was very likely to win the election. Every poll said so. So if we are using “likeliness” as a metric then Clinton wasn’t a bad candidate at all but a very very good one. Trump was unlikely to win the election, but it was possible that he might and he did. What do you mean, a “single data point”? What “statistical outlier”? Can you show me a single poll from 2016 that showed Clinton with a positive net approval? Do you even know what net approval is? Once again: that means that MOST AMERICANS DISLIKE HER. The only reason she came close to winning is that Trump was even more unpopular. Any normal Republican would have won in a landslide. I mean, what part of “Don’t nominate someone who most people don’t like” do you not understand? I realize you and millions of other people really like her, but you’re in a minority. This is not my opinion, [this is objective fact](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/clinton_favorableunfavorable-113). Clinton wasn’t “very likely” to win the election. On election day, 538 had her winning the popular vote by 3 points, giving her a 2-1 chance of winning. You think having only a 33% chance of electing Trump was good enough? Hypothetical polls consistently showed that Bernie would have beaten Trump by about ten points. Every other Democrat whose name was polled also outperformed Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/119 "2018-07-20T04:18:02Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Hypothetical polls consistently showed that Bernie would have beaten Trump by about ten points. I’m on your side of this argument, as I also thought Clinton was a poor choice of candidate overall. Some of which was her fault, some of which was not. But IMHO those hypothetical polls are pretty worthless. Also IMHO( obviously 🙂 )Sanders would have lost by an even larger margin - his “socialism” and lack of appeal to many minority voters( already an issue in Clinton’s defeat )would have doomed him as soon as the GOP had a hard target to focus on. And I say that as someone who’s politics are probably a little closer to Sanders than Clinton. Bernie would not have been our savior in the last election. Both of the main D contenders had some serious structural flaws built in. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873/120 "2018-07-20T04:28:08Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Can you show me a single poll from 2016 that showed Clinton with a positive net approval? Do you even know what net approval is? Once again: that means that MOST AMERICANS DISLIKE HER. The only reason she came close to winning is that Trump was even more unpopular. Any normal Republican would have won in a landslide. > …You think having only a 33% chance of electing Trump was good enough? Hypothetical polls consistently showed that Bernie would have beaten Trump by about ten points. Every other Democrat whose name was polled also outperformed Clinton. Yes, and it is interesting: > **[Hillary Clinton Favorability Timeline](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/05/19/hillary-clinton-approval-timeline/)** > > Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings have fluctuated substantially throughout her more than two decades in public life. Her ratings today are at the She actually had a high 65% approval rating until she announced her presidential bid and the kremlin and Karl Rove stepped up their fake news attack on her. Sure, Bernie was more popular- which would have been gone in 10 seconds after Rove and the Russians stopped attacking Hillary and started attacking him. Bernie would have gone down in flames. Now, Americans are a little wiser about Fake news, and the NSA & FBI have stopped most of the Russian stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-2020/817873.md?page=7)