I was reading an story in the WP concerning the new book on the Clinton campaign, Shattered by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.
It talks about the phone calls from the White House urging Hillary to concede the first of which I was surprised to find was just after 11pm EST.
I can’t understand why the President was in such a hurry for Hillary to concede. Some of the results were so close and what did it matter if there were “messy recounts” if those recounts might usher Clinton into the White House?
American politics is often a mystery to me but this one has me baffled.
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Obama, as a Constitutional scholar (and as a black man) knows how shaky the foundations of Constitutional laws can be, that it can often be interpreted this way rather than that, but almost just as readily back, and it is really public confidence in the consistency of that interpretation and the legitimacy of the democratic institutions that actually keep the population civil.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I think [POST=19811477]Post #20[/POST] from that thread is the most prescience I have ever inadvertently displayed:Well, he hasn’t said that he’s no longer keeping us “in suspense”. He could still step up and challenge the results as being “rigged”. I mean, it is not what a normal or reasonable person would do, but I think it is well established that Trump is not either of those things.
What kind of terminally obtuse fuckhole do you have to be to question the legitimacy of your own election? That is some real Marx Brothers comedy right there. It is as if Dave Chappelle fell asleep one night while watching Duck Soup and came into the writers’ room next day saying, “Hey guys, I had a great idea for a sketch! Donald Trump decides to run for President and wins…and then…”
Don’t you remember? In the weeks before Election Day, Trump repeatedly said the election was rigged. It was only after he actually won that, lo and behold, it turned out that the election was fair, free and entirely proper after all.
Donald Trump is a novelty in politics: a sore winner who just can’t let go of the fact that he wasn’t elected by 97% of the voters like all of his Central African strongman compatriots that he is apparently competing with to be the most buffoonish autocrat in history.
How did a thread on why the President asked Ms. Clinton to concede early turn into another jump all over the President thread? :dubious:
I believe the President did what he did because he realized it was over, and it was only the hang on until the last gasp of breath media types and politicians who were still waiting for some deus ex machina to save the night. But after weeks (months?) of bashing Mr. Trump for his repeated claims that the election was going to be “stolen”, it would have been quite bad for the Democrats to take up that cry themselves. Indeed, the efforts to try and overturn the results in the three midwestern states just made Democrats look silly, or worse, like cry-babies who can’t accept reality.
Point of fact: it was Jill Stein and the Green Party which called for, litigated, and funded the recount efforts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Agree 100% - we live in a legal fiction which has held up well so far cause people have cared enough about our country to do the right thing when it mattered.
This is why Nixon didn’t challenge Kennedy when there was a pretty good case to be made for vote fraud, why Cheney kept that letter in his safe, some justices have written strategic decisions to avoid constitutional crises (effectively throwing the case the way they wanted to survive and fight another day - allegedly), some presidents have gambled on the reverse, and other stuff if I paid more attention I could recall.
It is also important that the world sees that we can survive this - huge gamble, but we don’t have much of a choice.
There were tons of stories about how Trump may not accept the election results if he lost. Democrats and many news sources wrote editorials about how awful that was that he would only accept the results if he won. They said he shouldn’t question the validity of the system etc.
I think it would have looked hypocritical if Hilary then did the same thing.
Democrats have an unfortunate tendency to put high value on the principle of being the “bigger person”. It gets them into heaven sooner, or they can sleep at night, or look at themselves in the mirror, or something like that.
Whereas, ISTM that on the other side, it is the old salesman’s canard at work “Always Be Closing!”
So, being a good Democrat, Obama pushed for concession at soon as he could justify it (Wisconsin being a tipping point), so we could all pat ourselves on the back for being the “bigger person”.
What can’t it be what was said up thread. Obama, being a consummate politician, who could somewhat dispassionately and from afar judge that the election was over, felt it needed to tell Clinton, surrounded by aids telling her to “hold on the count will swing in your favor” (as all big pols from both parties are told) the truth and give her a boost to concede. He’s the leader of the party, and he felt that a day of hand wringing wasn’t good for his party or her personally.
To me, being the bigger person connotes giving up something for the great good, or sacrificing something in the interest of good relations. I don’t think she did this at all. I think she did what was expected of her, nothing more. I believe that Obama wanted to ensure she did what was expected and didn’t want her to sacrifice her or their reputation by holding out.
A “bigger person” is someone who gives up a potential advantage in order to serve some larger purpose that advantages the general “whole” of a population.
So if President Obama had advised her to concede early on the theory that dragging out the concession would cause disruption in our society, leaving lingering feelings of bad blood between the parties, that would be him arguing she should be the “bigger person.”
Here, he was simply pointing out that the perceived rationale for not conceding was wrong, that it was actually in the best interests of the party and the campaign itself to concede, even though there was still some minuscule mathematical possibility of pulling out a win. That’s not being the “bigger person”, that’s being the “intelligent person.”