Obama already knew what was in the pipe for Trump in Co as far as the Russia stuff and rather than draw out the fight, wanted to let Trump fully hang himself.
You know, I hear this strategy from time to time. “Let the other side win, and then when they enact all their stupid policies the American voters will realize how bad the other side is, and then they’ll vote for us, and we’ll win everything.”
I might have heard more a wrongheaded political strategy somewhere, but if I have I can’t remember it.
Obama told her it was time to concede because the election was over and Clinton had lost.
But does concession have any legal effort? Suppose that when they completed the final counts a few weeks later it turned out that Clinton had actually won. She would still be declared the victor and become the President even though she had conceded.
Conceding the election has no legal standing, but politically, conceding and then renigging would look like sour grapes. I suspect Obama was taking the long view that it would be better to concede this election (which, absent of any evidence that the actual ballot counting process was compromised, would go to Trump regardless) and take the high ground rather than open up the Democratic party to accusations of hypocrisy in terms of criticizing Trump for undermining electoral confidence and then making the challenge themselves.
And while it clearly wasn’t a deliberate strategy of handing the election to the Republicans, the practical effect has been to both splinter the GOP into competing factions and showing them to be just as ineffectual as the Democrats when they have total control of the legislature and executive branch and with no one left to blame. They’ve still tried to make the claim that they’re being bitched up by Chuck Schumer and Liz Warren, and even Obama himself, which is pretty amazing on his part given that he seems to have spent much of his time preparing for the 2017 Summer X Games in Minnesota. He makes conspiracy look so easy and stylish, like a boss in the world of political machinations. I hear Marvel is trying to recruit Obama to take over the role of Nick Fury when Samuel L. Jackson finally retires because they think he’s the only guy who can pull off the dry comedic timing and icy stare with only one eye.
Stranger
No, it isn’t. There’s no problem that happens if she waits to concede until all the votes are in. There’s nothing intelligent about that.
Sure, if she refused to concede at all, that could create all the problems you guys cite. But refusing to concede until there was literally no chance? That costs nothing.
I still have not seen an explanation for a tactical decision to concede then, and not after it became a mathematical impossibility for her to win. If anything, that seems to be better for the base–that you hung on until the bitter end.
Not doing so does, in fact, seem to me to be “being the better person.”
And of course we are going to talk about Trump. Trump’s evilness is a whole lot of the reason why people were against her conceding. If he had been pretty much anyone else, everyone would be happy that Clinton was “doing the right thing.”
It really is not what the phrase means. You can be the bigger man and drop an argument rather than drag it out and this superficially looks like that. But it’s not. Everyone with a clue knew who would be the final winner long before her concession and refusing to follow the tradition of conceding when it looks over would have made her look petty and desperate. That doesn’t mean following the tradition make her the bigger person.
Actually, I think it is quite simple. Hillary’s husband had already seen a nasty fight over the presidency in 2000 with Al Gore. 77,000 votes over 3 states sucks, but that was too much to overcome. Obama wanted a smooth transition of power, not endless lawsuits such as 2000.