Because her whole candidacy was a pile of shit, and the future is about more than one election. It’s an endless cycle, vote for our piece of shit because she is better than the other piece of shit. And the next time, and the next time etc.
Sleep in the same bed as the president and trade favors until you are crowned queen by the people you did favors for. Most people are unwilling to accept that as a permanent state of things,and many will vote against it on principle. The republicans had the brains to throw their chosen heir(Jeb) out with 2%or so. But The favor-trader Dems cackled gleefully as they expected to shove Hillary down the country’s throat. Hopefully The Hillary primary voters will learn from the debacle and help demand a party that answers to the members, and understands the climate, but from what I have seen they refuse to take any responsibility for it, and the cycle will likely continue.
Biden is kind of a bizarre establishment-but-not-too-establishment and would have easily won the General if he had made it,mostly by not being Trump, and not being Hillary.
I think Diamond Joe would have won going away, even with being an old white guy with the Obama stink on him a bit, and having a record of slight inappropriateness. Biden would have had no trouble locking in the firm Democrats, and would have had much more success with the more progressive population that Sanders was attracting, and the lower class white population, because they can relate to his roots. Joe comes across as authentic because of his lack of polish, and I doubt he would have ignored the upper Midwest working class the way HRC did.
The Donald and his followers would not have nearly the amount of ammunition against Biden that they had against HRC either. The worse that they could probably come up with is that he was a part of the Obama administration, which many people were very happy with anyway. Joe would have gone bare knuckles against him.
Let’s face it, HRC is a terrible candidate. I think she would have been an outstanding POTUS, but she is abhorred by a substantial amount of the population. And by Og, I am so tired of hearing about how she got more votes. The electoral college is not a new concept. Winning the popular vote, and losing the electoral college is not a new concept to Democrats. Those holding on to this nugget are those who will die on this cross again if they don’t embrace that the DNC blew it with their strategy in just about every way possible.
People keep saying that Hillary was “shoved down the throats” of progressive voters, which is Bernie-speak for “We woulda won the general”. But how in God’s name is this applicable to Joe Biden, who chose not to run. I don’t get how Hillary Clinton gets blamed for Beau Biden’s terminal cancer but shit, she and Bill get blamed for murdering Vince Foster and Seth Rich so why stop there, right?:rolleyes: The radical Left is not necessarily immune to conspiracy theories either, I’m afraid.
Look I know that Bernie supporters think the election was “stolen” from them, which is painfully obvious in their post-election venting and thinly-veiled schadenfreude over Hillary’s humiliating defeat last November. I agree that Hillary Clinton is an over-hyped and frankly poor campaigner, but again, is anyone besides a committed GOP cheerleader from the peanut gallery seriously arguing that Hillary Clinton is worse or even as bad as Donald Trump? In any case, there is zero evidence that any of the candidates who were defeated by Hillary Clinton would have beaten Donald Trump. If you want to submit that the Democratic party should have done a better job of cultivating a talent pool, I’d go along with that. And I think that’s still a major problem for the party - one of many.
My guess is he would have won the general, but we’ll never know. We’ll never know what Wikileaks and Russian hackers would have unearthed in his campaign’s emails, or what conspiracy theories right wing propagandists would have peddled. In any normal year, Hillary Clinton would have won anyway, but the electorate itself is in decline. Blame Hillary all we want, but there’s no saving ourselves from us. And that might be the biggest problem of all.
It’s not that people are “holding onto this nugget”; it’s that way too many people keep using a bait-and-switch argument on the subject.
A: “Clinton was a bad candidate, which is why she wasn’t as popular as Trump.”
B: “But Clinton was more popular than Trump, which is why she received three million more votes.”
A: “Yes but ELECTORAL COLLEGE! ELECTORAL COLLEGE! HA HA HA YOU SO STUPID!!!”
It’s certainly true that Clinton’s popularity wasn’t sufficiently geographically broad to translate into an EC win, but if people would knock off the bullshit “An EC win is more relevant than the popular vote when discussing who was more popular” argument, that’d be great.
There’s no way to know how Biden would have performed against Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. But the one time he did run against her in 2008, he lost. He would obviously benefit from a higher profile and mostly positive image now, but there are a lot of unknowns. Biden would have benefited from the GOP attacks on Clinton, but would there have been a point at which the GOP started shifting more of their attacks on him if it became clear that he was emerging as a threat in the general? Probably.
Clinton and Biden would have fought with each other while Bernie would have had his own thing going on. But then again, would Biden’s entry have made it more difficult for Sanders’ insurgency to get off the ground? Maybe, but who knows. That’s the problem with hindsight speculation. It really doesn’t tell us much. When you run a simulation, there are innumerable variables and permutations to consider.
I think this is probably the strongest case that one could make in comparing Hillary’s campaign to other hypothetical candidates. Other candidates, including Biden, would have been confronted with a carefully honed campaign against them, but not all candidates would have had the same blind spots that Hillary Clinton apparently had. On that point, I agree 100%. Skipping out on MI, WI, PA and other states in the closing weeks is something that will haunt her and her campaign staff for the rest of their lives.
Hillary Clinton as a real person and candidate wasn’t nearly as bad as the fictitious monster that the right created and that, sadly, much of America thought I hoped would know better, bought into. However, Hillary Clinton the real person and candidate had her obvious self-destructive tendencies. She not infrequently suffers from a catastrophic lack of self-awareness, and as it was with her husband, I think there’s a tendency to believe that she’s the smartest person in the room at times. She clearly has a disturbing tendency to ignore good advice, and to that end, I think it is indeed fair to question her judgment, despite all of her experience and credentials.
The one good thing that Biden would have done is call Bernie Sanders out on his bullshit. Can you imagine the wrath Biden would have laid on Sanders after Bernie’s idiotic New York Post interview which proved Sanders was just a gasbag? Biden would have ripped Bernie a new one with that silly stunt to jet off to Italy and ambush the Pope.
I voted for Hillary holding my nose very tight since she wasn’t Trump. I know friends who voted for third parties, stayed home, or voted or absurd things like “Obama third term” because Hillary was Hillary. These people aren’t sexists, the ones I know. These were Obama voters. They just despised the living fuck out of Hillary personally. A married Lesbian couple, both of whom are under 30, for example, from PA voted for Trump, ignoring all evidence that he wouldn’t be the most friendly to the LGBT community, because he wasn’t Hillary.
Now, my social world is just a small sample of the population as a whole. But…
I think Biden would’ve done better. People I know who despise Hillary love Biden.
I agree that Trump is worse. But you’d be surprised how many people see Trump as a hero trying to save American industry, and the Clintons as having helped destroy it.
I agree. Of course, at this point, I think it’s time to let the old party wither and die. Progressives need to start over, because the “Democratic Party” name isn’t worth fighting for anymore. The Clinton loyalists want it so bad, they can ride that sinking ship down to the sea floor.
I don’t really disagree. I think that this goes back to the campaign and the messaging by both candidates. Say whatever we want about Trump, he actually did have an economic message. People on the Left laughed at his “Bring back coal and steel” but they were missing the importance of the message: Trump was talking to a middling audience that has been largely socially conservative but economically progressive. From their point of view (not mine), it was bad enough that the Left had started to allow gay marriage and transgendered people in bathrooms of their choice – they could live with that mostly. But Clinton had no economic message for them. From their point of view, I kinda get it (even if I didn’t agree with it): the Democratic party had just assumed that they’d get their votes and stopped talking to them. Even if on some level they knew that Trump was bad for them, people have a fundamental need to feel respected and listened to. I knew Hillary didn’t get it when she was running clean energy ads in coal country. It was another Northeastern intellectual trying to tell them condescendingly: Hey, let’s just move on from your loss of industry! Evolve!
Meh, I really don’t think it’s necessary. But I don’t have confidence in Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi to be the kind of people needed to preside over a transition from the party of the Clintons to the party of something new and more meaningful to a new generation of voters. There needs to be some kind of coalition between successful Heartland democrats and more urban democrats. The biggest gap to bridge is the divide between rural & suburban America and urban America. I disagree with those who look at the recent special election losses as bad omens for the Democrats. The real takeaway is that Democrats need to stop just making assumptions about certain voting districts, and they need to get out and talk to voters instead of relying on money and data geeks.
I’m too lazy to read every post, so I’ll just say my opinion. Yes, Biden would have won, and besides his advantages in PA, MI, WI, OH, etc., Obama would have campaigned his tail off for him.
I remember when Eisenhower provided only very tepid endorsement of Nixon, unable to name a single program that Nixon led for him as his VP. Obama would have gone out and proclaimed that ‘if you liked me, you’ll love Joe!’, 'he did half my work for me and he’ll be a great President!"
The problem is that “Move on from your loss of industry and evolve” is the correct answer. It’s not a nice one or an easy one or a popular one but it is the one based in economic reality. “Vote for me and everything will be sunshine and rainbows” is certainly a much more popular, positive message. But it’s pure-D bullshit. Ironic that the Democrats are being considered “condescending” for treating mineworkers and their families as responsible adults instead of as toddlers being promised lollypops.
And worse: the Republicans are not only doing squat to bring back coal jobs, they’re also hacking funding for the government programs designed to help former miners re-skill for new careers. So that’s all working out great for them.
But hey, let’s keep blaming Hillary. Because that’s another easy answer.
I didn’t vote for Trump, I didn’t/would never vote for Hillary.
It’s unlikely that I would have voted for Joe “Obama’s 3rd Term” Biden but I would have been less displeased had he been elected than if Hillary had been.
Definitely yes. Biden is extremely likable and appeals to some of the same demographic that supported Trump. Hillary aroused huge hatred and still came very close to winning.
People should listen to me more. During mid-2016 I made several posts here asking how to get the Democrats to switch to Biden; responses were trite tautologies about the primary process. (I also made several posts identifying Pennsylvania as the key swing state; the responses all pointed out how ignorant I was — PA was a sure thing for Hillary. :smack: )
:smack: Plenty of smart people including Biden saw the risk of a losing Clinton candidacy. There were certainly “feelers” but they had to be kept subtle — it wasn’t a goal to further sabotage Clinton’s campaign. Yes, not entering primaries is a hurdle (more than a “bit”, as your own sarcastic tone implies); but it is* not insurmountable*. Hillary could have had a medical emergency (or pretended to have one for the good of the country).
I’ll assume I needn’t explain that the Democratic Convention could have chosen a “non-candidate” though your sarcastic tautology suggests this assumption might be wrong ).
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Biden would have beaten Trump. Webb would have beaten him too for that matter. Webb was basically the Democratic Trump but qualified and had detailed policy knowledge. Not that Democrats would have wanted Webb, but my point is that any reasonably strong, straight talking but intelligent candidate can beat Trump. The candidate you don’t want to put up against Trump, and this goes double for 2020, is one who has a fake public persona as Clinton did. That’s something to watch for the Cory Booker fans. That guy needs to stop carefully calculating the political significance of everything he says.
Seriously, Webb would not have beaten Trump. As I’ve said before, he was too conservative for most Democrats, too liberal for most Republicans, and too lacking in charisma for everyone else. He was a terrible candidate all around.
Yes, much better to have someone who just says whatever pops into his head at any given moment. That’s working out great.
Yeah in reality it’s working out great for the GOP. Just sayin’. I voted for HRC but would have happily voted for Biden. I don’t like how scripted HRC was. She reeked of political bullshit when she spoke, in my opinion. No matter how true were her words, they just seemed to be fake because she seemed so fake. She would have been a decent president I’m sure, but damn did she sound fake.
I’m a centerist type of guy, and I picked Obama in January 2007 when there were plenty of dem candidates at the time because this “nobody” seemed to actually be talking to me vs. reading a script of shit you are supposed to say.
During mid-2016 I made several posts here asking how to get the Democrats to switch to Biden; responses were trite tautologies about the primary process. (I also made several posts identifying Pennsylvania as the key swing state; the responses all pointed out how ignorant I was — PA was a sure thing for Hillary. :smack: )
).