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[Guevara]

Ignoring white working class voters in a country that is 70% white, and many important states are 85%+ white.

 

[Led_Zeppelin]

that's why bernie's emphasis on economic issues and the gross class divide in our country really resonated with me because it addressed so many different problems and groups of people. I think many people have said it before but when you're addressing the needs of the lower and middle classes you're addressing the needs of every group. those classes are made up of men, women, whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, christians, jews, muslims, etc. etc. etc.

This is literally Brexit 2.0, the liberal cities and politics gave for granted the support of the white working class, because "who are they going to vote for?", The Rust Belt states are literally the Brexit states, the polls failed massively on this states and almost every model have all of them not even as battleground states.

This have to be a wake up call, people don't vote for racist candidates because of their racism, they vote for racist candidates despite his racism because that candidate gives them economic populism, a way out of their problems, a light at the end of the tunnel. All while liberal in the cities (and politicians) denounce them of being racist, xenophobes, dumb people while doing nothing to the economic problems of this people.

 

[Zoe]

Ignoring white working class voters in a country that is 70% white, and many important states are 85%+ white.

I remember some people saying the white vote doesn't matter anymore because the minority votes will carry through.

 

[Phased]

God. GOD. This forum during this election was PRICELESS.

"She might take Texas & Georgia!"

I'll never forget those threads. Meanwhile, the democractic firewall was not only at play, Trump told everyone that was exactly what he was planning on overturning in order to win & everyone including HRC thought ignoring the Rust Belt would work out perfectly.

To be totally fair I'm not sure Trump expected to win at the end. He seemed completely shocked just like we all were.

Nobody in their right mind realistically expected Texas and Georgia to flip, and it highlights a major problem. We were way too focused on the inevitability of it all that we wrote off and completely dismissed/ignored the warning signs during the primary.

I wanted to believe people would come back by the end, but it seems like all the DNC shit that went on turned people off, and I can't blame them. The Donna Brazile leak pissed me off and I supported Clinton in the primary's.

If I was an on the fence Sanders supporter trying to decide if I wanted to vote for Clinton or stay home, that may have pushed me into staying home.

Giving DWS a spot in the campaign after she stepped down and all the bullshit was also a really bad move. I hope all of these people take a step back and let new people take charge or we're going to just end up back here in 4/8 years.

 

[ReadingRambo]

Ignoring white working class voters in a country that is 70% white, and many important states are 85%+ white.

It's baffling in hindsight. Democrats simply cannot win without the white vote.

 

[Boney]

OFA was great at this. Yet none of the OFA people became DNC people.

In fact his rival in Hillary actually got her people into the DNC top positions.

I always saw it not as the Clinton camp bowing to Obama, but in wake of not being able to control one of the most illustrious public speakers from overturning them, they invited him into their club - of how things really work in DC - while they just groomed Clinton for the next elections.

 

[jmizzal]

I think Biden would have won.

Hillary just has too much hate.

Yea Biden would have won for sure, even with the hate Hillary still won the popular vote. The states Hillary lost that Obama won were states Biden helped out a lot in. and she didnt lost those that badly.

I dont believe Bernie would have won, a lot of this is popularity and a lot of people dont even know Bernie still.

 

[Conkerkid11]

He did in a lot of places but the people don't pick the super delegates did.

http://usuncut.com/politics/superdelegates-robbed-voters-primary/

Somebody want to explain to me why the primary functions as all or nothing in terms of majority popular vote in a state, but before that, votes don't mean anything, and it all comes down to superdelegates?

 

[Neff]

Okay, but here's the kicker - so what? You want the right to call them all racists and condemn them. Congrats, you got that right. So now what? Dems have lost the House, they have lost the Senate, they have lost the Presidency. They are going to lose control of Supreme Court appointments that will last a whole generation.

People don't like being called racists and condemned and marginalized by those who look down on them even when it is factually accurate. Yes there are a bunch of under educated white men who cling to "traditional" values and are racist or at the very least fearful of minorities stealing their jobs or intruding on their white America. It's not a nice attitude to have. These might not be the best and brightest America has to offer.

But guess what, by continuously pushing them down and raising yourself up on a moral platform without offering an olive branch or any sort of solution for their troubles, you turn them against you hard. And it turns out there are much more of them than there are of you. You have the moral right, but you lost the ability to govern or make any meaningful impact in the government. These people continue to exist, these people continue to live amongst you. What will you do? Stick your head in the sand and cry that you are right and that the world is unfair?

The reality is that to solve social and economic problems you have to look past being morally right sometimes and be inclusive, unless you want to imagine a scenario where you can just ship all the people you don't like and don't agree with onto another island and then blow it up.

Sounds about right. If you treat uneducated, fearful people like animals, they're going to continue to behave like animals. Trump's voters constitute a far wider scale of demographics (including minorities and Obama voters) than many seem willing to accept, and categorising them with the same simple, blinkered view is neither productive nor accurate.

 

[Ithil]

It's baffling in hindsight. Democrats simply cannot win without the white vote.

Well they can, given they won the two previous elections while losing that vote, but they need to have it in the right states (namely the Rust Belt).

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Well they can, given they won the two previous elections while losing that vote, but they need to have it in the right states (namely the Rust Belt).

Clinton also got less of the white vote than Obama did.

 

[SolidSnakex]

God. GOD. This forum during this election was PRICELESS.

"She might take Texas & Georgia!"

I'll never forget those threads. Meanwhile, the democractic firewall was not only at play, Trump told everyone that was exactly what he was planning on overturning in order to win & everyone including HRC thought ignoring the Rust Belt would work out perfectly.

Here's Biden just a few months ago showing great concern about the fact that the Democratic party wasn't talking to the white working class

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g3py6RVrXQ

Ignoring those people turned out to be her downfall. It's why someone like Bernie has to be more of a face of the party, even if he's not going to be the president. They need more people like him and Biden that can reach out to those voters and let them know that they're still understood and wanted in the party.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Here's Biden just a few months ago showing great concern about the fact that the Democratic party wasn't talking to the white working class

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g3py6RVrXQ

Ignoring those people turned out to be her downfall. It's why someone like Bernie has to be more of a face of the party, even if he's not going to be the president. They need more people like him and Biden that can reach out to those voters and let them know that they're still understood and wanted in the party.

Jesus, so we know powerful democratic leaders know this. Let's hope they can hammer that message to DNC leadership and build a plan for that to move forward. If they can do that, there is hope.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

Yea Biden would have won for sure, even with the hate Hillary still won the popular vote. The states Hillary lost that Obama won were states Biden helped out a lot in. and she didnt lost those that badly.

I dont believe Bernie would have won, a lot of this is popularity and a lot of people dont even know Bernie still.

Bernie walked out of the convention the most popular sitting senator in the country with an approval rating of 65%+. Hillary Clinton walked out of the DNC sitting around 45% disapproval ratings and on bad days was in the 30% region. He's STILL the most popular sitting senator right now. Not only was Bernie's strategy the correct one, that 30%+ higher approval ratings than Clinton absolutely would have swung the outcome of this election.

One of the most important bits of data the Democrats ignored was polling on "Which presidential candidate most has my interests at heart?" which was done all throughout the primary. Bernie consistently dominated both Clinton and Trump.

When people walk into the voting booth they think about two things: "Do I like you. And are you strong." Both Clinton and Trump lose on likability, but Trump at least passes the strength test by at least appearing confident and making speeches as often as he could. Clinton on the other hand ran from the press, ran from doing rallies and campaigning and meeting voters.

People liked Bernie Sanders. They still like Bernie Sanders. And they like him because they feel like he cared about that. And Bernie Sanders projected strength far more than Clinton did. When democratic candidates go around saying "Oh boy I can't wait to work with Republicans in congress and big business because they're so right about everything." it shows weakness. Bernie's unapologetic campaign and belief in his platform was strong.

The Democratic party had everything they needed for a landslide victory handed to them on a silver platter and they decided losing was far more fun. If Bernie had won it would have upset all their friends on Wall Street, in the New York Washington bubble and in the cocktail circuit. It's better to risk Trump being president.

 

[Acorn]

Thinking that having the "sensible" candidate made a win certain. Shoulda tried Bernie.

 

[darkistheway]

I read an article yesterday that voiced the opinion that (based on European history) the only way to defeat the sort of message Trump espouses is with a true left. The Democratic Party is not that. And if they want to regain control of America's destiny they should take a long hard look at the movement that Sanders represents.

And yes, it is socialism.

 

[StormKing]

The Democratic party had everything they needed for a landslide victory handed to them on a silver platter and they decided losing was far more fun. If Bernie had won it would have upset all their friends on Wall Street, in the New York Washington bubble and in the cocktail circuit. It's better to risk Trump being president.

I think this is the key issue. The Democratic party is fundamentally a corporate party. Bernie Sanders was not a corporate and thus could not be allowed to win the primary.

 

[Polioliolio]

They didn't "screw up".

Yeah, maybe they didn't appeal to the right crowd, but fuck off if they need to change their positive message in order to strike a chord with the fuckers who voted for Trump.

It's the citizens who fucked up.

We need a culture of science and rationality over beliefs, and we need to usher it out into the world, pronto, because everything is going down the tubes. I've never seen so much reliance on lies and bullshit and deceit. That the media kept talking about "the emails" after they were investigated already, is part of the problem, and they totally legitimized Trump's bullshit platform by trying to play unbiased and neutral. Also, no one would call this fucker out. Not even Anderson Cooper tried hard enough.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Jesus, so we know powerful democratic leaders know this. Let's hope they can hammer that message to DNC leadership and build a plan for that to move forward. If they can do that, there is hope.

Here's an article that hits on how unbelievably arrogant and misguided Clinton was with her campaign

Last year, a prominent group of supporters asked Hillary Clinton to address a prestigious St. Patrick’s Day gathering at the University of Notre Dame, an invitation that previous presidential candidates had jumped on.

Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. had each addressed the group, and former President Bill Clinton was eager for his wife to attend. But Mrs. Clinton’s campaign refused, explaining to the organizers that white Catholics were not the audience she needed to spend time reaching out to.

And she ceded the white working-class voters who backed Mr. Clinton in 1992. Though she would never have won this demographic, her husband insisted that her campaign aides do more to try to cut into Mr. Trump’s support with these voters. They declined, reasoning that she was better off targeting college-educated suburban voters by hitting Mr. Trump on his temperament.

Early on, Mr. Clinton had pleaded with Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, to do more outreach with working-class white and rural voters. But his advice fell on deaf ears.

Former Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania also said he had encouraged campaign aides at Mrs. Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters to spread their vast resources outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and focus on rural white pockets of the state. “We had the resources to do both,” Mr. Rendell said Wednesday. “The campaign — and this was coming from Brooklyn — didn’t want to do it.” (Mr. Trump won Pennsylvania by one percentage point.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html

What the hell was she trying to do? It's interesting that the general frame of thought was what Trump was running the mess of the campaign, but we're quickly learning that in reality it was Clinton's campaign that was the mess.

 

[sflufan]

Edit - oops, see the post above mine!

The worst part is that the Trump campaign explicitly telegraphed what they were going to do: target the Rust Belt states. Which they did. Which they won.

This has to be THE MOST hubristically inept campaign in modern political history.

And for that, for her arrogance, we all will be paying the price for a very, very long time to come.

 

[Boney]

Here's an article that hits on how unbelievably arrogant and misguided Clinton was with her campaign

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html

What the hell was she trying to do? It's interesting that the general frame of thought was what Trump was running the mess of the campaign, but we're quickly learning that in reality it was Clinton's campaign that was the mess.

The way they've twisted demographics as just voting blocks is crazy. And people still get offended when someone suggests that.

 

[Baron Aloha]

Besides not choosing Bernie...

1. Running as the establishment and for Obama's 3rd term. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to see a democrat NOT run away from Obama for a change but she was too close to him. She basically promised more of the same/more incremental change. A lot of folks (Trump's voters, Bernie's voters) wanted more than just incremental changes.

2. Making it about her instead of about the American people. One of her main slogans was "I'm with her". Trumps was MAGA. When you hear him speak, he tells people how he's going to clean up corruption and fight for them (set aside for a moment the fact that it was BS). It was a populist message. When you hear her speak it was about "moving forward" and "breaking the glass ceiling" (her campaign calling people Bernie-bros and misogynists tied in with this). Also her campaign made too big deal about how qualified she was (almost as if to hint that she was entitled to the presidency on the basis of her qualifications alone). She should have learned from 2008 that people don't care about qualifications. Also 2000 Bush v. Gore is another example of that.

3. There was this air of inevitability about her. When you act like that, people are sort of inclined to reject it and be like "no, I'm not voting for you" maybe even if only on a subconscious level. Her campaign acted like that back in 2008 during her primary with Obama and it bit her in the ass back then too.

4. Focusing too much on the things Trump says and pointing out how he was a bigot and how he doesn't have the temperament to be president. The republicans tried that in the primary and it didn't work. That was his strength. People LIKE people who tell it "like it is". She should have spent more time pointing out how much of a liar/sham he is. I don't think I saw a single ad that mentioned that. All I saw were ads about his temperament. She should have also spent some of that time talking more about what she was going to do for the American people (see #2).

5. Not giving hardly any press conferences/speeches. Where the fuck was she? She needed to get her face out there more. Trump got TONS of free press whenever he gave a speech. She should have been out there more to counter his arguments. It seemed like every time I turned on the TV Trump was giving a speech somewhere. I think I saw Hillary give a speech like twice all summer/fall. The other two times I saw her get coverage was when she passed out on 9/11 and when the email scandal blew up again towards the end. Not good.

6. Focusing on "elect-ability" in the primary. Whenever dems vote on who they think is more electable (even if they might like someone else more) it backfires. See 2004 (Kerry/Dean) as another example of picking someone who was more "electable".

 

[SamVimes]

Until a little ago I thought Sanders would have had a better chance. Then I remembered the thread on gaf where so-called leftists in comfortable economic positions refused a tax hike for Healthcare. A tax hike that would have been offset by the insurance savings.
So I guess we were fucked with both Clinton and Sanders.

 

[old manatee]

Besides not choosing Bernie...

1. Running as the establishment and for Obama's 3rd term. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to see a democrat NOT run away from Obama for a change but she was too close to him. She basically promised more of the same/more incremental change. A lot of folks (Trump's voters, Bernie's voters) wanted more than just incremental changes.

2. Making it about her instead of about the American people. One of her main slogans was "I'm with her". Trumps was MAGA. When you hear him speak, he tells people how he's going to clean up corruption and fight for them (set aside for a moment the fact that it was BS). It was a populist message. When you hear her speak it was about "moving forward" and "breaking the glass ceiling" (her campaign calling people Bernie-bros and misogynists tied in with this). Also her campaign made too big deal about how qualified she was (almost as if to hint that she was entitled to the presidency on the basis of her qualifications alone). She should have learned from 2008 that people don't care about qualifications. Also 2000 Bush v. Gore is another example of that.

3. There was this air of inevitability about her. When you act like that, people are sort of inclined to reject it and be like "no, I'm not voting for you" maybe even if only on a subconscious level. Her campaign acted like that back in 2008 during her primary with Obama and it bit her in the ass back then too.

4. Focusing too much on the things Trump says and pointing out how he was a bigot and how he doesn't have the temperament to be president. The republicans tried that in the primary and it didn't work. That was his strength. People LIKE people who tell it "like it is". She should have spent more time pointing out how much of a liar/sham he is. I don't think I saw a single ad that mentioned that. All I saw were ads about his temperament. She should have also spent some of that time talking more about what she was going to do for the American people (see #2).

5. Not giving hardly any press conferences/speeches. Where the fuck was she? She needed to get her face out there more. Trump got TONS of free press whenever he gave a speech. She should have been out there more to counter his arguments. It seemed like every time I turned on the TV Trump was giving a speech somewhere. I think I saw Hillary give a speech like twice all summer/fall. The other two times I saw her get coverage was when she passed out on 9/11 and when the email scandal blew up again towards the end. Not good.

At home. She flew home every night to sleep in her own bed.

“There are ways to reach voters outside of campaign events that are targeted and efficient and very effective,” said Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for President Obama’s 2008 campaign who now works as a consultant.

Romney held 17 events in the two weeks between the first two presidential debates in 2012, according to the American Presidency Project at UC-Santa Barbara.

In the same time period this year, Clinton held 10 events, plus a few fundraisers and small meetings, while Trump did 19.

 

[Zelenogorsk]

We need a culture of science and rationality over beliefs, and we need to usher it out into the world, pronto, because everything is going down the tubes.

As someone stuck in a red state (Missouri) let me say this is basically impossible. Science is now a partisan issue. Any college that isn't explicitly Christian is seen as being infected with leftist bias. It will take an extinction level event before the average Republican voter admits that global warming is real.

We're fucked.

 

[KingV]

Well they can, given they won the two previous elections while losing that vote, but they need to have it in the right states (namely the Rust Belt).

They have to be competitive in the white vote.

They can lose it by like 5-7 points if everybody else turns out, but you can't go 60/40.

The Obama coalition was always super tenuous and in retrospect was going to be hard to replicate.

I think it was Van Jones that said if Romney won't 25% of the black vote he would have won the election.

Any coalition built on have 90+% of specific demographics is going to be fragile as fuck.

 

[soul creator]

They didn't "screw up".

Yeah, maybe they didn't appeal to the right crowd, but fuck off if they need to change their positive message in order to strike a chord with the fuckers who voted for Trump.

It's the citizens who fucked up.

We need a culture of science and rationality over beliefs, and we need to usher it out into the world, pronto, because everything is going down the tubes. I've never seen so much reliance on lies and bullshit and deceit. That the media kept talking about "the emails" after they were investigated already, is part of the problem, and they totally legitimized Trump's bullshit platform by trying to play unbiased and neutral. Also, no one would call this fucker out. Not even Anderson Cooper tried hard enough.

I don't disagree with all of your post, but I do wonder why you seem to imply that changing the current positive message automatically means switching to a less positive message, as opposed to just changing the type of positive message.

It's not like our choices here are only a Clinton 2016 message vs. a Trump 2016 message. Ironically enough, there's a third way...

 

[Zoe]

Until a little ago I thought Sanders would have had a better chance. Then I remembered the thread on gaf where so-called leftists in comfortable economic positions refused a tax hike for Healthcare. A tax hike that would have been offset by the insurance savings.
So I guess we were fucked with both Clinton and Sanders.

Would have had a shot of people didn't misrepresent his plan from the start.

 

[GamerJM]

I remember some people saying the white vote doesn't matter anymore because the minority votes will carry through.

The fact that I was one of the people who said this is a reason why I was so devastated when I heard the news. I had faith in America having reached a point where the white right is a minority that won't really matter anymore unless the party makes huge concessions on some of their stances on important issues, but clearly I was very, very wrong. Which both means that there was a major hole in my logic, and that the US is a significantly worse place (and the world, too, honestly) than I thought it was.

I'm sorry.

 

[Megalosaro]

The fact that I was one of the people who said this is a reason why I was so devastated when I heard the news. I had faith in America having reached a point where the white right is a minority that won't really matter anymore unless the party makes huge concessions on some of their stances on important issues, but clearly I was very, very wrong. Which both means that there was a major hole in my logic, and that the US is a significantly worse place (and the world, too, honestly) than I thought it was.

I'm sorry.

The "white right" is a minority. Just as the left is.

Most people are in the middle. And the this time the moderates were swayed more by the right then the left.

a lot of the same people who voted for Obama probably voted for trump

 

[Boney]

I also think that Citizens United was a major issue even if at a subconcious level. It being taken off the table after the primaries was a huge boon for Trump. The fact that he could flaunt about being able to donate money to get things done to his favour didn't hurt him, it directly affected Clinton as her being the Washington insider.

People are sick of the rich and their fundraisers, sick of being undermined by special interests. The position of outsider was one of the biggest advantages.

It's a shame too because now it's never getting overturned.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Here's an article that hits on how unbelievably arrogant and misguided Clinton was with her campaign


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html

What the hell was she trying to do? It's interesting that the general frame of thought was what Trump was running the mess of the campaign, but we're quickly learning that in reality it was Clinton's campaign that was the mess.

She seriously wasn't taking advice from Bill? Her husband who had won the presidency for two terms? WTF
If she had, we'd have the first female president.

 

[nynt9]

Would have had a shot of people didn't misrepresent his plan from the start.

During primary season, vox ran a hit piece on him almost every day, misrepresenting his policies and overstating the cost of his tax plan while not weighing it against the benefits.

He totally had a fair shot though guys, right?

Ironically, they've still failed to acknowledge any fault on part of the democrats and reflect.

 

[mrhyderager]

Did Hillary get more votes than Bernie because the DNC suppressed his message, kept telling everyone Hillary would win anyway so there's no point in voting for Bernie, and do everything in their power to stop him?

He still got the support of almost half the party despite all the attempts at silencing him, and he did better in states that lost her this election. And she did very little to bring in his supporters. She never set foot in Wisconsin.

I'm glad the election is over so posts like this are actually being listened to now. A week or so ago this kind of post was dismissed offhand as blasphemy.

I think the DNC's influence in the Primaries, along with uninvestigated claims of fraud and suppression played a MAJOR role in Bernie's loss.

 

[SneakersSO]

To be totally fair I'm not sure Trump expected to win at the end. He seemed completely shocked just like we all were.

Nobody in their right mind realistically expected Texas and Georgia to flip, and it highlights a major problem. We were way too focused on the inevitability of it all that we wrote off and completely dismissed/ignored the warning signs during the primary.

I wanted to believe people would come back by the end, but it seems like all the DNC shit that went on turned people off, and I can't blame them. The Donna Brazile leak pissed me off and I supported Clinton in the primary's.

If I was an on the fence Sanders supporter trying to decide if I wanted to vote for Clinton or stay home, that may have pushed me into staying home.

Giving DWS a spot in the campaign after she stepped down and all the bullshit was also a really bad move. I hope all of these people take a step back and let new people take charge or we're going to just end up back here in 4/8 years.

I was a registered democrat who would actually participate in politics as far as organization and helping people get out to vote & register and all that. I left the party before the DNC convention specifically because of all the emails that came out basically confirming that there was an effort by the DNC to quell Sanders & his movement in favor of Clinton. I remember how the media & many HRC supporters called us conspiracy theorists & crazy when we had no evidence, and when we got just a tiny peak behind the veil and were proven correct, people shrugged their shoulders and said it was politics as usual.

And no, I didn't come out & vote for either candidate. My state still went for HRC. I down ticketed all the other dems though, cause lord knows I don't want people who share my background being affected on the local level by the GOP and their nonsense.

 

[SneakersSO]

Here's an article that hits on how unbelievably arrogant and misguided Clinton was with her campaign

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html

What the hell was she trying to do? It's interesting that the general frame of thought was what Trump was running the mess of the campaign, but we're quickly learning that in reality it was Clinton's campaign that was the mess.

Ya know what I hear when I read these excerpts? That the aides & HRC did not want to focus on the white working class in this country? I keep hearing the same shrill, liberal voices that are currently expressing their disdain on this forum and lambasting anyone who says we need to try & appeal more to rural America on the simple notion that they are all just racist/sexist/xenophobic.

You're just not going to win an election in this country if you don't try to appeal to everyone, and that includes white working class voters.

 

[demon]

Ya know what I hear when I read these excerpts? That the aides & HRC did not want to focus on the white working class in this country? I keep hearing the same shrill, liberal voices that are currently expressing their disdain on this forum and lambasting anyone who says we need to try & appeal more to rural America on the simple notion that they are all just racist/sexist/xenophobic.

You're just not going to win an election in this country if you don't try to appeal to everyone, and that includes white working class voters.

Eerily reminiscent of what people were saying about Republicans and the minority vote. Kind of ironic, actually.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Here's an article that hits on how unbelievably arrogant and misguided Clinton was with her campaign









http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html
What the hell was she trying to do? It's interesting that the general frame of thought was what Trump was running the mess of the campaign, but we're quickly learning that in reality it was Clinton's campaign that was the mess.

Wow so maybe the problem wasn't even fully with democratic leadership who clearly saw the issues to address. But really squarely on HRC and her circle who propped each other up.

Even ignoring Bill? What the fuck?!

That at least gives me hope this is fixable. But goddamn what a slap in the face.

 

[SneakersSO]

Wow so maybe the problem wasn't even fully with democratic leadership who clearly saw the issues to address. But really squarely on HRC and her circle who propped each other up.

Even ignoring Bill? What the fuck?!

That at least gives me hope this is fixable. But goddamn what a slap in the face.

Nah, its also with DNC leadership. Remember, DWS took a position within the Clinton campaign after she had to step down when Bernie emails came to light in July. Who stepped in after she did? Donna Brazile, who we now know was feeding the Clinton campaign information while she was a CNN commentator.

DNC leadership & HRC Campaign were so intertwined, you can't really tell where one stopped & the other started.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Nah, its also with DNC leadership. Remember, DWS took a position within the Clinton campaign after she had to step down when Bernie emails came to light in July. Who stepped in after she did? Donna Brazile, who we now know was feeding the Clinton campaign information while she was a CNN commentator.

DNC leadership & HRC Campaign were so intertwined, you can't really tell where one stopped & the other started.

Sorry, meant democratic leaders like Biden, Bill Clinton. DNC leadership like DWS, Brazil, etc. are part of that Hillary circle.

 

[SneakersSO]

Sorry, meant democratic leaders like Biden, Bill Clinton. DNC leadership like DWS, Brazil, etc. are part of that Hillary circle.

Biden & Sanders are basically the voices we should be listening to as the DNC works to rebuild itself. Its unfortunate that Bidan got talked out of running by the DNC, cause he would've won this in a landslide.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Ya know what I hear when I read these excerpts? That the aides & HRC did not want to focus on the white working class in this country? I keep hearing the same shrill, liberal voices that are currently expressing their disdain on this forum and lambasting anyone who says we need to try & appeal more to rural America on the simple notion that they are all just racist/sexist/xenophobic.

You're just not going to win an election in this country if you don't try to appeal to everyone, and that includes white working class voters.

I'll again go back to Biden as I found yet another video of him explaining his frustration with the lack of attention paid toward that demographic

http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/vp-biden-we-ve-lost-touch-with-working-class-793534019849

And this video is from late October. So, even more recent. I really get the impression that he regrets not running. I don't think he expected Hillary to run such a terrible campaign by just completely giving the middle finger to that group.

Wow so maybe the problem wasn't even fully with democratic leadership who clearly saw the issues to address. But really squarely on HRC and her circle who propped each other up.

Even ignoring Bill? What the fuck?!

That at least gives me hope this is fixable. But goddamn what a slap in the face.

Yes, I think that's one of the few positives that Dems can take from this election. This was not a rejection of this as a party. It was a rejection of Hillary and her narrowminded view of who mattered. Dems need to get out there and start rebuilding bridges. I can't imagine Trump being good for the white working class, so they'll be all ears for someone new.

I've always kind of rolled my eyes when I heard people talking about "liberal elites". But when you read about how Hillary ran her campaign, you understand exactly who they were talking about.

 

[qcf x2]

Yea Biden would have won for sure, even with the hate Hillary still won the popular vote. The states Hillary lost that Obama won were states Biden helped out a lot in. and she didnt lost those that badly.

I dont believe Bernie would have won, a lot of this is popularity and a lot of people dont even know Bernie still.

Biden would have had a better chance than Hillary for a couple reasons but he literally still represented "more of the same," I mean it doesn't get much more similar than being VP for 8 yrs and then becoming President. The desire for change played a big part in the voting. Bernie would have won by a bigger margin than Trump did though. "A lot of people dont even know Bernie still" -- not sure where you're getting that from, but if he was the nominee the debates and commercials and interviews etc would be down to 2 candidates: he and Trump. Everybody would know who he was.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Biden would have had a better chance than Hillary for a couple reasons but he literally still represented "more of the same," I mean it doesn't get much more similar than being VP for 8 yrs and then becoming President. The desire for change played a big part in the voting. Bernie would have won by a bigger margin than Trump did though. "A lot of people dont even know Bernie still" -- not sure where you're getting that from, but if he was the nominee the debates and commercials and interviews etc would be down to 2 candidates: he and Trump. Everybody would know who he was.

And think to 2008, nobody really knew who Obama was.

 

[gutter_trash]

too much focus on Negative Ads,

very little effort of making big positive policy ads on various themes

Trump made a positive ad about putting people to work, a good ad.

Dems barely made any ads selling voters what their were promoting.

Family Leave, Payed Leaver, Equal Pay, Minimum Wage hike, Tuition Free for low income, Middle Class Tax breaks.......... no ads at all on any of those

 

[Septimus Prime]

Until a little ago I thought Sanders would have had a better chance. Then I remembered the thread on gaf where so-called leftists in comfortable economic positions refused a tax hike for Healthcare. A tax hike that would have been offset by the insurance savings.
So I guess we were fucked with both Clinton and Sanders.

No, because you're still in the mindset that policy is what wins an election, when we were just shown that that's not the right paradigm.

Americans are going to go down one of two paths on this: either they don't care enough to learn more about what candidates' policies are and how the candidates plan to enact them, or they are savvy enough to know that what will happen during the actual presidential term isn't going to be what the candidate says will happen anyway. In both cases, policy doesn't matter, so they're going to vote on whom they feel would be a better leader, based on things like sentiment and likability. This is where Clinton falls flat.

 

[Jenov]

Ya know what I hear when I read these excerpts? That the aides & HRC did not want to focus on the white working class in this country? I keep hearing the same shrill, liberal voices that are currently expressing their disdain on this forum and lambasting anyone who says we need to try & appeal more to rural America on the simple notion that they are all just racist/sexist/xenophobic.

You're just not going to win an election in this country if you don't try to appeal to everyone, and that includes white working class voters.

Yup. They foolishly applied Obama's coalition strat and took for granted the white working class as a guaranteed voting bloc for them. To be fair, even the fucking pollsters whose job it is to figure out the voters leanings in these areas completely dropped the ball. We had pollsters projecting 84% chance and higher Clinton wins in places like WI. What a farce. So yeah, if Clinton's inner circle were looking at polls like that, then they were ignoring Bill and Biden's insistence to go there, because hey, look at what the polls say! Such nearsightedness and misinformation >< Painful. And yes, we should NOT have been labeling everyone as bigots in rural America, that's a common problem with liberals, even on this forum.

 

[SamVimes]

No, because you're still in the mindset that policy is what wins an election, when we were just shown that that's not the right paradigm.

Americans are going to go down one of two paths on this: either they don't care enough to learn more about what candidates' policies are and how the candidates plan to enact them, or they are savvy enough to know that what will happen during the actual presidential term isn't going to be what the candidate says will happen anyway. In both cases, policy doesn't matter, so they're going to vote on whom they feel would be a better leader, based on things like sentiment and likability. This is where Clinton falls flat.

That's absolutely not what I believe. I just think that there is a really high chance that Trump just shouting "more taxes" would have brought about the same result.

 

[Chariot]

Dems barely made any ads selling voters what their were promoting.

I haven't seen all Clinton ads, but the ones I have seen had either too much Hillary Clinton in it or too much Donald Trump. Especially when compared to some Bernie's ad where the majority of the ad was about an issue first and only then lead into why Bernie Sanders is good to handle the issue. I was a very big fan of the It's Not Over ad and all that followed.

 

[Septimus Prime]

That's absolutely not what I believe. I just think that there is a really high chance that Trump just shouting "more taxes" would have brought about the same result.

Well, hindsight is 50/50, so we'll never actually know, but when I did speak with the Trump supporters that I knew, their major concerns were about Hillary's "corruption" mainly and how Trump would break the system, whereas Hillary is the system. None of it is actually couched in policy.