Trump Was/Is So Bad Howdy Doody Should Have Beat Him Handily.

[TheMastersNemesis]

Even as bad a campaign and Hillary supposedly ran Trump was so bad and so toxic she still should have won handily. What happened says so much about the stupidity and apathy of the electorate. It took a lot of demented and racist people to vote for Trump. We cannot get past that.

Sure Hillary could have run a better campaign but I wonder if it really would have done any good considering all the opposition and mayhem she faced. Just about everything possible was thrown at her and the Democrats. Nothing had improved for the aggrieved voters because the GOP stopped just about everything for 8 years.

The obstruction was so obvious that it was not even funny. The failure to see that really further exposes the deep hatred and racism that infects the country. The Southern strategy has worked all to well since Nixon.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. The "bad campaign" idea is a rightwing talking point, it was not a bad campaign.

It could have been better, it could have been worse.

The right kept pretending to be the left and kept calling it a "bad campaign" and she was a "weak" candidate.

Not true.

The right is very good at "framing" the conversation and since they never, ever tell the truth, well, you get the rest.

[delisen]

2. Clinton warned about the Russian influence when other who knew refused to give

the facts to the people.

[unblock]

3. this campaign should show just how effective the media can be at manipulating public opinion.

donnie could very, very easily have been dismissed entirely, or presented as a danger, or a clown, and a complete joke candidate.

while there were certainly elements of this, the media as a whole presented him as one of two credible and plausible candidates, as a highly entertaining figure, as someone we were all falling over ourselves to hear what he had to say, and someone who was a normal candidate from one of the two major, serious national parties. ok, maybe not entirely normal hinself, but in any event, the candidate from a normal party.

in other words, they made it comfortable for people to think, if you vote republican, donnie's your guy.
they made it a choice between two horrible candidates.
they made it a choice between rejecting the status quo and voting for change.


imagine if the media had been more objective about who donnie is and what he's capable (or not) of. a fair comparison between donnie and hillary would have meant hillary, no contest (which is one of the reasons why the media didn't want to be fair).

hell, imagine if the media actually had the supposed "left-wing bias" so many on the right self-servingly insist it has. hillary would have won easily in a landslide.


the media is *hugely* powerful in shaping public opinion.

[hurple]

4. Hillary's campaign

Was damn near note-perfect.

What sunk her was the issues entirely out of her campaign's control.

The fake news stories, the anti-Hillary memes, the Bernie-bros continued trolling, the email hacking, Comey's interference, and 20+ years of right-wing media endlessly bashing her over anything and everything, for the sole purpose of making her look bad when she ran for Prez.

Take away any one of those things and she would have won, handily.

Take away just the Russian/Putin interference and all the items listed above they were responsible for... she would have won in a landslide!

And, beyond that, even, the final numbers still just do not add up. I will go to my grave convinced that Russian hackers got into the 6 battleground states tabulating programs and manipulated the final vote totals. For him to win *all* 6 states and all of them by *just* enough to not trigger an automatic re-count... that just screams shenanigans. We need an audit of all those states. I know it won't make a difference now, but it will answer lingering questions.

[TheMastersNemesis]

6. I Believe The Same Thing. The Chances Of Those States Falling That Way Not Possible.

It was more than a coincidence. It was stolen. Clear and simple.

[apcalc]

7. I agree....just eke out a win...had to be hacked.

[apcalc]

5. Hillary ran a well researched campaign.

The i 's were dotted, t's crossed etc

She was a great candidate, well prepared, well educated, smart and able.

It took the bias of the media, the Russians, parts of the Comey led FBI, misogyny and sexism , and years of Congressional Republican led fake scandals to beat her....barely.

No candidate has ever withstood more.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Three. Million. Votes.

Hillary's huge winning margin.

The problem wasn't her campaign. It was the existence of the Electoral College combined with massive voter suppression. Every Democratic candidate is going to face the same problem unless we can take back state governments. Longer term, we also have to somehow get rid of the EC.