Reid blames Comey for Hillary Clinton's loss

[yallerdawg]

Source: The Hill, by Rebecca Savransky

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday blamed FBI Director James Comey for Hillary Clinton's loss in the presidential election.

"Comey helped [President-elect Donald] Trump significantly," Reid said in an interview with CNN.

"A week before the election, he came out with this, 'Oh, we found some more emails,' and, as a result of that, we lost Senate seats, and, I think, we lost the presidency."

When asked if Comey "singlehandedly" swayed the election, Reid said Clinton "would have won" had Comey not "written that letter" shortly before Election Day.

"We would have picked up at least two more Senate seats," he added.

Read the rest at: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/309964-reid-blames-comey-for-hillary-clintons-loss

[RKP5637]

1. IMO it's blatantly obvious that Comey swayed the election and the timing is "highly" suspicious! nt

[SHRED]

2. Wasn't Reid part of the "Gang of 12" this summer?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/11/obama-and-congress-knew-about-russian-hacking-and-they-did-nothing.html

[yallerdawg]

4. This was no secret. Everyone knew it. We don't "know" what they did.

Reid said he urged Comey to address the hacking, which intelligence agencies have concluded was the result of Russian efforts to tilt the election toward Trump.

"I am saying the FBI did nothing -- did nothing. All the information that we've heard in the last couple weeks, it was available to the FBI. He just ignored it. He did not make it public. We asked him to more than once and he didn't do it," Reid said.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/12/politics/harry-reid-james-comey-election/index.html

[ZoomBubba]

3. That oversimplifies it ...

... Come may have been the final stroke of a thousand cuts, but to lay the blame totally on him ignores the other 999 missteps from this election.

[yallerdawg]

5. Elections turn on the last thing a voter remembers in the booth.

That's why we have the "October surprise."

Now we can have November surprises!

It really is that simple!

[HoneyBadger]

7. I think that this is the December surprise

What will be the January surprise?

[yallerdawg]

10. For some of us, the surprise will be...

not a damn thing happens.

[ZoomBubba]

11. Clinton and Trump ...

... were historically unpopular from the get go. Clinton had a wide lead that kept narrowing and was already very narrow by the time Comey came out with his news on the emails. I'm am still not certain that Comey keeping it to himself would've made a difference ... it was that close.

I would actually blame Bernie Sanders' primary campaign for doing the most damage. That non-Democrat running for the Democratic nomination divided the party and turned it on itself. It still hasn't recovered. Had he quit when it was obvious he was going to lose, like in March, then the party would have had a chance to pull together. But he instead stepped up his attacks and poisoned the minds of his followers to the point where they protested the Democratic nomination, even while he was saying "fall in line." Many of those protesters said "I would rather Trump be president than Hillary."

[yallerdawg]

14. Election Night no reputable polling had indicated Corrupt Trump could win.

That is why it was so stunning.

Where some people say Hillary should have won by a landslide, they ignore just how bad that primary hurt her.

And you can see that in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

[ZoomBubba]

18. I hope in 2020 ...

... that when the writing is on the wall, the losing candidate will step aside.

But honestly, we need a schedule that won't drag on forever. If we can compress the primary season down to four weeks, that would be a great change. Of course, we'd need to divide delegates where they're evenly distributed across weeks.

[uponit7771]

23. Its factually and empirically provable that Comey brought down HRC's numbers ... what he did was

... illegal at best

[ZoomBubba]

33. HRC's numbers were already low ...

... Comey might have put it over the edge, but she had declined to within 1 or 2 percentage points of Trump before that. To just blame Comey for it all, and not the damage by Sanders' campaign (at least 10 percent of his voters chose to not vote Hillary) or other missteps (c'mon, she ignored the upper midwest to campaign in states she knew she was going to lose like Arizona and Texas). She died from a thousand little cuts and Comey was just the last.

[uponit7771]

34. That's like saying "the ref who tripped the player on purpose didn't cause the team to lose...

... ... that very close game" and that's bullshit on its face.

You're not going to get away with that position on this forum, Comey was a factor that in and of itself is illegal period and he should be facing jail time for what he did.

[ZoomBubba]

36. Woah ...

... I didn't say that he didn't do anything long. I just said he was the last wound that brought her down. I don't see any point in getting angry about it now. It's just something to take into account, learn from and move on.

[brush]

28. Bullshit. Comey swung the election to Trump, and if you think Clinton's campaign had 999 . . .

missteps, what about the p_ssy grabber's 99,999 missteps? She clobbered him in every debate, he ran a scam uninvesity, and on and on and on.

Comey should have been fired the minute he released that second letter that essentially said, "never mind".

[ZoomBubba]

35. So?

Clinton's missteps just hurt her more. Trump was also better at taking advantage of her's while she did a worse job of taking advantage of his.

[brush]

37. Wrong again. It's simple, Comey and Putin are the only reason Trump won.

[ZoomBubba]

38. That's very simplistic ...

... you're basically saying "it's all them, we didn't do anything that needs to be re-examined."

I can't take you very seriously if all you want to do is shovel all the blame onto outside parties.

[brush]

39. I can't take you seriously either if you can't see what everyone else sees. It's not that . . .

complicated. Read the rest of the comments on this thread.

Clinton won all the debates decisively, she lead in all the polls until the Comey letter, in fact, she won nearly 3 milllion more votes so you can't say she ran a horrible campaign.

Sure, every campaign has missteps, but without the Comey/Putin thumb on the scale, Trump's missteps far outweighed hers.

[ZoomBubba]

40. Apparently they didn't ...

... or she would have won. You keep ignoring that she was already within spitting distance of Trump at that point. So close that it is actually hard to tell whether Comey made an actual difference in the end result. The 10 percent of Bernie supporters who chose not to vote for her can be said to be a bigger factor.

[brush]

41. Yeah, yeah, downplay it if you want, but the Comey letter was the deciding thing.

Guess you're on of the Bob 10% that chose not to vote for her?

If so, you got your wish. Congratulations.

[ZoomBubba]

42. Now you're trying to attack me ...

... a guy that voted for Hillary. I guess that means you can't really find any flaws in my argument. Thank you for conceding to me.

[brush]

43. Concede to this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028361081

[ZoomBubba]

44. An opinion is an opinion ...

... which is all anyone is offering. Anyway, it doesn't prove that Clinton would have won otherwise ... nothing does.

[JaneQPublic]

6. Nate Silver made a similar remark.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/807987340941684736

"I'll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter)."

[yallerdawg]

8. To my mind...

Russia and WikiLeaks was just more BS, just like decades of rightwing spin and attacks. We knew what it was.

What Comey did - that was unprecedented, and that was from one of ours! And he did it twice!

[SHRED]

9. Comey is a Republican.

[yallerdawg]

12. But he's not a Russian.

So he has a hell of a lot more credibility!

[SHRED]

13. okay...now I get what you were saying

[brush]

29. Maybe he did once. No more. And not a peek from him since. Must be in hiding, ashamed that . . .

he put a Putin puppet in the White House.

[uponit7771]

24. What Comey did was illegal, I think it was in response to Obama request for bipartisan statement

[Wellstone ruled]

15. When that letter hit,

we were picking up negative comments about Clinton on our Phone Banking. Secondly,our paid Staffers were not getting their phone calls answered at DNC headquarters,just like someone turned out the lights.

[yallerdawg]

17. I am not an idol worshipper - Hillary was simply the best...

but the crap Comey pulled stunned me to the core. Both times.

He made the accusations and slander seem possible, instead of pure fantasy.

The follow-ups cleared her, but the damage was done.

[Wellstone ruled]

20. Was a Bernie oganizer until we

got clobbered in the Primaries. Been a Dem since 1958,been through tons of crap. In saying that,when
when our Crew Paid staffers were not getting answers,truly pissed me off,told the Crew leader,we are in trouble and you better get some answers cause we are losing this Campaign. The stunned look was amazing,handed her a phone and she found out first hand. Had Hillary gone Hot that Friday night and Saturday,she could have saved it.

[LisaL]

26. The follow up hurt her instead of helping her.

Just 3 days before the election, it got headlines that she avoided prosecution yet again (instead of being exonerated). Both letters were damaging.

[get the red out]

16. I agree with him

And the FBI let the Trump campaign know it was coming.

[oasis]

19. Comey IS the culprit. He has marked his place in U.S. History.

[mvd]

21. It was treason IMO

And makes me wonder even more if we are a compromised country. It was not Bernie or Green Party votes or even Clinton's baggage/message (though this last one kept it close) that ultimately lost it. Comey changed the direction of the election. We need electors to change their minds and deny Trump due to Comey and Russian interference.

[jaxind]

22. Comey/Republican Operative

If Comey isn't a republican operative, than why did he come out shortly before the election saying there needs to be more investigations into Clinton's emails, but he didn't come out before the election to say that we need to investigate the Russian hacking of our elections??

[LisaL]

27. Well, exactly.

Not a peep out of him about Russian hacking but he managed to write two letters about Clinton's emails just days before an election.

[LisaL]

25. I think it's pretty obvious that Reid is correct on this.

It affected those voters who were wishy washy and Hillary lost that point she couldn't affect to lose.

[JudyM]

30. Reid's weakass leadership all these years hurt her, as well.

[andym]

31. Comey reinforced the innuendo that had brought Clinton to the mid 30's in favorability

which itself was tied to earlier GOP attacks via Congressional investigations and Comey's less than complete exoneration in the summer. It's difficult to dismiss the impact of active FBI investigations on the public. What Comey did was basically throw the election to Trump. When the news came out that Friday, I began to dread the outcome of the upcoming election. The only thing that was somewhat reassuring was that the polls were still showing Hillary leading a week later. But the second Comey letter on Sunday that cleared her again, probably was the straw that broke the camel's back as it kept the issue fresh in voters' minds.

[UCmeNdc]

32. Reid is telling you to investigate Roger Stone.......

He needs to be put under oath.