Did Hillary Clinton lose because she was forced too far to the Left?

[karynnj]

71. The election was so close that there are likely many possible causes that each could be blamed

If you followed the polls, it is very clear that the Comey letter speaking of potential new emails on Weiner's computer caused a definite shift in her numbers. Not to mention ANY time there was more discussion of the email issue, it was bad for Clinton. Here, though I obviously have nothing to back up the claim, I would bet that anything that mentioned Anthony Weiner was not good.

You can't see a similar dip correlated with anything released by Wikileaks from the Russian hacks. However, the DNC hacking info came out as the Democratic convention was about to begin. The convention helped and - in spite of the hacks - the party, for the most part, came together and, by all accounts at the time, had a very good, positive convention - especially compared to the near train wreck the Republicans had. Hillary was stronger coming out of the convention than going in. As to the impact, is it possible that without those hacks, the impact of the convention would have been greater? As to the Podesta emails, they really exposed little negative. However, they formed a constant drip of stories that were not making Clinton look good and made her look dishonest on TPP --- and diminishing the spotlight on Trump's inadequacies. Could it have made the small difference that the election turned on? It would be hard to make the case for it AND hard to rule it out.

As to the issues she moved left on, one that might have hurt was TPP. Not because so many people supported it, but because it was a 180 degree shift from her public positions in 2013 and 2014. I think HRC had a dilemma. Her main accomplishment as Secretary of State was the "pivot to Asia", which TPP was the centerpiece. She spoke as SoS, that it was the gold standard. Had that been the last time she spoke positively of it, she could say that it was Obama's policy and as top diplomat, she was selling it. However, she was positive about it until about 2014. The Goldman Sachs talks given then were consistent with her public position at that time. However, when they were leaked (from Podesta's email), they were a stark contrast to her position in both the primary and the general election. This fueled Republican allegations that she was dishonest - and said one thing in public and one thing in private - ignoring that she was pro TPP in 2013/2014 when these talks were given. This is ONE issue where without the challenge from Sanders, she might have been very very vague in the primaries and the general election, suggesting that tweaks would be needed.

As it was - I suspect that it hurt her credibility and that it may have caused her to lose votes on BOTH sides. On the left, I suspect there were some who trusted Trump's America First rhetoric and suspected that if she won, she and Obama would likely work to get it passed in the lame duck.

Another possibility was that these were people voting for a Supreme Court Justice with one issue on their mind - abortion. Those states have a large Catholic population. Note that in 2008 and 2012, no conservative justice was likely to be replaced. In 2004 and 2016, Rehnquist and Scalia were definitely going to be replaced -- and there was a more intense effort to "save" the conservative seat.