This is what I think sealed her fate:
The real coup happened 8 years ago when the finance industry decided to save itself and threw all of its weight behind a very weak Democratic candidate. The recession was too long, the stimulus too little, the ACA too expensive and stingy for many people. Obama compromised too much, accommodated the Republicans too often. It was by design.
Often, when the Obamas and Clintons were campaigning together, I thought it might be a mistake. Yeah, he’s got a certain cool. Michelle is eloquent. But they tied themselves at the hip.
You can really dislike the Obama years without being a racist. A Bernie person was allowed to do this. The Bernie people were right about so many things. I spoke to many when I canvassed during the primaries and knew exactly where they were coming from. I was speaking to the middle class voters who were scared to death of losing their jobs, futures, everything in the next financial market catastrophe. They were sick to death of how corporate America treated them as disposable objects. I just didn’t think Bernie could win. I still don’t think he could have won. If he’d been nominated, the media would have eviscerated him.
Two weeks ago, we were looking at a Hillary landslide. She was well on her way to capturing everything. She adopted Bernie’s platform. That didn’t sink her. She debated brilliantly. She was a tireless campaigner.
She did everything right.
But she couldn’t overcome the anger of the Great Recession when not even one banker went to jail.
And now, not one ever will.
Her best shot was 2008. It was ripped away from her.
Rage won.
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The Confluence 
Excellent. Irony: the market is crashing. He caused the next ‘financial market catastrophe.’
Right – just like Brexit no doubt, where the markets bounced back to par the next day.
Great Britain’s economy is peanuts compared to the US.
I think this could be the beginning of a serious downgrade for us. Plus, there’s the climate problem, infrastructure issues.
Internet access. Didja ever think of that?? Do you know what Melania was talking about when she referred to online bullying? Think about it. The whole internet in the US is in the hands of a vengeful man.
We all have very good reasons to be concerned right about now.
Well, I know you think he’s petty – time will tell, but I don’t think so. Instead, I hope he does take revenge but on the US media. It is an oligopoly and deserves to be broken up using the old trust-busting scheme. I think that at least is something we can all agree on.
As for the economy, we’ve been hurtling towards catastrophe for a while now: $20 trillion in debt, huge trade deficits, stock market and real estate bubbles. No doubt the PTB will attempt to pin the baked-in catastrophe on Trump. He’s got his work cut out for him.
Yes. You’re right. Rage won. We all lose.
You are completely right. Obama tried to be bi-partisan and did too little to override the recession, put a greater emphasis on the ACA than on the economy and did too little to make the country stronger economically. In the end, he had no coattails for Hillary.
And all the Democrats that were entranced by him in 2008 set up the falls of 2010 with the Tea Party and 2014 when the mid-terms put the Republicans firmly in control of Congress.
The media failed to go after Trump. She wasn’t helped by the late problems with Comey that lost her momentum.
We are truly screwed and what can Obama do with Comey. Trump will all halt prosecution of Comey or pardon him.
Truly a disaster.
Often, when the Obamas and Clintons were campaigning together, I thought it might be a mistake. […] Her best shot was 2008. It was ripped away from her.
You and I have seen this campaign with the same eye. I had an uneasy feeling all along and told my husband last night after FL started foundering that campaigning with the Obamas was a mistake.
Blaming Obama is nonsense. Both her and Trump were far more unpopular than Obama, who would have won if he he could legally run the third time.
She lost the election, and that isn’t Obama’s fault.
Neither Clinton nor Obama lost this election.
Hate won it. 👿
She was as close to a perfect candidate we’re ever going to see.
If you’re saying she wasn’t an entertainer, then we have to ask ourselves if entertainment value translated to the Oval Office, where I expect Trump will install a gilded throne behind his pink marble desk (with water feature).
She gave everything and up until two weeks ago was cruising to a landslide win. What happened after that was out of her control. There was nothing she could do to stop the slide.
Do not blame her. We will not see anyone like her for a generation or more. And the country will be worse for it.
No, she wasn’t. You’ve been telling yourself that for eight years and have come to believe it. If she was so close to being perfect, how did she get blindsided twice?
Indeed, her best shot was in 2008. And why exactly was there an opening for a junior Senator with so little experience to defeat her?
The so-called weak candidate won. Twice. Your “as close to perfect candidate as we’re ever going to see” was defeated twice. By political rookies.
Keep holding on to that belief that the “most qualified candidate ever” had it ripped away from her. Blame others, blame Obama, blame rage, blame anyone but the politician who has been blindsided three times now, in three decades.
Democrats never learn, do we? Our war veteran candidate was too spineless to beat a draft dodger. It took a financial panic and war weariness to make Candidate Milquetoast electable, and now the “most qualified candidate ever” just lost to an idiot narcissist.
Democrats.
I don’t agree. Did you actually watch the debates?? That is not a failed candidate. That was somebody who routinely beat the shit out of Obama on the debate stage too.
Hillary was brought down by a relentless campaign to portray her as untrustworthy. The exact opposite is the case. She disclosed almost everything and the media found… nothing.
What do we know about Trump?
– We haven’t seen his taxes. Not important.
– We have no idea how he’s going to put an effective firewall between his companies and official government business.
– We don’t know anything about his policies, really. He wasn’t hired for his policies. He was hired for entertainment value.
– We know he’s petty and vengeful, he doesn’t focus well on business before him, he’s reckless and blames others for everything.
Trump was a vehicle for rage. It wouldn’t matter who was the nominee. Well, I take that back. Anyone who could have picked up on the cues that Fox et al have been planting could have channeled the rage. It didn’t have to be trump. And he’s not particularly bright. More Mussolini than Hitler.
Hillary was also a vehicle. She was the container for all the contempt that was generated when the Democrats put the old coalition on an ice floe and told it to fend for itself. Obama has been president for 8 years and even though I acknowledge him as a legitimately elected president, I know damn well he respresented that socio economic class of my former suburb in NJ. Upscale, two parents with professional credentials, mom stays at home, dad shmoozes his way to the top based on his golf game and pedigree. His policies were not meant to benefit me even when I was a well paid professional in the pharma industry. He was non-threatening to the suburban Republicans.
We’re all going to suffer now that the old coalition has gotten its revenge. Oh, they’ll come around soon enough, once the media starts digging into Donald now that he has the spotlight all to himself. But it’s too late. And if I were the Republicans, I’d move as swiftly as possible to lock down voting, internet, media etc so that they’re never threatened again.
See if they don’t.
This has been in the works for 8 years. Despite the contempt for Clinton from the right, left and media, she nearly won.
She was very, very good and our lives would have been appreciably better for it. But we’ll never get a chance to find out.
Why? I guess we’re forgetting the rampant gender discrimination throughout both campaigns (the Illinois National Organization for Women did not endorse Obama based on his lack of support for laws that would have helped women, which reflects the USA’s historical practices of favoring with the vote non-white males before women of any race. Gender discrimination has proven itself to be so deeply embedded in the culture of the country that even an unqualified man who brags about assaulting women has been elected to the presidency over a highly qualified and experienced woman, and even when other so-called “developed” countries have long since broken this barrier. THE U.S. IS NOT A DEVELOPED COUNTRY.
Take it away, Captain.
“The recession was too long, the stimulus too little, the ACA too expensive and stingy for many people. Obama compromised too much, accommodated the Republicans too often. It was by design.” Yet Obama was still able to win reelection with all those issue. I really doubt not campaigning with Obama would have helped her. If she distanced herself she would have done worse. Alot of people just plain don’t like her and I think Sanders exposed her alot during the primary. She wasn’t able to resonate with voters in the midwest like Obama and Biden did and that’s why she lost.
Yes, that’s clearly why she won the popular vote last night.
Nobody liked her.
I want to put my $.02 worth about Sanders because although he was right about everything he said, he never blamed Obama for any of it. Never!. Instead he went after Hillary with all sort of accusations. I never cared for Sanders, and I doubt I would have voted for him if he had been the nominee, just like I didn’t vote for Obama both times.
Another point is that I don’t doubt that Sanders was encouraged to go after Hillary, make it to the convention for a fight in order to slide Biden as the nominee. It was clear in March of this year after Super-Tuesday, that Sanders would not win. But he kept the fight, wounding Hillary, and voters ended up believing she wanted the presidency for her own wealth. I say this because there were two meetings between Sanders and Obama with Biden that were extremely fishy.
I don’t buy that Obama had to remain ‘neutral’. Presidents often support a candidate within their party. No, Hillary was back-stabbed in 2008 and 2016. Hillary took the blame for Benghazi and Obama never defended his policies which were the reason for the calamity in Benghazi.
I will swear until I die that 2008 fucked us up beyond all recognition.
I agree with you….
2008… We won’t forget
Time to go back and re-read Edward Gibbon, starting where despots and demagogues take over governing the Roman Empire.
I said in 2009 that she made an enormous error when she accepted the gig as Secretary of State. That choice disallowed her from running as an outsider and an Obama critic (when criticism was warranted).
Joe, the nailed her on innocuous emails. That just shows you that no matter how good and honest you are, you are not perfect and that imperfection can be used against you.
Let’s stop blaming the victim, ok?
Wasn’t blaming her, and I quite agree that she was victimized. I just never liked Obama, as you know. Thus, I did not want Hillary to be sullied by association with his administration. That’s what I wrote nearly eight years ago, and it’s the way I feel now.
She would have done better as the fighting liberal senator. Had she chosen that path, in 2016 SHE would have been the Bernie of this election.
I agree 100% that she could have been an excellent ‘opposition’ in the senate, or start some movement. But it’s not Hillary. I recognize that she wants to be inside the system, not outside making trouble. She’s not some rebellion leader.
The blacks, an important faction of the Ds were drooling at the sight of Obama. Her enemies would have despised her even more if she did that during Obama’s first term. It’s difficult to rip apart the party and then get elected by the same. Maybe with a new party, but that’s also a long shot.
I agree with your analysis above. Hillary would have won easily in 2008, with the meltdown. I don’t think it was just bankers who got Obama nominated, it was also the Democratic Left, the Jacobins who “just didn’t quite like the Clintons,” even though they saved the Democratic Party from perpetual national defeat. They loved Obama because he is African-American, and because he gave some poetic speeches. They fixed caucuses, or otherwise Hillary would have cruised to the nomination.
And, yes, we had the presidency and the congress by comfortable margins, and not enough was done. Somehow Obama is not blamed for that by the Left, but Hillary is. So now we have the person whom I completely agree is the best candidate I have ever seen, with her career over; and all of Obama’s work will be undone in short order. We needed 16 years at least, to reset the Supreme Court, and make major changes to our system; and we probably would have gotten it, had not Obama been urged to run, and jumped at the oppportunity. And that is the tragedy of our era, which we will probably never recover from.
I completely agree with William that Bill Clinton kept the Dems from perpetual defeat for the presidency. After the 1988 election, Republicans came to feel that the presidency was “their” office. The Democratic left of center did not like a moderate approach, but it was the only one after the retrenchment that began with Nixon and Reagan.
I agree with riverdaughter and bellecat that Hillary would have won easily in 2008 yet the woman was expected to make way for the man. And it was a man who could have used more experience and more testing before he was nominee. He put a higher priority on the ACA than on the economy. If he brought back the economy, he would have had the political capital for the ACA. Instead we lost Congress in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Their depth was greater than ours.
With a Republican Congress and President, things will happen. All who voted for Trump must not have thought “be careful what you wish for since you might get it.”
I think you are right in your analysis. Hillary was the candidate for 2008 and she was winning. The Dems should have let her win, installed Obama as her VP and they would have owned the system for 16 years. But No. And Obama should have sent a bunch of financial industry people to prison complete with perp walks. But No.
The financial markets are up by the way. The economy isn’t going to crash because of the election.
Thank you, RiverDaughter for your tenacity, all these years.
Take a good long rest everyone.
Then when you’re ready, gather your strength. We need you to come back into the fight… and fight hard.
The electoral system has got to go! In 2000 we should’ve been fighting tirelessly to make it a thing of ancient history, but we let it slide and hoped it wouldn’t fail us again. When you give about 3 or 4 states the power to control the rest of us, a dangerous demagogue rises to power. Couple that with a complicit media who has relentlessly covered the non-issue email story and Benghazi. They had an obligation to warn and protect us from the dangerous sociopath who was elected last night. Add an immense amount of sexism and this is what happens.
I have lost all faith at this point. If someone like Hillary can’t breakthrough then I feel there is no hope for us. Thank you all for fighting the good the fight since 2008 & for seeing the truth & for recognizing the brilliance and strength and sensitivity and beauty that is Hillary Rodham Clinton