Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[André]

Young Donald didn't listen to Mutti 

[Karl Henning]

Maybe I'm a Liberal (probably I'm a Liberal);  but I agree with this statement.

Liberals can complain about James Comey all they want, but blame for the investigation that helped sink the Clinton campaign lies squarely with the candidate herself.

[Karl Henning]

The Real Reason Clinton Lost

"Shattered" is a cliche-clogged slog in itself. The authors made a deal with sources within Clinton's campaign not to write anything until after the election and to treat what they learned as "on background" — meaning the sources would not be named. This leads to a heavy drizzle of the words "source" and "sources" and, after a while, a certain resistance on the part of the reader: Who are these people? Even banalities are privileged: "It was a very hard 10 days," a source says about some very hard days.

The other word that keeps coming at you is "message." Clinton did not have one, and the search for a message preoccupied her staff. Oddly, and fatally, Clinton left it up to them to articulate why she was running. As a mental exercise, I tried to come up with a message myself: "Hillary Clinton — because she's not Trump" is the best I could do. As it turned out, she could do no better.

[amw]

Hillary Clinton: the third season of Obama with an all-new cast!

[71 dB]

Hillary Clinton: the third season of Obama with an all-new cast!

A third season of anything is better than Trump... 

[Karl Henning]

I was relieved (we might say) that Richard Cohen frankly disclosed that Hillary's problem, and loss, were her own: no actual message apart from "I'm the adult option." And relieved that he calls out the book for the vague sludge that it must be.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[amw]

A third season of anything is better than Trump... 

That's what most of the voters thought too! >.>

[BasilValentine]

Maybe I'm a Liberal (probably I'm a Liberal);  but I agree with this statement.

Liberals can complain about James Comey all they want, but blame for the investigation that helped sink the Clinton campaign lies squarely with the candidate herself.

Yes, you can agree, but the statement is meaningless deflection. Comey's leap back onto the scene eleven days out might well have swung the election. We can't really know. He was just another collaborator in the Russian efforts to undermine our democracy, one of many stupidly unwitting ones.   

[Karl Henning]

The reason why it is not mere meaningless deflection is, that at several stages, the server, the cover-up, the long period of cagey non-apology, it was a hot festering unforced error on her part.  She was a bad candidate.  Yes, the whole Russian interference issue is part of the problem; but she'd made herself a fat target.

[Todd]

She was a bad candidate.

You are a master of understatement.

[Karl Henning]

You almost make me self-conscious for having repeated myself.

[Parsifal]

Yes, you can agree, but the statement is meaningless deflection. Comey's leap back onto the scene eleven days out might well have swung the election. We can't really know. He was just another collaborator in the Russian efforts to undermine our democracy, one of many stupidly unwitting ones.

I read an article, perhaps in the NYTimes, that said that the evaporation of Clinton's lead after the last-minute Comey interference actually came from polling that came before Comey's action.

The problem was Clinton, whose reason for running was unclear, aside from, "it's my turn." And her recent re-emergence with more blame deflection for her loss (Comey, the Russians) makes me even more disgusted. For the good of the Democratic Party, she needs to go away, and to take Bill and Chelsie with her.

More generally, the Democrats have to find a better talking point than "Trump is a disgrace." They need an argument which does not disparage Trump supporters. It is hard to believe that one can't be found, given that Trump's populism has given way to a policy which consists largely of handing out cash to billionaires.

[Karl Henning]

[...] For the good of the Democratic Party, she needs to go away, and to take Bill and Chelsie with her.

More generally, the Democrats have to find a better talking point than "Trump is a disgrace."

Absolutely.

[Pat B]

The problem was Clinton, whose reason for running was unclear, aside from, "it's my turn." And her recent re-emergence with more blame deflection for her loss (Comey, the Russians) makes me even more disgusted. For the good of the Democratic Party, she needs to go away, and to take Bill and Chelsie with her.

In a campaign and election filled with bafflement, one of the most inexplicable choices was the Ds' collective decision to clear the path for Hillary Clinton. Her tenures in the Senate and at State were neither successful nor progressive, she is an adequate but not great orator with no clear message, and though the Benghazi/email investigations were brazenly partisan, they were still an obvious risk. It is as if the Ds thought that the only things that mattered were campaign funding, name recognition, and a clean primary.

[Todd]

It is as if the Ds thought that the only things that mattered were campaign funding, name recognition, and a clean primary.

That's the same thinking behind the Jeb! campaign.

[BasilValentine]

The reason why it is not mere meaningless deflection is, that at several stages, the server, the cover-up, the long period of cagey non-apology, it was a hot festering unforced error on her part.  She was a bad candidate.  Yes, the whole Russian interference issue is part of the problem; but she'd made herself a fat target.

Of course she was a bad candidate. I don't disagree with any of the disparagement in these last few pages, of Clinton or the dems. But she was a bad candidate who might well have beaten a worse candidate. It is just silly to assume the unwitting complicity of Comey was not a deciding factor. The margin was tiny and we don't know.

[snyprrr]

It was @GrandeFunne up to the @Honest&FreeElection, and @GoodTrolling for a while after that, but, now, just listen to yourselves whining and moping as if it's 1985. tsk tsk

a) you act as if ANY OTHER LIVING HUMAN ON THE PLANET, much less Hillary, or Jeb, or, oy!, I don't even remember who was running ,... but, you really think this "deep state" thing would be "having the talk" with them too? Wasn't even Obama given "the talk" (lol, you know, the one where they show each new prez the real zabpruder film)?

Maybe Trump exposes the mechanisms that have been in place, by being such a prick and making everybody scramble to hide their porn and booze and drugs and whatever else it is that @GovernmentWorkers are actually known for.- so that they're making blunders and exposing themselves for the hacks they are.

Everyone wants a gubmint job around here. Everyone. Everyone's trying to get their friend to get them in, for all the goodies. All the goodies.

I'm guessing all the @TrumpHaterz are gov workers afraid their yum yum stick is going to get taken away?



Go watch the video called "8 Teachers Get Hurt in Girl Fight", and ask yourselves what mentality is in someone of such frail, bird-like proportions that makes them think that they can inject themselves into any situation without thought. Well, that's what I liken all this @OldFashionedPoliticalTalk that is trying to make sense of the way the world is here in 2017. You can't seem to do it. You're stuck in the ... 80s most likely.

Left wing, Right wing,... but you never speak of the double headed eagle that those wings are attached to.

You chafe against Trump, but fail to see how YOU got him here. Yea, YOU are the one thing that links the last 30 years of "elections" together into a cohesive whole. YOU. ME. .

How many decades has YOUR @CongressCritter "served"


And you chafe against this guy, oy vey, grow up and learn who rules you.


Let me know when you start making $1 less because of him, until then, poppa pleez. I just started making what I was hired at about 13 years ago. I know better than to blame T at this time. STOP.

[Madiel]

Fivethirtyeight.com recently discussed the Comey announcement and its effect on the polling and concluded that yes, there was a sufficient effect there to have potentially changed the outcome in the swing states.

Personally no outrage flows from that. I always felt there was a strong element of lose-lose for Comey, whether he spoke or didn't.

[snyprrr]

It was @GrandeFunne up to the @Honest&FreeElection, and @GoodTrolling for a while after that, but, now, just listen to yourselves whining and moping as if it's 1985. tsk tsk

a) you act as if ANY OTHER LIVING HUMAN ON THE PLANET, much less Hillary, or Jeb, or, oy!, I don't even remember who was running ,... but, you really think this "deep state" thing would be "having the talk" with them too? Wasn't even Obama given "the talk" (lol, you know, the one where they show each new prez the real zabpruder film)?

Maybe Trump exposes the mechanisms that have been in place, by being such a prick and making everybody scramble to hide their porn and booze and drugs and whatever else it is that @GovernmentWorkers are actually known for.- so that they're making blunders and exposing themselves for the hacks they are.

Everyone wants a gubmint job around here. Everyone. Everyone's trying to get their friend to get them in, for all the goodies. All the goodies.

I'm guessing all the @TrumpHaterz are gov workers afraid their yum yum stick is going to get taken away?



Go watch the video called "8 Teachers Get Hurt in Girl Fight", and ask yourselves what mentality is in someone of such frail, bird-like proportions that makes them think that they can inject themselves into any situation without thought. Well, that's what I liken all this @OldFashionedPoliticalTalk that is trying to make sense of the way the world is here in 2017. You can't seem to do it. You're stuck in the ... 80s most likely.

Left wing, Right wing,... but you never speak of the double headed eagle that those wings are attached to.

You chafe against Trump, but fail to see how YOU got him here. Yea, YOU are the one thing that links the last 30 years of "elections" together into a cohesive whole. YOU. ME. .

How many decades has YOUR @CongressCritter "served"


And you chafe against this guy, oy vey, grow up and learn who rules you.


Let me know when you start making $1 less because of him, until then, poppa pleez. I just started making what I was hired at about 13 years ago. I know better than to blame T at this time. STOP.

lol, wrong threade

[Todd]

Looks like Trump reads GMG; Comey was canned.