‘Democratic Party Has No Earthly Idea Why Hillary Clinton Lost’

[ApatheticAustrian]

i don't have a problem with losing.

and i don't have a problem with people gloating that the democrats did worse than expected with WCW.

i have a problem if people make talking points about it which would only fit if a majority would have voted for trump like "will of the people" and bla.

the US system is done in a way to confuse and obstruct the will of the people and make sure the pandering system is followed.

nothing wrong with that since a majority of states seems to be fine with it and the constitution is god.

just to be sure:

to win in the US it's important to win a collection of special interest groups, not a majority of voters...simple as that.

[Confused Democrat]

See, but Hillary did not lose. She won. More people voted for her than for Trump.

So let's get it straight. It's the outdated electoral college gig that needs to get the heave-ho. Hillary was a much more respectable candidate than Trump could ever hope to be. And she won.

It's the Republicans who think they have some sort of "mandate" or whatever. They're the ones who need to do a reality check.

Can we PLEASE stop with this "she won the popular vote" crap. Neither candidate was campaigning to win the popular vote; they were campaigning in swing states in order to win the electoral college.

It's not a fair argument.

Yes, I don't like the electoral college as much as the next guy, but these are constitutional rules in play. You don't get to change the rules in the middle of a play or reject those you don't like, especially after the fact.

Hillary ran to win a majority in the electoral college and she failed.

Now, should we have a serious discussion about doing away with the electoral college? Yes. Is this a valid argument in favor of institution a popular vote system? Absolutely. But let's not get distracted from why Trump is going to be the next President not her.

Following 2000 a lot of people adopted "lol, it's just a fluke, we did nothing wrong and we don't have to do our own autopsy" attitude, ignoring all other factors that allowed Bush to win. Well, it was a mistake.

Kindly, get over with your grieving process.

Why don't you give me a break. Whether or not people are going through the "grieving process" as you say, it is not your call to tell anyone to get over it. Why don't YOU get over the fact that people are not acting like you think they should or saying what you think they should.

You are in charge of you, not anyone else.

And in my mind and in many people's thinking, Hillary did win. It also happened to Gore. Something is wrong with this picture and I'm surprised that more people aren't outraged about how our undemocratic election process works.

Popular vote this, Russia that, unfair media coverage here, Bernie bros there. I love how the Democratic establishment is willing to point fingers at everyone and anyone but themselves. Stop talking about Russia, stop talking about the electoral college, JUST STOP. None of this is helpful.

Hillary lost. Lick your wounds and prepare to fight like hell.

[ApatheticAustrian]

fighting and investigating russia has nothing at all to do to "steal" trump's victory but making sure, what putin is doing in the US and how to stop it.

[Virginiá]

So if there is a parallel, the Dems may have to ask whether it's better to nominate a trusted insider who can lock up support like Mondale or Hillary, but aren't effective candidates on the national stage. Or is it worth the risk of an outsider taking over the party either to lose big like McGovern did in 72, or win as an outsider without DC allies as Carter did in 76?

The power brokers are always going to find a way to convince themselves that their trusted candidate of choice is "good enough" and will win and won't rock the boat. But, I also believe that such a loss like this can make opposition less cohesive, particularly when a major theme of the last election was how the insiders played games and made moves to get their pick nominated and then saw her lose when her insanely large number of vulnerabilities that were obvious from the beginning of the primaries dragged her down.

In an ideal world, the powers that be would have looked at Clinton's past issues and the emerging email scandal and worked against her while trying to pull someone like Biden (at least) in. Really, if we're going to have primaries though, the party should encourage competition and not favor one candidate or the other unless one of them has many past scandals or other issues (like a Trump-type or Clinton). Otherwise if we're just going to have a system where the party leaders fall in line behind a favorite and try to clear the path for them, we might as well just go back to convention picks.

[Deblano]

See, but Hillary did not lose. She won. More people voted for her than for Trump.

So let's get it straight. It's the outdated electoral college gig that needs to get the heave-ho. Hillary was a much more respectable candidate than Trump could ever hope to be. And she won.

It's the Republicans who think they have some sort of "mandate" or whatever. They're the ones who need to do a reality check.

Can we PLEASE stop with this "she won the popular vote" crap. Neither candidate was campaigning to win the popular vote; they were campaigning in swing states in order to win the electoral college.

It's not a fair argument.

Yes, I don't like the electoral college as much as the next guy, but these are constitutional rules in play. You don't get to change the rules in the middle of a play or reject those you don't like, especially after the fact.

Hillary ran to win a majority in the electoral college and she failed.

Now, should we have a serious discussion about doing away with the electoral college? Yes. Is this a valid argument in favor of institution a popular vote system? Absolutely. But let's not get distracted from why Trump is going to be the next President not her.

Following 2000 a lot of people adopted "lol, it's just a fluke, we did nothing wrong and we don't have to do our own autopsy" attitude, ignoring all other factors that allowed Bush to win. Well, it was a mistake.

Kindly, get over with your grieving process.

Why don't you give me a break. Whether or not people are going through the "grieving process" as you say, it is not your call to tell anyone to get over it. Why don't YOU get over the fact that people are not acting like you think they should or saying what you think they should.

You are in charge of you, not anyone else.

And in my mind and in many people's thinking, Hillary did win. It also happened to Gore. Something is wrong with this picture and I'm surprised that more people aren't outraged about how our undemocratic election process works.

Popular vote this, Russia that, unfair media coverage here, Bernie bros there. I love how the Democratic establishment is willing to point fingers at everyone and anyone but themselves. Stop talking about Russia, stop talking about the electoral college, JUST STOP. None of this is helpful.

Hillary lost. Lick your wounds and prepare to fight like hell.

I don't a lot of Hillary supporters are even capable of doing that. That's why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer just got reelected with flying colors for Pete's Sakes. Nancy Pelosi even said that the Democratic Party doesn't want a new direction, so there's that.

[Mr. Morden]

In an ideal world, the powers that be would have looked at Clinton's past issues and the emerging email scandal and worked against her while trying to pull someone like Biden (at least) in. Really, if we're going to have primaries though, the party should encourage competition and not favor one candidate or the other unless one of them has many past scandals or other issues (like a Trump-type or Clinton). Otherwise if we're just going to have a system where the party leaders fall in line behind a favorite and try to clear the path for them, we might as well just go back to convention picks.

The thing is, party elites don't tend to take a global look at things like that.  They look around, see that one candidate has an awful lot of support, and think to themselves "Looks like that candidate is going to win.  I'd better donate money to them and endorse them, so that I can be on the winning team."  That's how the frontrunner can go from a modest favorite to the overwhelming consensus choice of party elites.  No one is saying "Slow down, is this really the best person?"

[Hermit For Peace]

In an ideal world, the powers that be would have looked at Clinton's past issues and the emerging email scandal and worked against her while trying to pull someone like Biden (at least) in. Really, if we're going to have primaries though, the party should encourage competition and not favor one candidate or the other unless one of them has many past scandals or other issues (like a Trump-type or Clinton). Otherwise if we're just going to have a system where the party leaders fall in line behind a favorite and try to clear the path for them, we might as well just go back to convention picks.

The thing is, party elites don't tend to take a global look at things like that.  They look around, see that one candidate has an awful lot of support, and think to themselves "Looks like that candidate is going to win.  I'd better donate money to them and endorse them, so that I can be on the winning team."  That's how the frontrunner can go from a modest favorite to the overwhelming consensus choice of party elites.  No one is saying "Slow down, is this really the best person?"

If we're really interested in "the best person" then we need to take $$$ out of our election process.

[7,052,770]

Literally the dumbest thing Democrats can do at this point is "oh well, just a weird fluke, we did nothing wrong, carry on "

No, the dumbest thing we can do is drastically overreact and completely change our strategy that's won us the most votes in 6 of the last 7 elections.

Did Hillary have some weaknesses? Sure. Should we try to nominate a candidate in 2020 that can win by MORE than 3,000,000, in case the electoral college fluke happens again? Yes. Are things so bad that we need to reinvent the party from scratch? Of course not.

[The_Doctor]

You should try winning by 10,000,000, not try to win by 5,000,000. There's a good opportunity to win by a lot more than just 2% next time, or just 4%. Winning a mandate and learning to create congressional majorities is probably the biggest lesson Democrats need to learn, instead of relying on circumstances and events to lift them to power, like 2008.

[Virginiá]

They look around, see that one candidate has an awful lot of support, and think to themselves "Looks like that candidate is going to win.

But that's the thing - it pretty much was only one candidate, until Bernie's campaign exploded. Everyone knew all this baggage Hillary was bringing in, and the email stuff broke early enough. If the party was going to do anything, leadership should have tried to recruit more viable candidates. Instead, you had one very, very flawed candidate with lots of connections and influence basically clearing the field because no one wanted to go against her, didn't think they could win anyway, and probably some coercion behind the scenes (although I obviously cannot prove that) from all sorts of people.

Whatever truly went on in this year's primaries, it was deeply unhealthy and risky for future elections, both in terms of GE prospects and the possible alienation of the voters. We need to be better than that.

[PresidentSamTilden]

Just wanna throw my 2 cents in and say I agree with the sentiment. The arguments about Russia, Comey, etc. are valid, but they obscure the fact that we ran a neck and neck race with Trump. It should never have been that close!

As far as the EC argument, I think we need to continue to pursue that. Fact is, Republicans are treating this as a straight up culture war, and they are winning. We have more popular support on our side and should do anything possible to push our advantage. We can't just lay down and play by their rules...we need to fight back.

Perhaps it's better for the Democrats to admit what we are...we're a left wing party. We don't hate socialism, we're mostly lukewarm on "american exceptional-ism", we don't like inequality and survival of the fittest mentalities. The centrism worked in the 90's, but those days are gone.

[Mr. Morden]

They look around, see that one candidate has an awful lot of support, and think to themselves "Looks like that candidate is going to win.

But that's the thing - it pretty much was only one candidate, until Bernie's campaign exploded.

There were other candidates in the invisible primary (e.g., Biden, Cuomo, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Hickenlooper, Patrick, etc.  Heck, even Bill de Blasio visited Iowa at one point in 2015.  And longer-shots like Villaraigosa dropped hints early on too).  But they all “opted not to run” in the end, after they were shadow-running to one extent or another in 2013/2014.

They didn’t run because they thought that running was pointless, since it looked like Clinton was inevitably going to win the nomination.  And the reason they thought *that* was a combination of elite support from Democratic politicos and big money donors, plus poll numbers in 2013/2014 that showed Clinton as being extremely popular both with Democratic primary voters and (to a lesser extent) the general electorate.

So there were other options that elites could have gravitated towards, but they didn’t.  And like I said, I think it was something of a bubble.  Everyone believed she was going to be the nominee no matter what they did, so they might as well get on board, to get on her good side.  I don’t think they had to coerce or threaten Cuomo or Gillibrand or anyone else not to run.  They just realized that there was no opening for them, since everyone was backing Clinton.  (I mean, O’Malley ignored her “inevitability” and ran anyway, and as far as I can tell, he still has all his fingers, so I don’t think anyone tried to threaten him.)

Previous frontrunners have coasted to the nomination on such bubbles as well.  E.g., George W. Bush coasted into overwhelming frontrunner status for the 2000 GOP nomination on the basis of his last name giving him a name recognition advantage that put him way out front in polls, combined with his being a fundraising juggernaut simply by virtue of being the sitting governor of Texas.

But Bush 2000 had many more challengers for the nomination than Clinton 2016 did, even though they ultimately couldn’t keep up with him in fundraising and were forced out of the race.  I think that’s a combination of 1) Bush was more of an unknown quantity.  Though everyone knew his father, GW had never been on the national stage before, so more people thought he might be vulnerable.  Whereas everyone figured that people already knew Hillary Clinton, and there wouldn’t be surprises with her (how wrong they were), and 2) Hillary Clinton is a woman.  I think some Democratic elites saw the excitement some folks had for electing the first black president in 2008, and figured that the same thing would be played out in 2016, electing the first female president.  And so at least the male Democratic politicos saw running against Clinton for the nomination as putting themselves in a Grinch-like role, stealing away this excitement if they were successful.  There was some reporting about Biden and Cuomo in particular thinking this way, and some of the others probably thought so as well.

[MaxQue]

See, but Hillary did not lose. She won. More people voted for her than for Trump.

So let's get it straight. It's the outdated electoral college gig that needs to get the heave-ho. Hillary was a much more respectable candidate than Trump could ever hope to be. And she won.

It's the Republicans who think they have some sort of "mandate" or whatever. They're the ones who need to do a reality check.

Can we PLEASE stop with this "she won the popular vote" crap. Neither candidate was campaigning to win the popular vote; they were campaigning in swing states in order to win the electoral college.

It's not a fair argument.

Yes, I don't like the electoral college as much as the next guy, but these are constitutional rules in play. You don't get to change the rules in the middle of a play or reject those you don't like, especially after the fact.

Hillary ran to win a majority in the electoral college and she failed.

Now, should we have a serious discussion about doing away with the electoral college? Yes. Is this a valid argument in favor of institution a popular vote system? Absolutely. But let's not get distracted from why Trump is going to be the next President not her.

Following 2000 a lot of people adopted "lol, it's just a fluke, we did nothing wrong and we don't have to do our own autopsy" attitude, ignoring all other factors that allowed Bush to win. Well, it was a mistake.

Kindly, get over with your grieving process.

Why don't you give me a break. Whether or not people are going through the "grieving process" as you say, it is not your call to tell anyone to get over it. Why don't YOU get over the fact that people are not acting like you think they should or saying what you think they should.

You are in charge of you, not anyone else.

And in my mind and in many people's thinking, Hillary did win. It also happened to Gore. Something is wrong with this picture and I'm surprised that more people aren't outraged about how our undemocratic election process works.

The issue is simple. Democratic establishment candidate never wins.

Mondale, lost.
Gore, lost.
Kerry, lost.
Hillary, lost.

While non-establishment candidates win

Carter, won.
Bill Clinton, won (establishment passed, thinking 1992 was lost).
Obama, won (establishment backed Hillary).

Reflect on that.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Literally the dumbest thing Democrats can do at this point is "oh well, just a weird fluke, we did nothing wrong, carry on "

No, the dumbest thing we can do is drastically overreact and completely change our strategy that's won us the most votes in 6 of the last 7 elections.

Did Hillary have some weaknesses? Sure. Should we try to nominate a candidate in 2020 that can win by MORE than 3,000,000, in case the electoral college fluke happens again? Yes. Are things so bad that we need to reinvent the party from scratch? Of course not.

I think Democrats control the fewest state governments ever. They need drastic change.

[Devout Centrist]

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[Virginiá]

I think Democrats control the fewest state governments ever. They need drastic change.

I agree that the party needs some decent changes, but I'm curious about just how much success you think is possible on the back of that alone? Democratic control at the state level was pretty inflated due to the South, and that is a Republican stronghold now. We aren't getting that back for a long time, if ever (besides some select states here and there trending our way). Numerous structural pro-Republican advantages in the electorate are going to prevent Democrats from dominating in the states like we did over a generation ago. Not unless some earth-shattering realignment of white voters occurs.

Maybe worth noting too that the Republican Party was exceptionally weak at the state level even while it was dominating presidential elections. The electoral benefits they reaped nationally eventually did trickle down to the states in the 90s-now.

Democrats need to make changes for sure, but party issues are really not the only reason, probably not even the primary reason that Democrats are weak at the state level right now.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I think Democrats control the fewest state governments ever. They need drastic change.

I agree that the party needs some decent changes, but I'm curious about just how much success you think is possible on the back of that alone? Democratic control at the state level was pretty inflated due to the South, and that is a Republican stronghold now. We aren't getting that back for a long time, if ever (besides some select states here and there trending our way). Numerous structural pro-Republican advantages in the electorate are going to prevent Democrats from dominating in the states like we did over a generation ago. Not unless some earth-shattering realignment of white voters occurs.

Maybe worth noting too that the Republican Party was exceptionally weak at the state level even while it was dominating presidential elections. The electoral benefits they reaped nationally eventually did trickle down to the states in the 90s-now.

Democrats need to make changes for sure, but party issues are really not the only reason, probably not even the primary reason that Democrats are weak at the state level right now.

Democrats control zero state chambers in any Trump state, and are missing the trifecta most Hillary states. Democrats have done really badly down ticket. In 1994, Democrats had controlled the House for 40 years. They've only had it 4 years since then. Hillary's strategy of saying that other Republicans weren't as bad as Trump really hurt down ticket Democrats. And 3rd way throwing progressives under the bus didn't help either. Hillary may have won the popular vote, but she didn't win the electoral vote, which is what counts, and if basically every congressional race votes the same as President, a Democrat needs to win by several points to win the Senate and House, since the median state and congressional district are a fair amount more Republican than the country as a whole. The people don't want 3rd way neoliberalism any more. It's time for someone to address the issues that people care about.

[Sumner 1868]

Literally the dumbest thing Democrats can do at this point is "oh well, just a weird fluke, we did nothing wrong, carry on "

No, the dumbest thing we can do is drastically overreact and completely change our strategy that's won us the most votes in 6 of the last 7 elections.

Did Hillary have some weaknesses? Sure. Should we try to nominate a candidate in 2020 that can win by MORE than 3,000,000, in case the electoral college fluke happens again? Yes. Are things so bad that we need to reinvent the party from scratch? Of course not.

There has been no singular post-Cold War Democratic strategy. Obama's 2008 strategy was quite different from the Clinton 1992 strategy, and the Clinton 2016 was strategy substantially different from both.

[Shadows]

Dem Civil War - Sanders' wings continue to make gains at party level

In January, Sanders supporters are organizing to elect one of their own, Tina Podlodowski, to unseat current Washington Democratic Party chair Jaxon Ravens. Sanders supporters have gradually taken over local Democratic committee positions to provide a better reflection of the progressive values within the party, and rally enough votes to overthrow the establishment leadership in the state party.

Democratic Party chair in June, assuming the role officially this month. Sanders won the state comfortably in the Democratic primaries, and the state party’s appointments have reflected his popularity, with 70 percent identifying as Sanders supporters.

Hawaii experienced a similar coup, with pro-Sanders Tim Vanderveer winning the position as the state’s party chair shortly after Sanders trounced Clinton in the March primary caucuses.

Sanders’ presidential campaign may have ended during the Democratic National Convention, but his political revolution was predicated on inspiring millions of people to become politically engaged. The Democratic Party establishment has made it abundantly clear they have no intention of relinquishing any of their political power and privilege to Sanders supporters. Therefore, it’s up to grassroots progressives to take their party back from the wealthy donor–obsessed establishment that has been rotting it from within.

15-20K people signed in the Sanders website to run locally. I know many people in the Bernie forum planning to run in 2018, some may turn out decent.

I hope we get huge number of Berniecrats energized & involved in local elections to rejuvenate the Dem party

[RINO Tom]

Literally the dumbest thing Democrats can do at this point is "oh well, just a weird fluke, we did nothing wrong, carry on "

No, the dumbest thing we can do is drastically overreact and completely change our strategy that's won us the most votes in 6 of the last 7 elections.

Did Hillary have some weaknesses? Sure. Should we try to nominate a candidate in 2020 that can win by MORE than 3,000,000, in case the electoral college fluke happens again? Yes. Are things so bad that we need to reinvent the party from scratch? Of course not.

There has been no singular post-Cold War Democratic strategy. Obama's 2008 strategy was quite different from the Clinton 1992 strategy, and the Clinton 2016 was strategy substantially different from both.

That's a really good point that doesn't get that much attention ... most Democratic wins seem to have been because they were in good situations AND had talented candidates, but there hasn't been an inspiring theme carrying them through those decades (like, say, a firm commitment to New Deal liberalism from the '30s until the '70s/'80s).  Like them or not, the Republicans have usually had consistent themes during that time period: a strong national defense, lowering people's taxes, basically Reagan conservatism.  Trump tweaked it, but he didn't change it nearly as much as people like Sanchez or Fuzzy Bear allege.  The GOP is still arguing for what it's been arguing for forever; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but people know where the GOP stands, IMO.

The post-Carter Democrats seem to be running on same vague collection of the following "truths" that they shove down people's throats (sometimes all of them, sometimes just one) like the GOP being the party of the rich, the GOP causing the great recession, the GOP being super racist ... not saying there isn't a time or a place to call the GOP out for those things (if you actually believe it about the party), but Democrats' campaigns mostly seem to be about how they're the only sane choice, and that's not exactly as inspiring as saying you have a definitive plan to shake things up in favor of the voters.

[Mr. Reactionary]

And in my mind and in many people's thinking, Hillary did win.

I know plenty of people who in their mind think Obama is a muslim without a birth certificate. That doesn't mean they are right.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Literally the dumbest thing Democrats can do at this point is "oh well, just a weird fluke, we did nothing wrong, carry on "

No, the dumbest thing we can do is drastically overreact and completely change our strategy that's won us the most votes in 6 of the last 7 elections.

Did Hillary have some weaknesses? Sure. Should we try to nominate a candidate in 2020 that can win by MORE than 3,000,000, in case the electoral college fluke happens again? Yes. Are things so bad that we need to reinvent the party from scratch? Of course not.

I think Democrats control the fewest state governments ever. They need drastic change.

THere at the same place they were in the late 1940s

It's lower now, with only 3,129 Democrats. And I'm sure the gap is much more outside of Northern New England, which is overrepresented with 701 seats just in their upper Houses.

[Badger]

Voters deeply anxious over the economy and a candidate who doesn't primarily attack her opponent on such pochef book issues, despite being tremendously vulnerable on that front despite banking his entire campaign on being a "populist reformer".

Gee,  I can't imagine what could go wrong.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Voters deeply anxious over the economy and a candidate who doesn't primarily attack her opponent on such pochef book issues, despite being tremendously vulnerable on that front despite banking his entire campaign on being a "populist reformer".

Gee,  I can't imagine what could go wrong.

     Dems more or less allowed Trump to corner the anti-establishment populist sentiment. Granted he had a relatively easy time of it given the sheer extent of establishment support Clinton had, but to not even issue a direct challenge to his triangulation was a grave mistake.

[Badger]

Voters deeply anxious over the economy and a candidate who doesn't primarily attack her opponent on such pochef book issues, despite being tremendously vulnerable on that front despite banking his entire campaign on being a "populist reformer".

Gee,  I can't imagine what could go wrong.

     Dems more or less allowed Trump to corner the anti-establishment populist sentiment. Granted he had a relatively easy time of it given the sheer extent of establishment support Clinton had, but to not even issue a direct challenge to his triangulation was a grave mistake.

"Anti-estblishment" is much harder a case to make when being attacked for rightly hang the same economic positions as Romney and W., right down to active use of outsourcing.