Chuck Todd: Media knew how ‘hated’ Hillary was in heartland and we ‘underplayed’ it

I am sure it is difficult to report from inside Dear Leader's colon, but Chuck Todd manages.

And yet he still fails to acknowledge how much the media is at fault for that hate with their nonstop bogus "Corrupt Hillary" "new Clinton scandal!" and OMGNENGHAZIEMAILS??!!!!1111!! stories. Or that by not telling those heartland stories they also weren't telling how utterly destructive conservative polices have been there.

Same shit, different day. Fuck all of them.

Thanks for posting, OP. Lesson learned, eh?

Chuck Todd is right. Anyone who lives in Middle America or grew up there knows that Hillary has never been very popular outside of the coasts. And it's not because Middle America is solid red, because that's not true. And it's not because Middle America hates female politicians -- there have been plenty of female senators and governors in the heartland. Hell, Trump nearly beat Hillary in Minnesota, the most reliably blue state in the country and a state with two popular Democratic senators. The Democrats who play well in the heartland are scrappy, populist, somewhat unconventional. That's why Bernie was so popular in the Midwest. Despite DL's hatred of Bernie, he almost certainly would have won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa (not so sure about Pennsylvania). Voters in the heartland hate elitist, coastal, establishment Democrats.

And gave Trump one year long sloppy blowjob too. All media who allowed him to get away with all his shit are responsible too.

How conveeeeenient for him to claim this now.

[quote] And gave Trump one year long sloppy blowjob too. All media who allowed him to get away with all his shit are responsible too

Jesus christ fool. The impetus to build up Trump was from Hillary and the DNC.

Wikileaks repeatedly showed reporters coordinating their stories with the Clinton campaign. They were directed to build up Trump and Carson as either would both be so EASY to beat.

Sometime let Chuck Todd address how the media was an active arm of the DNC strategy. Speak of the PIED PIPER STRATEGY, that fucking blew up in their smug faces.

...because the reason they hated her was sexist. THAT'S why it felt wrong.

Fuck him and his chinless little-dick smelly-ginge ass.

While we are at the subject of Hillary Clinton being hated, why don't you tell us OP how much you hate her. And the Dems. After all, you spent months vilifying both.

Tell us then, OP, why the hate?

And how long will be pretending that you give a shit that Trump won.

Asshole.

well, I live in middle america, born in Wisconsin and emigrated to Minnesota for 5 years and now 30 in Illinois. There are hicks and racists and fear mongers everywhere, not just in the "middle" of the country. And Chuck Todd is looking and sounding more and more weasily but I do look forward to more of his attempts at cracking a baseball bat against Kellyanne's knees live on "Meet the Press".

I'm a liberal Democrat living in Connecticut and even I had to hold my nose while I voted for her.

Fuck Chuck Todd and the rest of those smug talking heads for NOT reporting Trumpf's connection with the Russians or the deals he's brokered with the Chinese. And what's this I'm hearing that Trumpf's father had dementia!! Fuck you Chuck Todd!!

[quote] Voters in the heartland hate elitist, coastal, establishment Democrats.

And yet John Kerry won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (and Minnesota and Illinois, obviously).

It isn't as deterministic as this. Something as specific as Comey actually following normal bureau protocol could have plausibly swung the few thousand votes needed in WiMiPenn for her to win the electoral college. There are at least a dozen other factors particular to the 2016 race that could account for the result in those states better than an abiding hatred for people of the coasts.

Also, Hillary Clinton is from Illinois and spent a long time in Arkansas before becoming FLOTUS. She was already facing very familiar skepticism and headwinds from the media and voters as the First Lady of Arkansas, long before she moved to Washington or became the junior senator from New York.

[quote]Chuck Todd is right. Anyone who lives in Middle America or grew up there knows that Hillary has never been very popular outside of the coasts. And it's not because Middle America is solid red, because that's not true. And it's not because Middle America hates female politicians -- there have been plenty of female senators and governors in the heartland. Hell, Trump nearly beat Hillary in Minnesota, the most reliably blue state in the country and a state with two popular Democratic senators. The Democrats who play well in the heartland are scrappy, populist, somewhat unconventional. That's why Bernie was so popular in the Midwest. Despite DL's hatred of Bernie, he almost certainly would have won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa (not so sure about Pennsylvania). Voters in the heartland hate elitist, coastal, establishment Democrats.

Democrats are elitist...hmm. The Republicans have nominated: Bush, McCain, Romney and Trump...

Which one was the scrappy, self-made one who related to "heartland"? Do tell!

Chuck Todd has a slatternly stupid look, like the boy who cleans the cum off the floors of the video peeps. I would no more expect him to be a journalist than Arianna Huffington.

I wish I could find the back/forth between Todd and someone else in media who just completely annihilated him and showed him for the asshole he was.

It was on Twitter

I love R16 So true. Have long been amazed that he, of all people, was given MTP.

I'm not surprised, R19. For the same reason Karl Rove's dance partner David Gregory had the gig before Todd: They're both inside the beltway hacks.

It's why someone intelligent like Maddow could never be given the show - she'd actually question these politicians

We're getting to the point where this is ridiculous. Donald Trump is president because he won the electoral college by 80,000 votes. And that is the way we elect presidents in this country and he is president end of story.

But the fact that we're allowing the narrative to be rewritten on the 2016 election is sad. Trump has no mandate. There was no ground swell of popular support for this man. The media is trying to wash itself clean of the hand it played in this past election and Chuck Todd should be ashamed of himself.

The message of this past election is clear. Private email servers, equates to pussy grabbing, racism, xenophobia, sexism, not releasing tax returns, shady business deals, and Russian hacking.

And Hillary doesn't get a complete pass because she should have gotten her ass to those small towns in those battleground states like she did during the 2008 primary.

Don't allow the Chuck Todds of the world to rewrite history.

Democrats in general underestimated how bad Hillary is at campaigning and how despised she is. Sexism is only part of it. A lot of people thought she was arrogant with her light weight campaigning and celebrity fundraisers. Trumped was down in the trenches with the farmers, coal miners, blue collar folks, megachurches, less educated. He kissed their rings and honored their culture. Hillary called them deplorable

That's complete bullshit. Hillary lost by 10,000 votes in Michigan only because Trump' lawyers were there to stop the recount. She won the fucking election by more than 3 million REAL, VALID, LEGITIMATE votes so spare me all the bullshit about how people hated Hillary. If there were all those hate filled signs, the media bears a whole lot of responsibility for feeding that hatred. They were disgusting. Fuck Chuck Turd. The Right and the Media in particular, to try to get the stink off themselves, is desperately trying to convince us that "Hillary was unpopular, corrupt, elitist, ignoring the workers, " and it's a fucking LIE. They can't stand the fact that a White woman, intelligent, experienced, assertive, ran for President and did it by being INCLUSIVE. Did it by embracing the policies and programs of her e, a Black Man who campaigned his ass off for her. Fuck them all.

Some of Hillary's policies were too unacceptable to middle America. That said, a big portion of the electorate really hates her. Much of it so irrational. After more than 20 years of being bashed by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, other right-wing radio, numerous right wing pacs and advocacy organization, and multiple, repetitive, frivolous, political, and extended investigations by the GOP in Congress; the results took a big toll. Other media broadcasted it all.

As a uncomfortable campaigner, she could not overcome it in critical areas. Much of the electorate is gullible, and they believe what groups such as the NRA and the Heritage Foundation say.

Running on Obama's coattails during a change year, was not a sufficient strategy.

I voted for her in a state I knew would be solid red anyway.

Hillary was killed most of all by hatred toward her among progressives, Berniebros, Florida Latinos, millenials, suburbanites, white women, and black men. In some cases, the hate was expressed by not showing up to vote at all or voting for a third party. With Latinos, it was with a shockingly high number voting for Trump

well, that's the first authentic mea culpa from an established mainstream news media I've heard up to now. I'm shocked. I never thought they'd admit to anything like this.

[quote] And yet John Kerry won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (and Minnesota and Illinois, obviously).

Kerry at least made some efforts to tour farms, factories, etc. in the heartland and speak directly to Midwestern voters and their families. Hillary mostly ignored all of that in favor of rallies with celebrities.

The Bernie bros characterized her as some elite out of touch hack. She lost the general in the primary.

While liberal white millennials pout on twitter, Republicans always turn out to vote.

[quote] And yet John Kerry won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (and Minnesota and Illinois, obviously).

Here's Kerry in 2004 at a farm rally in Wisconsin. How many farm rallies in Wisconsin did Hillary hold?

[quote]While liberal white millennials pout on twitter, Republicans always turn out to vote.

BULLSHIT. Have you ever read twitter? It's full of those right-wing roaches and tons of them have thousands and thousands of tweets.

Chuck Todd is a garbage person and I hope he dies a painful, messy death.

Oh, give me a fucking break. Chuck Toad, the Rethuglican's favorite little collaborator thinks he figured out what the members of the media did wrong in the 2016 election. That would be the same person who books four right-wingers for every one Democrat on his show -- just to demonstrate how "even-handed" he is.

Let's go behind Chuck's claim though. Why was Hillary -- the woman most admired in the world for 21 years running -- so "hated" in the heartland? Perhaps it had something to do with the media's obsession with those damned emails. Over and over and over again they repeated ad nauseum every scrap of nonsense about the emails. Breathlessly. Andrea Mitchell couldn't wait to report on them each day with that schoolmarm disapproval she has perfected so well. And, Trump got to "appear" by phone every morning on the Today Show (and other noteworthy outlets) to spew unfettered his latest garbage. Meanwhile, Matt Lauer got to be the disapproving scold and lecture the audience about the latest invented Hillary controversy.

Oh, and when they took a brief break from those fucking emails, they talked about Benghazi -- just to fill the time.

Yes, twas a very even playing field. Perhaps that was the real problem, Chuck.

[quote] And yet John Kerry won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (and Minnesota and Illinois, obviously).

Here's Kerry in 2004 chatting with locals at a bar in Wisconsin. How many bars in Wisconsin did Hillary visit?

Why would she campaign in Wisconsin if the polls had her up 6-8 points in the state? Obviously they were way off but why make an effort in a state that was pretty close to safe? The 6+ point WI poll average seemed insurmountable. Hindsight is always 20/20.

[quote] Thanks for posting, OP. Lesson learned, eh?

Considering the comments on this thread', I'd say, lesson not been learned. Democrats are ripe to commit the same mistakes again, just to spite the evil media and the Bernie Bros.

[quote] Why would she campaign in Wisconsin if the polls had her up 6-8 points in the state?

1) Even with polls showing her up 6-8 points in Wisconsin, it would have made more sense to spend time in Wisconsin rather than in a state like Arizona.

2) Trump WAS campaigning in Wisconsin. Obviously, his team knew something that Hillary's team didn't, because Trump thought it was worthwhile to visit the state.

3) Hillary should have campaigned at least a little bit in states like Wisconsin because when voters sense that you're ignoring them, there is bound to be a backlash and they'll turn out in larger-than-expected numbers for your opponent.

Because R35... if the polls show you 6-8 points up in any state, you run like you are 6-8 points down.

And this is coming from a major Hillary fan. Yeah, you can take New York and California for granted and probably most of the Northeast... everywhere else you need to go to every dive, every pig roast, every tractor pull you can.

[quote] Why would she campaign in Wisconsin if the polls had her up 6-8 points in the state?

Because Wisconsin elected Paul Ryan and Scott Walker, which should be all the proof you need that Wisconsin isn't reliably Democratic and that Democrats need to fight for the state.

Everyone is at fault: for example, Bernie (for attacking Hillary like she attacked him), the media (despite attacking Trump and Bernie like it did no other candidate before), Jill Stein (for daring to run, as if she had any obligation towards Democrats not to).

In the complaints made by Hillbots, it is implicit that Hillary was an extremely weak candidate - that for her to win, she needed to be dispensed special treatment by everyone, from the media to her opponents, and no one must ever attack her or run against her, as happens in normal elections.

6-8 points in Wisconsin polls and declining. The trend was not good for her even in polls she was leading in. Also, there was some hint that undecided voters were secretly proTrump or at least disliked Hillary. Further, it was clear that Trump voters were zealous and enthusiastic about voting, whereas her voters were lethargic. She should have been at county fairs, farms, factories, and megachurches instead of being lazy and smoozing with celebrities

Chuck is feeling pretty neglected lately if these attention getting stunts are any indication.

Here in my red state county Clinton has been hated for over 20 years but she only got 650 fewer votes than Trump.

The rabid hatred towards her was so disturbing. I think she was uncomfortable facing the angry middle states. I wish she had just thrown the email thing out there early and addressed it. And liberal me noticed the big money fundraisers almost up to the end when the Dems already had a stockpile. Trump made good copy so MSM gave him a pass on SO much. They and the Dems didn't take him seriously. Millions of people are STUPID in this country. Uneducated, uncurious, uninformed. They don't read, they don't know history, they respond to sound bites. Whoever coined the phrase years ago "the dumbing down of America" had it right.

blah blah blah blah blah. Just shut the fuck up.

She won by three million votes (at least), missed the EC by 80,000 - a pittance and it took massive foreign interference and the FBI going rogue to keep her down. Stop acting as if the entire world was against her or that she was a terrible candidate. Most Americans preferred her to that fat fuck and still do, she was a strong candidate.

Anti-Clinton fanatics who can't let it go now are so fucking tedious. You got what you wanted, you got Trump. Now live with it and leave Hillary the fuck alone, you pathetic morons. You won't excuse his awfulness or justify his election* no matter what you say about her. Nothing will excuse him, not ever.

*with an assist from Vladimir Putin

This is not going to end well, OP.

Still too soon for a lot of DLers.

Interesting piece though, thanks for sharing.

[quote] You got what you wanted, you got Trump. Now live with it and leave Hillary the fuck alone, you pathetic morons.

And yet again, anyone who says anything slightly critical of Hillary's campaign (not even criticism of Hillary herself) is assumed to be a Trump supporter who is trying to "justify" Trump.

No, we hate Trump, and if we're critical of Hillary, it's because we think she (and her campaign team) had a solid opportunity to beat him (even with the interference from Comey and Russia) and blew it.

Hillbots literally blame fucken Glenn Greenwald for sinking Hillary. Some of these days, I've seen people point the finger at Taylor Swift for keeping mum about the election. You just know they're never going to take responsibility for their bad candidate.

How long do Repugs think they can keep this up? Todd's only doing this as part of the Trump plan to keep his idiot base complacent by pretending the evil woman who dared try to beat MEN is relevant. She's out of the game. Enough already.

Too many of my fellow Dems fall for this shit. You better get it together and start being smart enough to stop letting Repugs and BernieBros distract you and change the narrative.

What a fucking useless troll.

Chuck Todd et al treated Trump as just another candidate with equally good ideas, and questioning him about anything he might not enjoy answering was out of the question! Todd is a toad and he can't go away soon enough, as HE is a huge part of the problem.

You won't split the Democratic Party using this cheap anti-Hillary bullshit.

You have no fucking idea how much we hate that unqualified, bankrupt, con-man puppet sitting in President Obama's house. We will come after him like a flock of dementors at every opportunity for the next four years or until we impeach him/force him to resign. It's helpful of him and his idiotic minions to keep attacking the press like this, they'll be a great help to us in the wars to come.

Whomever we nominate next time, good or bad, he will have a unified Party backing him 100% and a war chest bursting at the seams with fat stacks. We aren't bewildered by this election or afraid of your little fake-fuhrer and his Nazi friends. You will pay an enormous price for this, far more than you think.

I live in Minnesota. There were very few Hillary signs on people yards. More anti Trump signs than pro hillary signs. Bernie was well liked here. Lots of people didn't vote in the election or even voted for Trump, thus the closer than even before count. There were quite a few discussions about the election and Hillary was not well liked. Hated by quite a few.

It is bad enough that all the people who hated Bill Clinton unleashed his hate and then some into Hillary.

But the "BernieBros" were an invention of the Clinton campaign to shame her competition. In actual fact the MRAs wouldn't want a bit of Bernie, they are strictly alt-right.

It is a shame that Clinton's management were so blockheaded.

R52 has a brain tumor.

[quote] we think she (and her campaign team) had a solid opportunity to beat him

She took that solid opportunity and beat him by millions of votes, idiot.

It's just another troll, R53, pay it no mind.

As Todd confirms, the media is not about "news" or "facts" or "truth", it's about spin and agenda.

Trump didn't not campaign in WI and MI because they saw favorable poll numbers -- IT'S BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY HAD NO PATH and wanted to expand the map. RNC polling even showed him down prior to Election Day. Trump was probably more stunned he won than Hillary that she lost.

I still get sad that the beautiful set her campaign set up in the stunning Javits Center was not used. That national map themed staging surrounded by the glass ceiling was incredible. They thought they were going to win and it makes me cry.

The election was stolen by that fat fascist, his master Putin and the traitor Comey. They will pay for what they did.

And her campaign knew it too, but for some reason didn't feel it was important/couldn't convince her/knew she was so out of touch with regular (read: most of the populace) that it was a lost cause. Pick one.

Lesson learned to all future politicians: surround yourself with syncophants, pay the price

Less than 25% of voters picked the fat fuck. This weird "Everyone in America hates Hillary!" refrain is obviously trolling.

R5O "he"....you said, "he" for the next Dem nominee? Oh come on! Third time will be the charm! Campaign promise swear!

But it was the media who gave "permission" to people to support Trump, as bad as he was, not just to act out, to act like animals and create a spectacle with their coarseness or to feel uneasy or hateful towards Hillary.

The media ran stories about the e-mail "scandal" every single day for 600 straight days. A Harvard university study analyzed coverage and determined that Hillary received more negative campaign coverage than any other candidate beginning during the primaries through the general.

All Todd is trying to do is wash the stink off as I said earlier. he's an asshole and he is irremediably stupid. It was pretty clear that the reporters were given their list of questions to ask, and it was all e-mails all the time.

And after they asked her for the one millionth time about the e-mails, they would spin it for the viewers saying, "She has STILL not answered satisfactorily," Or "she never apologized" even as she apologized for the one dozenth time on live TV. It was a no win. They didn't want an admission or an apology. Their intent was to humiliate her.

It infuriates me when I read or watch bullshit like Chuck Todd. it is exactly why I have stopped watching these imbeciles. I don't need them to tell me what to think or to interpret simple English sentences for me.

They offer nothing new and they have no valuable insights to share. If you want to learn something, or see something interesting, Try going over to C Span. They often discuss important subjects, and have informed, intelligent people on for productive discussions.

TV News Shows are intellectually bankrupt and they can be harmful to your brain.

I resent the way people like Chuck Todd are built up so that they convey an certain level of authority, and credibility when they have neither and are not experts at all. my own personal analysis of what is going on is just as valid if not more so than his.

[quote] She took that solid opportunity and beat him by millions of votes, idiot.

How many times does it need to be pointed out that presidential elections are decided by the electoral college, not the popular vote? 3 million votes doesn't do a whole lot of good when you lose nearly all the battleground states, idiot.

Look, here's the bottom line.

There are many reasons why this election turned out the way it did. It is true the media (how much they covered Trump and the way they covered Trump) had a lot to do with it. I genuinely believe many of them feel guilty, but what are they going to do now? If that admit to it, it will erode the trust of their viewers even more.

Their way of "compensating" is by now being tougher on Trump and pretending to care about "working class" people stories that are less sexy or romantic. Few people I hope fall for it.

For liberals and Hillary supporters, there are a lot of people to feel angry at right now. That anger isn't going to go away anytime soon. You just have to believe that someday all of those who caused Trump will get what they deserve.

You act like you drank the Fat Fuck's kool-aid and now believe he won the Electoral College by a landslide.

80,000 votes out of all the millions of votes cast the country is what made the difference in the EC. Stop acting like he had some kind of huge victory. He just barely got by and he needed Putin, Comey, Bernie and the collusion of the media to do it.

R63 are you serious? The media downplayed the email issue and was so anti-Trump no one thought he had a chance to win until about 10:45 pm on election night when the worm (literally) started to turn. DL fave hagster KellyAnne was interviewed earlier in the evening and looked like she was ready to face a firing squad. Face it, Hills campaign shit the bed--even Barry and Mich knew it, why do you think they went out on the trail for her in the last weeks? They cared enough to fight for the party; too bad Hills' and her campaign's head was in the sand.

[quote] I live in Minnesota. There were very few Hillary signs on people yards. More anti Trump signs than pro hillary signs. Bernie was well liked here. Lots of people didn't vote in the election or even voted for Trump, thus the closer than even before count. There were quite a few discussions about the election and Hillary was not well liked. Hated by quite a few.

I grew up in Minnesota, most of my family lives there, and I noticed the same thing. Most of my Midwest family and friends on Facebbok supported Bernie over Hillary. The Democratic Party in Minnesota is called the DFL, which stands for Democratic Farm Labor. If you want to win over Midwestern voters, you need to talk about agriculture and unions. The Midwest has a strong populist, progressive streak. Think of Paul Wellstone, the former senator from Minnesota. It came as no great shock to me that Hillary underperformed throughout the Upper Midwest. It's not that the Midwest hates all Democrats or hates all women (Let's not forget that Wisconsin is the state that elected a lesbian, Tammy Baldwin, to the Senate). It's that Hillary wasn't a good fit and didn't do much to reach out to Midwest voters. If the Republican candidate hadn't been an incompetent fool like Trump, Hillary probably would have fared even worse.

If "the media" conspired to get Trump elected, as this claims, shouldn't this put to rest once and for all the absurd "liberal media" claim?

[bold]It's because she's a woman.[/bold] I see what NBC is trying to do. They know the public holds the media accountable for not covering the election fairly, so they are trying to blame Clinton (indirectly) for how the media dictated the narrative.

Bitch please. Hillary was right all along, the heartland is a basket of deplorables: sexis, racist, ignorant, lazy, and most of all evil ruffians that loathe the Coastal communities of this country

The media hates Trump. The New York Times, every day, had a probability poll: percentage chance of winning, Hills v. Trump. The lowest I ever saw it go was 87℅ H, 13℅ T. And the Washington Post had it out for him. Something happened, it may never be accepted but we all know what it was. Armed with that knowledge, it's up to the people to set the course to make sure history doesn't repeat itself.

[quote] the heartland is a basket of deplorables: sexis, racist, ignorant, lazy,

Yes, all people in the heartland are racists -- who voted for Obama twice.

And they're all sexists -- who have elected senators like Tammy Baldwin, Debbie Stabenow, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Tammy Duckworth, and Heidi Heitkamp.

Obviously, women and Democrats don't stand a chance in the heartland.

What they "underplayed" was the fat fuck's criminal past, disgusting personal behavior, ties to Russian mobsters, US mobsters, repeated bankruptcies and absolute unfitness for the office of the presidency. The ratings were good so they kept right on treating him as though it were reasonable or acceptable for him to be running for POTUS. It wasn't. That is where they failed in their duty to present accurate coverage of the candidates and they know it. They can blame Hillary all they want, she wasn't the problem.

They're still not covering the real story - that he's completely unfit for the office - but they're gearing up to destroy him so we'll see if they redeem themselves. After the Nixon debacle in Cambodia and Vietnam the press finally grew a pair and used his shitty, sleazy, illegal campaign shenanigans to take him down. The fat fuck's campaign looks like a target-rich environment to me.

Nixon was re-elected on November 7, 1972. He was forced to resign on August 9, 1974. These things take time.

[quote] But the fact that we're allowing the narrative to be rewritten on the 2016 election is sad. Trump has no mandate. There was no ground swell of popular support for this man. The media is trying to wash itself clean of the hand it played in this past election and Chuck Todd should be ashamed of himself.

Revisionist indeed and that is exactly what the media is doing.

This was not a normal election. From the enormous amount of positive media coverage that Trump was given, to the constant negative media scrutiny that Clinton faced. (So much of Clinton's coverage based upon faux scandals manufactured by Republicans. They spent 2 yrs and millions of tax dollars working to drive Clinton's numbers down.) As we saw clearly in the debates the media set a very low bar for Trump, and they kept raising the bar for Clinton. From the Russians hacking/wiki leaks to the FBI leaks/ Comey's (partisan) interference. Again this election was not normal. So it seems silly to say that Clinton did not win an abnormal election because she didn't do the normal things right, do enough normal things, or because of Democrats underestimations.

I wish that people would just boycott programs like this, that helped to elect that orange buffoon,

[quote]Why would she campaign in Wisconsin if the polls had her up 6-8 points in the state?

Yes, and if they have no bread, then let them eat cake. Hillary wished only to associate with Wall Street millionaires and Hollywood stars. She had no time for Wisconsin rubes and peasants.

Cool right wing meme, bro @ R76.

R67 is perfectly right.

Why did Russ Feingold lose in Wisconsin by a far larger margin than Clinton then, R69? He is a perfect fit for Wisconsin. By that logic (he's a populist, progressive, and white male) he should've crushed it.

I don't know what news coverage you all were watching during the primaries and the election but what I saw day after day was Trump being crucified! Especially by Chuck Todd! I don't think they went easy on him at all, Trump was all they talked about, all day, every day. And most of it wasn't flattering. Saint Bernie was the one given a total pass! Hillary, it was like she was an afterthought, but I don't remember the commentary being brutally negative. I think maybe the difference was that despite the negative media coverage of Trump, he got out there and went to 2 or 3 rallies a day and neutralized the negative press. Hillary was nowhere to be found, unless you were a billionaire or star. And when she did comment, it was usually to frostily tell people to "go read about it on my website".

I just don't agree that the media went easy on Trump. I think Chuck Todd is really just throwing shade that Hillary didn't bother to make an effort with middle America and that was a big part of why she lost to Trump

What would Bernie supporters say if Russia had helped to elect Trump over Bernie?

The media coverage was terrible regardless of what Todd is saying now to get his head out of the sling. With Hillary it was always about emails and Mr. Ben Ghazi.

Trump on the other hand received the same type of coverage that you would expect for the Kardashian sisters. There was too little journalistic effort to truly investigate Trump's past, businesses, associations, Russian ties, and so on.

It's confusing to me that some people hate HRC enough to prefer a President who is a dumb embarrassment and was installed with the help of Putin. One week into his "presidency" he has already pissed off Mexico, countless Muslim countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, and pretty much every sane American who chooses the truth over alternative facts.

Revising history much R79?

NBC had white supremacists in their shows as a way to balance their panel of experts. White supremacists that were given an open forum to spew false statements about Hillary Clinton, and this was not only NBC.

So don't fucking tell us that the media conspired directly and indirectly to help the republican nominee.

The fact that he was covered AT ALL as a serious candidate was a disgusting fraud perpetrated on the public by the media and by the Republican Party who foisted him upon us.

He was not a serious candidate. He was in it for ratings for his tv show and to sell his hotels or whatever the fuck he sells - his "brand" bullshit. It was a PR trolling gambit - AGAIN - just as it was the last time. He was not immediately and permanently rejected by the media as he should have been. They made him, they covered him 24/7 and now they want to blame Hillary for his "election" because they're ashamed. Well they ought to be ashamed of themselves for this but they can keep their fucking excuses and Monday morning quarterbacking. Chuck Todd should stick with the Soup of the Day at the White House, that's what he's good at.

If they want to make up for this they need to take him down by any means necessary.

It really doesn't matter what the press says about you, so long as they spell your name right. In a media-biased culture, their putting TRumps name at the top of every news broadcast; their ubiquitous interruption of stories for "breaking news" coverage of (for example) his plane arriving for a campaign stop; etc. was the kind of recognition and acceptance money can't buy.

How the Media Manufactured Hatred of Hillary Clinton

Clinton's popularity didn't start to plummet until the press focus turned to her emails.

The fact is that Hillary Clinton wasn’t unpopular when she announced her decision to run in April 2015. If you look at the Gallup survey in March of last year, 50 percent of Americans had a favorable impression of Clinton, only 39 percent an unfavorable one. So there was clearly no deep reservoir of Clinton hatred among the general public at the time. On the contrary: Americans liked her; they liked her quite a bit.

Already by June, however, her favorability had not only taken a hit. It had plummeted. By July, according to Gallup, her favorability hit an all-time low with only 38 percent positively and 57 percent viewing her negatively — putting her 19 points underwater. . .

And that wasn’t all. As reported in a study by Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on media coverage in the pre-primary period, Clinton received especially negative coverage — overwhelmingly negative. At the same time, both Sanders and Trump received extremely positive coverage. As the report put it: “Whereas media coverage helped build up Trump, it helped tear down Clinton. Trump’s positive coverage was the equivalent of millions of dollars in ad-buys in his favor, whereas Clinton’s negative coverage can be equated to millions of dollars in attack ads, with her on the receiving end.” And Shorenstein found there was a ratio of 45 negative stories to one positive story on the emails, much of them generated by Republicans and Fox News and picked up by mainstream media, who readily quoted the Republicans. Eighty-four percent of Clinton’s coverage in this period was negative in tone. Moreover, her coverage in the primary period, as studied by Shorenstein, continued to be disproportionately focused on emails and continued to be heavily negative — 10 negative stories for every positive one.

The transition from the story of the emails to the story of unpopularity itself followed as night does day and rapidly gained a momentum all its own, to the point where it is now quite possibly the central narrative of the election. (Why this happened is not my focus here, though it has a lot to do with the media’s overarching cynicism that puts them above the fray.) Maybe this doesn’t matter much. Maybe Clinton would have torpedoed her own popularity, even without a media assist. Maybe. But with all the condemnation of Trump’s unconscionable declaration that he might not accept the results of the election should he lose, the media conveniently ignored their own nearly 18-month denigration of the democratic process. To insist that both major candidates are unworthy is one thing. It may even be true. To drive a narrative of unworthiness that, at least in Clinton’s case, didn’t exist until the media conjured it, is another. . .

I'm not a troll at all. Hillary's team repeatedly shat on and abused Sanders supporters and equated them with the sexist, fascist element MRAs of the alt-right.

And Sanders had supporters all over. Do you think people in the Midwest and Detroit with legitimate grievances about the economy and their want to be dismissed as misogynistic BernieBros by a bunch of 25-year-old campaign hipsters in Brooklyn whose Uber rides and Seamless orders are paid for by their daddies?

How any one who is genuinely of the left not see how Clinton's campaign worked against her supporters and herself? And don't you care to make sure it doesn't happen again? This isn't a Taylor Swift song. It's not about haters hating and it's not about making Hillary into a victim. This is real.

And unless the Dems take their own actions in Hillary's loss a bit more seriously then it will happen again in 2020.

The media kept that Clinton email scandal in the news nightly. They talked about it, every time they talked about Clinton it was "scandal laden Clinton" or "more problems for Clinton." Matt Lauer lobbed softballs at Trump AFTER the whole Billy Bush grab them by the pussy and his second question to Clinton was about the email scandal. I think it was Todd on camera who point blank asked Clinton if she ever told a lie. I mean what the fuck?

R85=r52

Because it WAS sexist, you asshole Vichy cretin Todd. It's like claiming that racism is correct because people are racists! What a fucking, FUCKING idiot.

Why didn't Hillary know this? She certainly raised enough money to do her own polling.

Here's a better question R89. Why don't you know that Chuck Todd is an idiot?

Omg.

That's what I'm getting from this too, R88. The newspaper coverage about Clinton was biased, unrelentingly negative, and she was held to a much higher standard. That's classic sexism. The news shows would have obviously sexist guests on saying obviously sexist things, as though this was normal.

And now Todd is claiming they weren't hard enough on her because they were being too PC. Taking him at face value means they wanted to be EVEN MORE SEXIST than they were, and he's pissy because they didn't get to act that way. They only got to be 80% sexist instead of 100% sexist, and it's all the fault of rampant SJW culture run amok.

Which he's saying because he's trying to suck up to Trump, of course.

Anyway, I'd love to know how Todd knows what, say, WaPo was going to publish but never did because it was "too sexist," or NYT, or what CBS News was going to say. Something tells me he's not exactly in the loop of ALL media as he claims.

Hillary was basically seen as a Republican in Minnesota

I hate Chuck Todd.

I don't know why it's so hard to grasp (or for some of you to admit). The election wasn't about which candidate was loved more but who was more reviled AND WHERE.

It was reported repeatedly that these were the two most disliked candidates ever. Not just Trump, her too.

The fact that Hillary got 3 million more votes only means 3 million more people hated Trump IN STATES WHERE THAT DIDN'T MATTER. She got those votes in California and New York, primarily, where their electoral votes were already assured. She lost because she was more repugnant to voters in states where the difference mattered. So being hated in middle America (which she did NOTHING to dispel) did indeed cost her the election.

I have not once heard a journalist ask Trump what he means when he says that he wants to make America great again. They never really asked him any hard questions and gave him free airtime instead.

Maybe they didn't think that he would win, but I would still have expected them to treat Trump like any other presidential candidate. They failed to do their jobs and Todd can't admit it.

Someone made a similar point on Katy Tur's show on MSNBC last week, R96. Tur immediately got defensive and shot back that reporters asked him about specifics all the time and were shut down or ignored. I do remember her making the effort, since she was the NBC reporter traveling with his campaign. Trump complained about her by name several times.

It's no that the media didn't do their jobs, I think, but that they didn't figure out or care that they were being played for the free publicity.

I hate Chuck Todd's hair (among other things)!

R97 That's exactly what I mean. They get paid to ask questions and to get answers out of people. They do not get paid to give people free airtime.

I'm not saying that some of them didn't try, but they still failed. Failing doesn't equal doing a good job. They are seasoned journalists who got played by Trump and his team and they need to admit it instead of offering alternative facts.

Maybe Todd learned from Kellyanne?

Amazing that the Hillbots have their heads so far up Huma Abedin's vagina that they actually think the media was against Killary. This being the same media that gave wall-to-wall coverage to the "pussy" tape, which Clinton and her friends at WaPo specifically leaked on the same day the WikiLeaks email disclosures started, just to smother that story. (And it worked; there was roughly a 20-1 coverage margin of The Tape versus the emails, according to one study I saw.)

After that came the daily parade of Women Offended By Trump, one per day, to keep the story rolling, rolling, rolling. Never mind that none of them had actually been "grab[bed] by the pussy" or anything near it (the closest being the only one who had been on record before this, that one reporter who spoke of Trump trying to kiss her up against a wall), never mind that the accusers included such women of character as an ex-porn star and a former [italic] Apprentice [/italic] contestant who had spent the spring campaigning [bold] for [/bold] Trump to her friends and family because she was trying to get back on the show…no, everyday was the relentless drumbeat of "America surely can't vote for Trump, he's an offense to common decency, all these wonderful Republicans [Bush, Romney, the neocon establishment, GoldmanSachs, etc] are all supporting Hillary now…I hear she's going to take Kansas and South Carolina, he's doomed!" echo chamber prophesying. For anyone to claim that "our press" (as the Clintonites called the media) was attacking Clinton is the biggest distortion since some bozos began peddling that "most qualified candidate ever to run for President" bullshit.

(Lyndon Johnson spent as much time in *each* House of Congress as Clinton had spent in public service her entire life, not counting the nearly 3 years as VP before Kennedy was assassinated, and the year as President he had under his belt by the time he was re-elected. Both Kennedy and Nixon, thought of as callow youths when they ran against each other in 1960, had more time in elected office [14 years apiece] than Clinton did, even when you throw in the Cabinet post.)

And now you get the unhinged goons who think they can impeach Trump or force his resignation. Sorry, ladies, but Trump isn't the one who destroyed 33,000 emails that Congress had subpoenaed and the illegal server as well. That's obstruction of justice, in case you forgot what Watergate was actually about. Just thousands of times more than Nixon and that sole 18.30 gap on that one tape. Not to mention her taking all those bribes from foreign countries (the $1,000,000 from Qatar as a "gift" for Bill's 65th birthday) even after she'd been formally warned against it. Or how (per Doug Band's emails to Podesta) she'd been supporting Chelsea's "lifestyle" out of Clinton Foundation funds for "over a decade", include paying for Chelsea's lavish wedding. All of which is very, very illegal.

You only had to follow the story to know that Clinton does in fact belong in prison. But good luck trying to follow it on NBC!

I know a lot of Trump voters, and to a person, they all expressed reservations about Trump, but that they could "never" have voted for her. To them, both were liars, but her type of lying was intentional deceit, where he lies more by exaggeration.

So, in essence, they thought Trump might indeed be flawed, but they were certain she was thoroughly despicable.

R100 You had me at "Killary". And then people wonder why we call them Breitfarts and Trumpkins.

Gee, I'm sorry you don't think she merits the nickname. Shall we ask Gaddafi (whose anal-rape-by-knife she found so hilarious) what he thinks? Or all the people who died from her and Obama's drone-murder campaigns? "Yes, those cerrtainly were hard choices. Which is why I called the book [italic] Hard Choices [/italic]! [Guffaws]"

Maybe her buddy, Madeline Albright, who thought that 576,000 dead Iraqi children from US-imposed sanctions were "worth it"? How about the victims of the Honduran coup, including Berta Caceres? 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki? (Guess what? It turns out he wasn't "collateral damage" after all, since the al-Qaeda "media chief" who was supposedly the "real target" of the drone that killed the Denver-born teen is actually still alive.)

It may shock you, but some of us think that President Peace Prize and his right-hand goon are bloodthirsty war criminals, and don't mind pointing that out from time to time. But go on with just assuming we're right-wingers because we didn't support the Goldwater Girl from GoldmanSachs. Show off the brainpower that enables you to conjure such clever insults as "Breitfarts".

As I sit on Chuck's desk during the pre-interview session with one leg and knee upwards, I slap my pussy slowly, forcefully, and repeatedly, while telling Todd he can have a little nibble if I am afforded an extra three minutes time to filibuster when on the air.

He gives me the extra time anyway.

[quote] they all expressed reservations about Trump, but that they could "never" have voted for her. To them, both were liars, but her type of lying was intentional deceit, where he lies more by exaggeration.

This has been my experience as well. They see Trump as the loudmouthed guy at the bar telling you how rich he is and how many hot women he bangs, while she's the con artist trying to pull off the Spanish Prisoner.

Moyers is full of shit, R84

Really disappointed in him for that spin piece.

Because you see that line about how since 50% of Americans had a favorable opinion of her and 39% had an unfavorable one is proof that Hillary Hatred is a media manufactured response and "Americans like her. They liked her quite a bit."

That's an alternative fact.

Look at 538's chart in the attached link showing unfavorable ratings of candidates since 1980. They are almost all at 20% or below. Even Jimmy Carter. To say that the fact that at the start of the election 4 out of 10 people had a negative opinion of her means "Americans like her. They liked her quite a bit." is the sort of shit Breitfart says about Trump.

Moyers should know better

Uh no, Chuck. I think we got it, watching all those inbreds shouting "Lock her up!" at their hate-filled convention and every campaign stop after...I think we got it.

R103, please share with us your defence of The Bush Administration - both of them - and Reagan too please because you're criticisms don't seem one-sided or illogical at all. Nor do you seem to truly grasp who the U.S. is in the world.

Chuck Todd is such a smarmy tool. He's backpedaling as hard as he can no that the Dumpster is prez. It's pitiful watching him try to twist himself into some kind of fair minded reporter instead of the smug opinionated insider that he usually is.

They did treat him like a legitimate candidate r96, in every way BUT holding his feet to the fire on his policies and his lies.

R23 is evidence that Democrats can be reality deniers, too. There is no recorded evidence of an electoral difference of 10,000 votes being overturned on recount.

That's not what they said and you know it, R111. Trump's lawyers were seen by multiple reporters getting in the way of the recounters, because doing so meant a good chance of invalidating any results the recount could/would have shown.

And R23's point remains: the geographical location of the popular vote doesn't matter when you're talking popular vote totals. It only matters when discussing the EC. You and your Trumpy pals always try to shrug off the 3M more votes Hillary Clinton got by saying those 3M didn't count, but when you're specifically discussing the popular vote, they most certainly DO count. R23 is not saying Trump lost the EC, they're pointing out that they won the EC by 80K votes while Clinton won the popular vote by 3M; therefore, saying she was unpopular is incorrect.

Todd tries to use the usual "Clinton was hated" meme but is at least smart enough to know that's not strictly true, so he tries to sneak it through by saying Clinton was hated in the Heartland, but SPOILER ALERT: The red states ARE the Heartland. And yes, they hate liberals and Democrats, especially black and female ones. He didn't do anything but state the obvious, then try to use that obvious fact to push his whiny "political correctness is to blame for Trump" theory.

Not just the heartland. People that have known Hillary since Arkansas say she's a terrible cunt and wish her a painful death.

Not sure why this is hard.

For reasons real or imagined, justified or unfair, large numbers of American voters have disliked Hillary Clinton for over 20 years. In 2015, at the start of the election season, 39% disliked her.

That alone should have been reason enough for the DNC to tell her "we'd love you to be at State again or any cabinet position of your choosing. But we can't risk runnig a candidate with those sort of unfavorable numbers. They've hated you for 20+ years, it's not as if you're going to change their minds now. It's like starting a race with a 50 lb weight shackled to your leg. Sorry."

But they didn't and now, Trump.

R112, I'm certainly not a fan of the tiny-handed one! He brings to mind John Connally's comment when shots rang out in the Dallas motorcade with JFK, "My God, they're going to kill us all!" But I am, alas, based in reality, and, whatever the motives in stopping the recount, there's no evidence in recorded history of a recount shifting 10,000 votes. If anything, that ill-advised recount hurt Democrats efforts to resist Republicans voter suppression efforts because it revealed some strange goings-on with Detroit ballots.

Trump managed to defeat 16 Republican candidates. Say what you will, Clinton came the closest to stopping this train.

If it had been the other way around - Trump won the popular vote and Clinton won the electoral college, that would have been the only story. It would have been the story throughout the lead up to January 20 and throughout her first term. The media wouldn't have let it go.

Trump is our President. That's not changing. But let's not pretend that the media didn't just give him months and months of free publicity. Let's not pretend that the media just let him get away with not releasing his taxes and they didn't hold him accountable for his supporters and the behavior at his rallies. The gave him a pass on his dog whistle brand of politics. And they've characterized it as a division between two Americas. No it wasn't. Not all Trump voters are racist, but he definitely got the racist vote. He definitely got the let's make American great again for straight white people vote.

But ultimately we shouldn't expect the media to do anything. The media has failed us over and over again. I blame my fellow Democrats for President Trump. The ones who didn't vote because they thought she was so far ahead that they didn't have to vote. The ones who made protest votes for 3rd party candidates or wrote in Bernie.

I believe that everyone has the right to vote however they choose. That's not my beef. My beef is, often times Democrats get up in their feelings for some perceived slight or some perceived lack of movement or some issue that violates their core progressive beliefs and instead of holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils they would rather not vote, sit back and watch the world burn. Then smugly tell everyone I told you so. We definitely saw that in 2010 and we saw it again last year.

Her campaign manager screwed the pooch. He got TROUNCED by Jared Kushner in the social media and analytics game. Absolutely demolished.

Bravo r100!!!

R114, she won more votes in the primaries in 2008 than Obama. She was at 66% approval during her tenure as SoS, rating higher than Obama.

When her approval ratings started to drop, it was at the end of 2014 and early 2015, during Benghazi and the email server news. It makes perfect sense for the DNC to have decided that those were not issues that would stick with her as long as they did; the DNC didn't know the media, both real US media and propaganda agents outside of the US, would artificially inflate the scandals just to have something to attack Clinton with. No one knew.

Besides, the DNC didn't have anyone else except Biden, and as far as we know, he decided not to run because of Beau's death. (There are rumors saying Obama told him not to run, there are rumors saying Obama was mad at Clinton because he wanted Biden instead. Nobody knows for sure, so I'm taking Biden's own word for it.)

There was no one else who could have stopped the Republicans. I suspect you'll say Bernie could have but no, no sane person believes he could have. And it took a whole lot of firepower to stop Clinton, which in and of itself puts the lie to your claim that she never could have won. She could have and the popular vote is the best empirical proof we have of that.

We need to evacuate all the good people in the heartland out, and then just gas the rest.

[quote]But I am, alas, based in reality, and, whatever the motives in stopping the recount

Whatever the motives? I'm sure it was just boredom and lulz, R115.

[quote]If anything, that ill-advised recount hurt Democrats efforts to resist Republicans voter suppression efforts because it revealed some strange goings-on with Detroit ballots.

Not sure how finding extra votes in one county (Wayne) helps voter suppression efforts.

Besides, in October it was discovered that there were unaccounted-for "renegade" Republican offices in multiple areas (not just Wayne County) that the Trump team and the Republican Party in Michigan didn't even know about. There was some shady shit going down with all that, but yes, let's not forget that a cluster of machines in one county tallied too many votes, which you'll just "realistically" assume were all Dem votes, because you're a realist, doncha know. And your realism tells you that the mere implication of what a Democrat may have done is worse than what a Republican actually does.

I'm not even saying you're a Trumpster. I mean, it's DL so you probably are, but you don't have to be. There's plenty of misguided purity minders like you in the Dem party.

r1 "well, I live in middle america, born in Wisconsin and emigrated to Minnesota for 5 years and now 30 in Illinois. There are hicks and racists and fear mongers everywhere, not just in the "middle" of the country. "

How does your first sentence support your second?

Meant r11.

The Democrats have been losing elections in the heartland since 2009. That's not exactly big news. People were too focused on Obama and his charisma to take notice. Hillary had her own problems but it's not like other Dems there have been doing great. Senators who should have won elections in places like Indiana also lost.

As I've said 1000x, Republicans will vote for anyone with an R next to them names. They vote for dog catcher. Democrats just stay home unless they're excited about candidates.

I think Voter suppression is horrific but if all the Democrats who were eligible to vote actually did, it wouldn't be a problem. Only about 55% of eligible voters came out in November. That's pathetic.

That deeply stupid extremist left fringe guy haunting this site is almost as bad as the Trumpkins. He thinks it's a revelation that there's an extremist left element who hated and attacked Hillary.

I always know it's him. I call him a right-winger just to drive up his blood pressure. With any luck he'll stroke out in the middle of yet another rant about how left-wing extremists are real and they really hate Democrats and how Bernie is the way, the truth and the light and Obama's a war criminal and Democrats have to go extremist left right now or they'll never win another election. Of course, losing the Electoral College by 80,000 votes in a rigged election where we won the popular vote and picked up seats in the House and the Senate anyway sure tells me that the Democratic Party is fated for death.

We have won the majority of voters in seven out of the last seven presidential elections if you really look at Ohio in 2004. If you insist on giving 2004 to the Rethugs, so be it. We've still won six out of seven. That's not a dead party, especially when they always have to cheat to beat us in the electoral college.

To borrow from Mr. Twain, the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

R119 is R100 talking to herself again. Pathetic.

Why in God's name is he still sporting a goatee???

The real question is did Hillary, Robbie Mook, John Podesta, and others in her campaign, know she was so unpopular in the heartland?

Certainly Bill Clinton knew, given his savvy political skills. Did she listen to Bill? After the South Carolina primary in 2008 where Bill took the blame, perhaps Hillary stopped following his advice.

Her campaign allowed the Bill Clinton presidency to come under attack; yet those years had growing prosperity.

You have all wondered over and over why incompetents who are ugly and pretty much worthless as journos like Matt Lauer and Anderson Cooper tag such big salaries. It's because they slant the news in a conservative direction. Period.

Most of the smart and motivated people left the midwest when they were old enough to and moved to the coasts. All that's left there are the uneducated who never really had a future. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that they hate Hillary and elites.

Mook was an idiot altogether. He doesn't even use social media.

Of course, Bill Clinton knew. Word was that Team HRC sidelined him:

"Bill Clinton reportedly agitated for the campaign to pay more attention to the “bubbas” that had once been his base, only to be rebuffed by a campaign staff that believed his worldview was out of date."

We can all play Monday morning quarterback.

Personally, I think Hillary should have sat down with two different people. The first is Oprah and she should have talked about the past. How Bill's indiscretions hurt her, but she loved her husband and wanted to keep her marriage together. She could even have talked about being a Grandma and a mother. People eat that shit up.

The second interview would have been with Howard Stern. Regardless of how you feel about Stern, he's a great interviewer and has a way making his subjects very relatable. His interviews are quoted and replayed all over the media.

Then you go to bumfuck USA and drink beers with Rednecks and walk through the local Walmart and talk to working mothers grocery shopping. These people may never vote for you, but the optics are great and play on the local news and the national news and goes a long way to softening an image.

We all know that Hillary is smart and prepared and was ready to be a damned good president. Unfortunately she needed to be relatable.

Does Chuck Todd know how much HE is HATED!

Thanks for the spot-on article R84. Bears repeating 1000 times. The #1 culprit of Trump’s win is the media. Followed by Comey. Followed by Russian influence/collusion.

Again, the public didn’t hate Hillary. Her favorability rating was 60% as SOS and 50% when she announced to run. The media took her down with constant focus on Benghazi/emails. Then they normalized Trump. The public takes cues from the media so they normalized him too – as through he wasn’t a raving ignorant fool. The media created false equivalencies which is why we’re in this mess. End of story.

And Hillary neglecting WI and MI is a red herring. Her losses there were minuscule and suspicious - especially given her polling numbers in these states. If the media acted like the responsible adult in the room, the need for Hillary to stomp the blue wall states at the end of the campaign to counteract the damage from them (and other bigly irregular and unprecedented factors) would have been negligible.

So of course Chuck Todd and his ilk are trying to hide their culpability by pretending there was always rampant Hillary hate that somehow grew organically in the heartland – without the media’s input – and that their only sin was neglecting to remind Hillary and the DNC about that chronic hatred.

News shows with the likes of Chuck Todd are intolerable as they continue to treat this debacle as normal and pretend to have reasonable discussions with the most odious of Trump-supporting guests. Yes they may call him out on a bit or two of insanity, but they are still guilty of sabotaging this country for the sake of ratings.

"We can all play Monday morning quarterback."

And the DNC better do so, r135.

R137 - Media, Comey, Russia... Ha ha ha... So, nothing to do with the candidate, I suppose? You guys are priceless.

A Presidential candidate under two federal investigations IS newsworthy. Stop acting like the press needed to ignore this. You've got her husband, an ex-President, in a clandestine meeting with the sitting Attorney General while same AG is overseeing the investigation of the candidate (who, by the way, intends to keep the AG in office if elected). This isn't news... BUT THE RUSSIANS!!!

Exactly R138-- the question is not "why did Trump win" it's "why did Hillary lose to Trump?" Because losing to someone as ridiculous as the Great White Cheetoh is truly a remarkable feat for any candidate.

There were people other than Biden, R120. And not just Bernie Sanders. If Obama, a junior senator was a viable candidate, there were plenty of Democrats with about as much experience who might have run. But they didn't because Hillary was pre-ordained.

Your arguments in her favor are weak. Did she get more votes in the primaries than an African-American junior senator from Illinois with limited government experience? Not really that great a feat.

What were here lowest negative ratings? Moyers, in the article R84 cites, says that it was proof of how beloved she was that only (ONLY!!) 39% or 4 out of 10 people found her unlikable.

It was a mistake to allow her to run. As many others-- centrist Democrats like myself who are not Bernie Bros or Trumpsters-in-Disguide--she is a brilliant behind the scenes operator but was never meant to be the leading lady. She's a great director, producer, writer, cinematographer. Just don't put her on camera.

I think that is how history will remember her-- what (or who) made her think that she could be a successful candidate when her talent was clearly behind the camera. Was it the early Senate win in New York? Bill wanting a comeback to avenge his legacy? Her own megalomania?

We'll never really know.

Nice job highlighting false equivalencies R140

Why is Raw Story republishing a Washington Times hit piece on Hillary? Have they gone full Bernie Bro?

Two corrections: The Bernie Bros were aggressive, insulting, and behaved despicably to Hillary's supporters, and were bullying and infantile online. There is absolute proof of this. It is TRUE.

Secondly, one of the things negatives do is suppress votes. I had anecdotal evidence of the trepidation of some Sheeple in my own Midwestern community. When the election would come up last year, even during the primaries, people were timid about voicing their support for Hillary. Almost apologetic.

They would usually offer some qualifier. Why? They themselves would cite " all these reports about her e-mails. " When I said I was unapologetically supporting her, and I felt she was being given a hard time and being smeared, and I trusted her, many of them would actually be relieved, and "correct" their impression, and agree with me.

But unless I asserted my position, they would act cautious. That is the effect of all the negativity. The Media constructed or attempted to construct this cloud of doom over Hillary's head and it didn't work.

She Fucking WON. The fact that Trump needed corruption., voter suppression, and the fucking Russians, abetted by the FBI director who was led by the nose by Rudy Giuliani says it all.

As for why didn't Russ Feingold win in Wisconsin? He was collateral damage. Feingold was running against Scott Walker, and Walker made his deal with Trump and his devils early. As far as Walker was concerned, he was determined to defeat Feingold. He didn't give a damn about the Presidential nearly as much as he did Feingold. Did he abet the Trump win? Certainly. But the Feingold defeat was vendetta writ large.

[quote] There was no one else who could have stopped the Republicans. I suspect you'll say Bernie could have but no, no sane person believes he could have.

There are plenty of sane people who think Bernie would have won. Former Obama speechwriters/advisers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor have a political podcast called "Pod Save America" (formerly "Keepin it 1600"). They were not BernieBros. They were all big Hillary fans and were sure she had the election in the bag. Since the election, they now admit that they didn't pay enough attention to some of Hillary's flaws and say they think Bernie probably would have won (though they admit they can't be sure).

I'm not sure if Bernie would have won, but I don't think he would have done any worse than Hillary. I think he definitely would have won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa. I'm not so sure about states like Pennsylvania, Virginia (which Hillary won), Ohio, and Florida. But in the end, Bernie would have been a gamble worth taking. I think Biden would have been a better bet and definitely would have won.

[quote]All that's left there are the uneducated who never really had a future. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that they hate Hillary and elites.

Fuck you.

I live in one of the many blue oases in a red state. There are a lot of good liberal people in the red states and assholes like you are why so many of them just bow out of politics altogether. You can't imagine the shit Dems get here, up to and including violence, definitely intimidation. A far-right Repug city commissioner publicly threatened to come to my house and beat me up on our local newspaper forums, because I had evidence of all the antisemitic and homophobic shit he'd posted online but thought that newspaper had deleted for him.

If you're lucky enough to just be able to sit in a comfortable blue state, then sit there and enjoy it, but go fuck yourself if you're going to take your good fortune and use it to dismiss the real work the rest of us do in states you literally want to nuke.

Preface this by saying, I'm a Hillary supporter. But let's not rewrite history ourselves. Hillary supporters weren't very nice to the BernieBros either. That whole thing was a two way street.

[quote]I had anecdotal evidence of the trepidation of some Sheeple in my own Midwestern community.

Because Dems learn early on that they can't just say they're Democrats in public, because someone is going to come up to them and yell and scream or worse.

[quote] Two corrections: The Bernie Bros were aggressive, insulting, and behaved despicably to Hillary's supporters, and were bullying and infantile online. There is absolute proof of this. It is TRUE.

And this is why the Rethugs will win again.

Because of the myth of the "Bernie Bros" a creation of Team Clinton.

There was primary. Some people voted against her. Some of them made funny-but-cruel memes about how uncool Hillary allegedly was.

But you know what- Trump had half the GOP actively telling people not to vote for him, had Romney go on TV and tell people he was a danger and a loser and all that.

If all it took were a few memes to beat Hillary, what does that say about her viability.

And your Feingold argument is kind of baffling R144-- not sure what you mean by "he was collateral damage"

And PS-- she didn't win. The game is called "Win The Electoral College Vote" not "Win The Popular Vote". Sort of like how in football, your Packers are trying to score the most points, not get the most possessions or run the most yards.

And that matters because the game in 2020 is still going to be "Win The Electoral College Vote" and we need to be able to do so.

[quote]Hillary supporters weren't very nice to the BernieBros either.

Yeah, I can't imagine why Clinton supporters wouldn't be nice and polite to a bunch of guys angry that a vadge was beating their candidate. Especially when those guys were all over the internet repeating right-wing anti-Clinton memes, hurting the entire Democratic Party in the process.

I am NOT a fan of Fox News. But I believe they, more than anyone, were instrumental in putting Trump (and Bannon) in office. They have been out-and-out lying for years, putting out fake news stories, and haven't been held accountable, (at least not nearly enough). But they are the only network most of Middle America watches, the ones who voted for Trump.

Hilary should have taken Megan Kelly's invitation and gone on her show. I've bitten my tongue and had watched Megan on occasion, she is actually pretty fair most of the time, (as opposed to Hannity). Even Obama appeared on Bill O'Reilly, and I think it was mostly to his benefit.

And FWIW, I think if anyone I worked with (entertainment industry/LA) said they were a Trump supporter, I think that would end their career. And their social life. So there's that.

(And I do think there were a lot more closet Trumpists than closet Clintonistas, hence the polls being so wrong.)

WTF R150. It was a primary. Are you still mad at Obama for saying "you're likable enough" and giving us the like "Hillary Clinton. She'll do anything, say anything to get ahead" (SC primary 2008)? Are '08 Obama supporters all evil fucks for daring to oppose her too.

If a candidate isn't strong enough to survive a primary, that says a lot about what a weak candidate they are.

And Le Grand Cheetoh sure as hell had a lot more shit thrown at him during the primaries than a bunch of memes claiming he didn't know which Harry Potter /Hogwarts house was which or the difference between various hip hop artists.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the media actually grovels and does not question the views of white Middle America. The media want to portray Middle America as salt of the earth, Godly, real America folks. As such, they are hesitant to portray them in a critical light, even if there is evidence they hold bigoted or ignoring views. They didn't criticize Trump's bigotry and ignorance because they know about half of America agrees with him. They knew it would be difficult to criticize Trump without likewise criticizing the people who empowered him. Even know, media are hesitant to call Trump out because so many think like him.

R145, your entire post is retarded, sub-adult garbage.

Bernie Sanders would not have won the popular vote by millions. Bernie Sanders would not have come within 80,000 votes of winning the electoral college. Bernie Sanders would have given Trumpolini the yuge landslide he's pretending he got.

Trumpolini's getting most of you to pretend he won in a landslide too and that Bernie fucking Sanders was a winning candidate and that Hillary Clinton was never popular. You are deeply and shockingly stupid people who believe big stupid lies. You got the president you deserve.

We are beloved by all.

[quote] Her favorability rating was 60% as SOS and 50% when she announced to run.

But no sane person would have expected those numbers to hold over the course of the presidential run, especially for a candidate like Hillary with 100% name recognition. Lawrence O'Donnell said near the start of the campaign that Hillary's poll numbers always start really strong and then decline over the course of a campaign (unlike some other candidates, whose numbers actually DO rise or at least hold steady during a campaign).

As for the media coverage, I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised that the media said negative things about Hillary. Of course they did. They always do. That should have been factored in from the start. If Hillary wasn't able to withstand the attacks from the press, then she was a weak candidate and we should have nominated a candidate who could.

Let's not forget that Obama had to fight against "fake news" that he was not an American citizen, his birth certificate was fake, he was a Muslim, and he hated America. Yet he was able to win TWICE, including in many of the heartland states that DLers insist are made up of nobody but racists and right-wingers. John Kerry had to fight against the Swift Boaters who said he was unpatriotic (despite having won the Purple Heart), yet he came much closer to winning the electoral college than Hillary did. Hillary is hardly the first Democratic presidential candidate who has had to deal with conspiracy theories and a hostile media.

Hillary and Mook made the horrible calculation that they could win just off of the Obama Coalition, and they didn't need to reach out to evangelicals, the rural, blue collar, white undereducated, and the rural like Obama did. Obama called them out after the election for not even trying to reach out to rural, blue collar, and religious voters. The Obama Coalition was lukewarm toward her, and she should have realized this well before November

Also, the media hates candidates that are not accessible and seem clandestine. Hillary would go days without a rally while Trump was having huge, raucous rallies daily. Media were openly saying where is Hillary, and rolling eyes when it would come out she was at a Hollywood fundraiser.

When are you morons going to get it through your thick skulls?

We do not want the deplorables in our party. WE DON'T WANT THEM. We're not going to move to the right to appease them. We're not going to pretend to be racist and stupid to make them comfortable. The answer is no.

Here we go again, rehashing all the hate for Trump, Sanders or Clinton. Get over it already. All you have to do is look at the current headlines to see that the news media isn't done bashing Trump every chance they get. Totally unprofessional "journalism."

If R145 and others think that this is what brought Hillary down, I have some land in Florida to sell them...

Oy! Still blaming the jews.

[quote] Bernie Sanders would not have won the popular vote by millions.

I agree. Show me where in my post I ever said that Bernie would have won the popular vote by millions. I think Bernie would have done WORSE in the popular vote than Hillary and may actually have lost the popular vote. But he probably would have fared better in the electoral college, which is all that counts. He would have won more votes in the states that DO matter, like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa (and possibly Ohio or Pennsylvania), while probably not gaining as many votes as Hillary did (though still enough to win) in the states that DON'T matter, like California and New York. In the electoral college, it's all about winning STATES, not about winning VOTES. Jesus, I don't know why some of you Hillary die-hards can't comprehend this.

[quote] Her favorability rating was 60% as SOS and 50% when she announced to run.

Reality to Datalounge, come in Datalounge: These are NOT good numbers. 60% favorability means 4 out of 10 voters view you unfavorably.

Not a good place to start.

For perspective, even during the 2008 campaign, Obama's favorability rating was at around 70%

Democrats are loathe to say it out loud, and the press will not report it - but if Blacks came out for her as they did for Obama in Milwaukee, Philly and Detroit, she'd be Madame President.

Standing on a stage in Brooklyn with Beyoncé and JayZ or schmoozing at cocktail parties in Marin County and West Hollywood probably weren't smart choices.

[quote] I agree. Show me where in my post I ever said that Bernie would have won the popular vote by millions. I think Bernie would have done WORSE in the popular vote than Hillary and may actually have lost the popular vote. But he probably would have fared better in the electoral college, which is all that counts. He would have won more votes in the states that DO matter, like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa (and possibly Ohio or Pennsylvania), while probably not gaining as many votes as Hillary did (though still enough to win) in the states that DON'T matter, like California and New York. In the electoral college, it's all about winning STATES, not about winning VOTES. Jesus, I don't know why some of you Hillary die-hards can't comprehend this.

Being that the Republicans never ran against Bernie (they spent 2 yrs running against Clinton). It is impossible to say how he would have been affected, once the attacks started. It ridiculous to say that he probably would have won anything, (unless he was able to continue to run unchallenged by Republicans). He couldn't even win the primary. He did not do well with black voters at all.

The could-Bernie-have-won question really hinges on how many Trump voters were voting FOR Trump as opposed to AGAINST Hillary and the coastal elite.

Many red state Trump voters had been Obama voters who felt left out/let down by the current regime. Would Bernie have appealed to them more than Trump? Impossible to know and not worth speculating about other than as a parlor game for political nerds.

But we do need to keep those dynamics in mind for 2020

[quote] It is impossible to say how he would have been affected, once the attacks started. It ridiculous to say that he probably would have won anything,

Of course, it's impossible to say for sure whether he would have won or lost. Perhaps you missed the part where I said "I'm not sure if Bernie would have won."

[quote] He did not do well with black voters at all.

That is very true. But I'm trying to figure out which states Bernie would have lost due to low black turnout that Hillary won. I'm having trouble thinking of any. Meanwhile, Bernie may have done better than Hillary in heavily white states like Wisconsin and Iowa.

Yo bro. still.. blaming the blacks.

[quote] Democrats are loathe to say it out loud, and the press will not report it - but if Blacks came out for her as they did for Obama in Milwaukee, Philly and Detroit, she'd be Madame President. Standing on a stage in Brooklyn with Beyoncé and JayZ or schmoozing at cocktail parties in Marin County and West Hollywood probably weren't smart choices.

Or if young people, or white people, or green people or purple people or any of the 90 million who did not vote (40+ percent of eligible voters) voted for Clinton would be president. Keeping in mind there are only around 37 million blacks in the U.S. Clinton won 88% of the black vote and 39% of the white vote.

The media have a Dilemma: do they call Trump on his lies, ignorance, and bigotry and risk being viewed even more as suffering from a liberal bias? Also, when they take on Trump, they are criticizing at least 64 million who agree with him. His views are the views of almost half the nation , so the media has to be careful

Bernie would have never won. Period. Tad Devine, Bernie's Campaign Manager, is a business partner of Paul Manafort. He also had Russian "clients" at one time in the not to distant past.

But that aside, I would like to once and for all address the Myth of Bernie: Bernie Sanders voted for Wall Street Deregulation. Bernie Sanders voted against Immigration Reform...he told Lou Dobbs, it was to protect American jobs. But then he voted against rescuing the automobile industry from collapse when Obama needed his help.

He also tried desperately, many times, to derail the Affordable Care Act...because he thought it wasn't good enough, and he had a 'better version" that got no support. He actively worked to sabotage passage of the ACA in league with his GOP colleagues.

In fact, in 30 years of being a member of Congress, there is not one single piece of significant legislation that he introduced. It is not only that he opposed sensible gun safety reforms, he also voted to protect gun manufacturers from legal action. He voted against closing the gun show loopholes and waiting periods, that would have made people safer. He also voted several times to support the War in Iraq. Yes.

Look. Bernie Sanders is not a new phenomenon in American politics. He's a gadfly. He had a purpose, a function. He was a Useful Idiot. He's the guy who demagogues his way to the center of the stage, fires people up, and has no chance of getting any of his proposals through Congress, and enacted. He raises expectations, fuels dissatisfaction, and eventually he is defeated.

There were people in Trump's camp that were salivating at the possibility of Bernie defeating Hillary in the primaries. They were even funneling money to Bernie's campaign through fair means and foul and Bernie's campaign finances came under scrutiny several times for unaccounted for $$.

You want to look at some voting irregularities, look at the Bernie Bros' non residents who voted in caucuses and primaries out west. Jeff Weaver was busing them in. Just as they were busing in and paying for the crowds they got at some of his rallies.

He blew through a lot of money. Did he have genuine support? Yes. Did he attract thousands to his rallies? Yes. But he was an insurgent whose job it was to, at the very least, bloody the front runner. it's a well worn strategy.

I have worked in, and run too many campaigns going back to the early 70's. I knew plenty of local "Bernie Sanders." We called them Judas Goats. Bernie raised some important issues. he also caused Hillary to tack further to the left. It's 50/50 whether that helped or hurt her. Hillary's stance on Gun safety, on Criminal Justice reforms, On racism, on Environmental and healthcare issues galvanized her enemies in corporate America. her human Rights stance and her foreign policy positions made an avowed enemy of Putin. he wanted to stop her at any cost. And look who won.

I have neither the time nor interest in dealing with people who choose to look backwards, who foster and encourage negative, unproductive, DIVISIVE tantrums. Fuck off. We are facing extreme danger. We need to pull together and fight. If you can't get on the fucking bus then crawl back into your Mama's basement and let the grown ups deal with this shit storm.

R168 So…socialist and Jewish/atheist would have played well in Wisconsin and Iowa. Interesting.

As a former "Bernie-bro" who converted to "Hillbotism", I really don't see how you can vote for Bernie in the primaries and then end up voting for Trump? How does one go from voting for far left campaign talking points to the far right? There's a big difference between affordable education and building expensive and useless walls or deporting Muslims.

R173 - it admittedly sounds absurd until you consider that "black man from Hawaii with Muslim name who spent formative years in Indonesia and had limited experience working any sort of a real job" hit it out of the park in those states. Twice.

That's not to say Bernie would have won, just that it seems there are no more hard and fast rules.

I agree with what you posted, R172, but Clinton voters and Sanders voters (who supported Clinton in the general) should not be put on the defensive by trolls like OP.

I have no idea why this thread has 175 replies. It must give the asshole OP immense satisfaction that your buttons were successfully pushed. That was the whole point, after all.

Yeah, the polling was off in swing States, but there were strong signs Hillary was flailing. Weeks before the election, many noticed early voting was weak for Democrats in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, particularly among blacks, Democrats, Latinos. Republicans were performing significantly better in early voting than they did in 2012 in swing States, except for Nevada. Also, polling reflected an enthusiasm gap between Hillary and Trump voters that was an ominous sign. Further, Republicans were coimg home to Trump so that he was polling near 90% among them in mid October.

A non religious Jew from Vermont would have done even worse

Against a non-religious, thrice-divorced, seems-like-a-Jew-but-isn't from New York who grabbed pussy?

Not sure I'd take that bet R178. I'd probably pass given the unpredictability.

Remember too that: Trump vs Hillary, Hillary is the coastal elitist. Trump vs Bernie, Trump is the coastal elitist.

[quote] So…socialist and Jewish/atheist would have played well in Wisconsin and Iowa. Interesting.

Probably would have played at least well as Hillary played.

43% of Iowa Democrats call themselves Socialists. Bernie came close to beating Hillary in the Iowa caucuses.

In the Wisconsin Democratic primary, Bernie beat Hillary by nearly 140,000 votes.

Bernie also did better than Hillary in the primaries in other Midwestern states like Michigan and Minnesota. The Midwest was Bernie's area of strength, while Hillary's strength was on the coasts.

What voters in states like Iowa and Wisconsin want is someone who talks about farmers and unions and blue-collar jobs. Bernie talked a lot more (and a lot more believably) about those things than Hillary did. Bernie would have visited farms and factories and county fairs and done the kinds of events that the Hillary campaign couldn't be bothered to do.

I supported Hillary 100% in the primary and the general, but I can see now that she was a terrible candidate. Her campaign speeches were dull and uninspiring. Her main problem is that she has an unpleasant speaking voice, which made her sound angry and shrill. Why didn't someone on her team bring in a speech coach to help her? That should've been one of the first things they did. And, of course, she concentrated way too much on social and racial issues instead of economic issues.

I don't know if Bernie would have won, either, but at least he wouldn't have had her high unfavorables.

[quote] Yeah, the polling was off in swing States, but there were strong signs Hillary was flailing. Weeks before the election, many noticed early voting was weak for Democrats in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, particularly among blacks, Democrats, Latinos. Republicans were performing significantly better in early voting than they did in 2012 in swing States, except for Nevada. Also, polling reflected an enthusiasm gap between Hillary and Trump voters that was an ominous sign. Further, Republicans were coimg home to Trump so that he was polling near 90% among them in mid October.

I live in Greensboro, NC. At the start of early voting, we had 1 polling place open (The Board of Elections), and there was a 1 hr. to 2 hr. wait, The other early voting locations did not open til like a week later (courtesy of the Republican voter suppression efforts),

[quote] Her main problem is that she has an unpleasant speaking voice, which made her sound angry and shrill. Why didn't someone on her team bring in a speech coach to help her? That should've been one of the first things they did- R181

Dude.... they knew. They even tried having Stephen Spielberg work with her to make her more comfortable on the campaign trail.

At the risk of repeating myself too many times-- she is a brilliant behind-the-scenes person. But not the front man. Director, producer, head writer. Just don't put her in front of the camera if you want your movie to succeed.

^^Steven Spielberg. My bad

R183 And yet she manged to win 2 senate campaigns in state in which she did not live. She become a very popular senator and a very popular sect of state.

You can pick Clinton apart all day long, but again this was not a normal election.

The enthusiasm gap was expected after 8 years of one party controlling the WH. That's why it's so hard for one party to hold on to the presidency for more than 2 terms. You better believe that Democrats will be flocking to the polls in 2012, and certainly 2020.

She was a congenital liar. With more baggage than Zsa Zsa Gabor. Simple as that. People smell liars. People who vote for Trump also sense he's a liar, but unlike in the case of Hillary, they don't care. They want him to stick it to those who've ignored and hurt them.

R180 Ultimately, we’re talking about the general not the primary. I doubt there were many socialist/ atheist republicans to put Bernie over the top vs Trump in the midwest.

That was actually her downfall, R183

She won Senate campaigns against very weak candidates in a state that was traditionally very Democratic and where her "carpetbagger" status was a non-issue.

That victory convinced her/Bill/her people that she was actually a viable national candidate and that her strong weaknesses did not matter.

Or to use my original analogy, YouTube stars rarely make good TV stars and TV stars rarely make good movie stars.

[quote] I doubt there were many socialist/ atheist republicans to put Bernie over the top vs Trump in the midwest.

Of course not. Republicans wouldn't have voted for Bernie, and they didn't vote for Clinton.

But I think there would have been more Democratic enthusiasm for Bernie than for Hillary in those states, which would have boosted Democratic turnout and led to fewer Democrats who stayed home (or defected and voted for Trump). That alone would have been enough to keep those states blue.

And I think moderates in those Midwestern states may have been more inclined to vote for a candidate (Bernie) who they perceive as speaking directly to their concerns than one whose campaign chooses to ignore their states. As for the claim that they wouldn't have voted for a socialist Jew, remember that they voted for a black man with the middle name Hussein who many thought was a Muslim -- not once, but twice.

Barbara Bush had it right. The country was tired of Bushes and Clintons.

[quote] She was a congenital liar. With more baggage than Zsa Zsa Gabor. Simple as that. People smell liars. People who vote for Trump also sense he's a liar, but unlike in the case of Hillary, they don't care. They want him to stick it to those who've ignored and hurt them.

The deplorables are stupid enough to believe Trump's every word. And they only want to "stick it" to are black and brown people because the 1%, (e.g. Trump and his cabinet) told them for decades that black and brown people are the source of all of their problems. While they (the 1%) continue to get richer and make the "American Dream" (for the 99%) a nightmare.

You rang, R191?

[quote] Barbara Bush had it right. The country was tired of Bushes and Clintons.

Barbara was 1/2 right.

Let's compile a list with all of Hillary's "wrongdoings" and compare it to Trump's list. There is no way for Hillary to look worse than Trump. Again, I would have loved for Bernie to win the primaries, but that didn't happen. We don't always get the candidate we're rooting for, and that's when you get behind the candidate who's best equipped to represent your views.

You could hold a gun to my head and I would still not vote for Trump.

Chuck Todd should focus on reporting instead of whining.

[quote] You could hold a gun to my head and I would still not vote for Trump.

And you are representative of the majority of voters in the Midwest that Todd was referencing?

[quote] I really don't see how you can vote for Bernie in the primaries and then end up voting for Trump? How does one go from voting for far left campaign talking points to the far right?

You're right. It doesn't make sense. But, like it or not, a lot of voters vote based on general feelings and qualities rather than on specific issues. This was an election where voters wanted change. They wanted to shake things up. I think some voters didn't care whether that was a far-right shakeup or a far-left shakeup, as long as it was someone unconventional who would shake things up. The perception was that Hillary was the status quo. She was cautious, careful, and steady in a year when voters weren't looking for those qualities. I'm not defending this, and I'm not saying that's the way it should be. Yes, a lot of voters who voted for Trump to "send a message" will now pay the consequences and live to regret that decision. But it is what it is. To win an election, you need to run a candidate whose mood fits the general mood of the electorate. If the voters are screaming "Change!" you can't say, "But look at how experienced she is!"

[quote]Her campaign speeches were dull and uninspiring. Her main problem is that she has an unpleasant speaking voice, which made her sound angry and shrill. Why didn't someone on her team bring in a speech coach to help her? That should've been one of the first things they did. And, of course, she concentrated way too much on social and racial issues instead of economic issues.

And Sanders has such a pleasant speaking voice. And his speeches were so varied and not at all one note.

She concentrated on everything that mattered. Unfortunately, that presented an overload for most voters' brains. She should have simplified things, I agree with that.

R196 No, I am not. Does that mean that I am not allowed to question their sanity? Has Trump passed an executive order on that as well?

The narrative that she was a liar throughout the campaign was debunked by fact checkers numerous times, but never got the traction it deserved.

I'm glad Chuck is admitting that NBC has a sucky news org. They have no credibility left.

Hillary has had 30 years of bad press, going back to when Bill was elected and she changed her last name to Clinton from Rodham. The media reported she didn't want to and they were all over it, making her look terrible. I was living in the Midwest then (where I grew up) and that did not go over well, that she thought she was so hot shit that she didn't need/want his last name. Then she spearheaded the health insurance coverage for all effort and was pilloried at the time. People didn't like that she was the president's wife, running such an important effort. I know this all sounds quaint, but people there started disliking her back then and it has only grown.

There's absolutely no way Bernie would have won out there. I spoke with lots of relatives and friends and they thought he was too old and a crackpot, possibly a Commie. Being Jewish was not a plus.

For the person who keeps going on about Obama being elected even though he had a Muslim name, I remember well that back then he and his wife were always seen attending church and he talked about his faith alot. That's how he overcame that hurdle.

I do think that Hillary being a woman was a big no for lots of people. She is seen as too smart and too strong and that's not their comfort zone. They prefer someone who looks friendly, like Bush or Clinton. Someone they'd like to have a beer with or have as a neighbor. She is seen as a liar and not a nice person.

Trump is seen as taking charge with all of those years on tv saying, "You're fired!" People eat that up. Although I have spoken with a few relatives who did vote for him and now they are astonished that he can't quit griping about the election being a fraud, and that he lies so much. They are waking up to what's happened, but I'm not sure they would've changed their vote. They wanted a change.

It was all the left handed people who caused HER defeat.

Isn't "heartland" just code for racist?

[quote] For the person who keeps going on about Obama being elected even though he had a Muslim name, I remember well that back then he and his wife were always seen attending church and he talked about his faith alot. That's how he overcame that hurdle.

The church the Obamas regularly attended in Chicago was led by the Rev. Wright, who exclaimed "Goddamn America!" Don't you remember that controversy? If anything, Obama's church/faith background only fueled the claim that he wasn't a real Christian and hated America. But Obama was able to overcome that, too, and convince Midwesterners to vote for him.

Trump is seen as taking charge with all of those years on tv saying, "You're fired!" People eat that up. Although I have spoken with a few relatives who did vote for him and now they are astonished that he can't quit griping about the election being a fraud, and that he lies so much. They are waking up to what's happened, but I'm not sure they would've changed their vote. They wanted a change.

Yes they did wan change. They wanted a white, stupid, vulgar, petty, incompetent man child. They wanted recession versus the economic growth that President Obama created. They wanted laws that will benefit only the rich. The wanted to accelerate global warming, rather than combat it. They wanted to sink this nation's standing in the world, rather than continue to raise it. They wanted to restrict civil rights, rather than extend them. They wanted to set this country back decades. And Trump is definitely giving them their change.

Word

[quote] Trump is seen as taking charge with all of those years on tv saying, "You're fired!" People eat that up. Although I have spoken with a few relatives who did vote for him and now they are astonished that he can't quit griping about the election being a fraud, and that he lies so much. They are waking up to what's happened, but I'm not sure they would've changed their vote. They wanted a change.

Yes they did wan change. They wanted a white, stupid, vulgar, petty, incompetent man child. They wanted recession versus the economic growth that President Obama created. They wanted laws that will benefit only the rich. The wanted to accelerate global warming, rather than combat it. They wanted to sink this nation's standing in the world, rather than continue to raise it. They wanted to restrict civil rights, rather than extend them. They wanted to set this country back decades. And Trump is definitely giving them their change.

Yes, R206, I remember that but I don't think Wright was still the pastor at the time, so it was easier for him to denounce Wright and quit that church and start attending another. He was still shown attending church up until he was elected. That kind of continuity counts to some people who might have been wavering on the question of his beliefs.

R207, you need to take something to calm yourself down. It sounds like you're going to have a stroke. I was only reporting what I've heard. I personally think we should all rage at the people who didn't vote at all. They're the ones who swung the election to Trump IMO.

"Her main problem is that she has an unpleasant speaking voice, which made her sound angry and shrill. "

Same problem Elizabeth Warren has.

R204, yes and Obama wrote and talked extensively about his born again conversion to faith in Christ. He quoted Scripture and used a preacher voice when visiting churches

In 2008, Hillary at least went to churches and tried to connect with Middle America

I knew Hillary would have a hard time with men. I am just surprised white women voted for Trump in the numbers they did. According to the news, there were even Trump voters at the women's march!

This is why I will only laugh if Roe vs Wade gets overturned.

Obama is very well liked by young white people and women. Old white people and white men never liked him.

If it were only up to white men or folks over 50, he would have never became President. He won enough suburban white women and millennials in key states so he could win his elections. It is possible he could have lost in 2012 and we would had a President Romney if Bernie Sanders really did primary him, and take away all the millenial vote

Funny how Obama wasn't a "real" Christian to low-life racist trash who are anything but.

Trump downed 16 other GOP candidates during the primaries. Some of those guys, like them or not, knew the issues, and would not be seen as highly disturbing, if elected. John Kasich, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, for examples, come to mind.

The media basically only focused on Trump during the GOP primaries, beginning with his announcement speech months earlier. Trump's simplistic, combative message resonated with his followers and the media exploited it and fed it. CNN hired Trump pundits as talking heads long before the primary debates were over.

Hillary's campaign people should of known his core supporters were enthusiastic while here own partisans did not show sufficient deep passion about here candidacy to convince enough of the 12 to 15% of undecided voters. She lost the Electoral College due to lower turnout numbers in her behalf in critical states.

One demographic that are reliable voters are senior citizens. Hillary should have been hammering Paul Ryan and the GOP Congress about,their intentions to gut or privatize social security and medicare. Seniors also want assurances for safety. She addressed little on that matter.

What do we do to win back those 80K voters spread across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?

Has there been evidence that Hillary supporters didn't turn out because polls indicated she was going to win in a romp?

[quote]And yet he still fails to acknowledge how much the media is at fault for that hate with their nonstop bogus "Corrupt Hillary" "new Clinton scandal!" and OMGNENGHAZIEMAILS??!!!!1111!! stories.

Chuck is such a shit. Months of acting like the email shit mattered, acting like her voice mattered, acting like her ability to be an exciting orator mattered...

The media did HRC dirty, now that guilty conscience that knows they helped put a madman, halfwit traitor in office is eating at them.

The fact that she did much better in North Carolina and Georgia than she did in Iowa and Ohio underscores her fatal flaws with white blue collar voters and Middle america

[quote]her fatal flaws with white blue collar voters

"Her" fatal flaws were to blame for blacks instead of whites voting for her?

So we know there was an army of Putin trolls, alt-right mobilization like we've never seen, a whole alt-left wing including Bernie bros and wikileaks, the press like Todd was constantly picking over her supposed weaknesses as if she was on par with Trump.

While I certainly don't see her as a viable candidate in the future, from what I can see there's a lot of flawed people, racists, and sexists in this picture, who'd rather the focus be on Hillary instead of their own guilt.

Barack Obama:

[quote]I think that Hillary Clinton performed wonderfully under really tough circumstances. I've said this publicly, I'll repeat it. I think there was a double standard with her. For whatever reason, there's been a longstanding difficulty in her relationship with the press that meant her flaws were wildly amplified [relative to Trump's]

He is right, but I think the press was echoing a deep dislike of her in the Heartlands

SHE WON BY 3 MILLION VOTES!

PRESIDENT HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON.

Yes, Barack, but the Democrats knew that double standard was there before they selected her. Everyone knew she would be treated brutally. To single out "the press" is wrong since Donald J. Trump did not receive a single major newspaper endorsement, the first time that has EVER happened. Lyndon LaRouche himself probably would have picked a newspaper somewhere, but not Trump. It was not the press, it was the television media which told people not to trust the press - my guess the proportion of people who read a newspaper has probably declined by half since 2000 - and covered Trump like a celebrity not a politician. Remember what is at stake here for people like the Bushes. They have committed crimes which would give them the electric chair, and the last thing they want is anyone in Washington who knows what they are doing. Yes, they claimed to dislike Trump, didn't they. It doesn't necessarily mean it was true.

[quote] [R207], you need to take something to calm yourself down. It sounds like you're going to have a stroke. I was only reporting what I've heard. I personally think we should all rage at the people who didn't vote at all. They're the ones who swung the election to Trump IMO

I don't need to calm down, because I'm not upset. You stated that your friends/associates wanted change, and I described exactly what kind of change they chose. I understand that you wanted to offer some sort of empathetic insight. However, no matter how you try to dress it up. Trump voters are some variation of ignorant and stupid. And they are bigots. Their votes put our nation in great jeopardy, no two ways about it. And just to be clear I'm saying these word is the softest voice possible, with the most polite tone possible.

They didn't want change. What they wanted was to make negative commentary about what has been going. They weren't thinking about the FUTURE at all. Remember Trump had no real plans. It was an abuse of their right to vote. Instead of participating in the governing of the country, they decided instead to use the vote to insult their neighbors.

[quote] Yes, Barack, but the Democrats knew that double standard was there before they selected her. Everyone knew she would be treated brutally.

This.

Historians will puzzle over why despite Clinton's obvious shortcomings the DNC anointed her nonetheless, setting the stage for Trump. Was it blindness, a lack of any other alternative, or a deal she made with Obama to drop out in 08?

[quote] Bitch please. Hillary was right all along, the heartland is a basket of deplorables: sexis, racist, ignorant, lazy, and most of all evil ruffians that loathe the Coastal communities of this country

Hillary didn't go far enough in her condemnation of these racist scum. These are not people whose tastes or opinions should matter to anyone. These are not people who deserve anything that's in their best interest because anything that's bad for them is good for actual humans. These are not people.

[quote]I'm a liberal Democrat living in Connecticut and even I had to hold my nose while I voted for her.

Same here. I've never been a Hillary fan, but I held my nose and voted for her.

Golly, Chuck, if only you had spent more time on Clinton's negatives and ignored all of Trump's negatives even more, then you would have fulfilled your duty as a faux newsman.

"The Coastal Elites!"

Cracks me up - what total fucking moron came up with that one?

R226 Of course Clinton would never have been as bad, but had the democrats run a decent candidate, a candidate who could win, perhaps Sanders, we wouldn’t be in this mess. The American people were looking for an alternative to the failed centrist and pro-corporate policies of the Neo-Liberals embodied by Clinton. Given no viable choice too many of them either choose not to vote or fell for the lies of a reprehensible con-man. And so here we are with a pompous, selfish, ignorant, and unprincipled man-child as president, surrounding himself with a posse of fascist sycophants. Where will it end? Who can say, but it won’t be pretty.

Sanders couldn't win. What kind of fucking brain damage do you people have? Were you raised in some country outside of the United States where Socialists win elections so you;ve convinced yourself that it can happen here now? It isn't happening here. Sanders could never have won.

Hillary Clinton was an excellent candidate. Her popularity was strong when she was Secretary of State and strong when she announced her candidacy. She won all three debates. She raised a fortune to pay for the campaign. She put together a decent coalition of voters. 80-90% of Bernie supporters voted for Clinton.

What could not have been taken into consideration in advance, nor at any time during the campaign, was the influence of Vladimir Putin's online troll farms pushing his anti-Clinton narratives, attacks and agenda, the media's 24/7 fascination with a second-rate game show host as a candidate and the idea that they would treat a totally unfit con-man as a serious contender for the presidency, the bizarre rogue FBI cell in New York under the influence of Breitshart and the freak FBI Director who would try to rig the election in the Fat Fuhrer's favor. Despite all of those things, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by millions and only missed winning the Electoral College by 80,000 votes in total - which is nothing.

To constantly attack Secretary Clinton and her campaign as though she rand a disastrous campaign and lost on the scale of George McGovern is fucking insane and I'm sick to death of it. I don't know why you people are so completely blind and consistently stupid and I don't care. Your lies and twisted perspective on this election are wrong, sub-adult and/or Rethuglican trollish.

[quote] What kind of fucking brain damage do you people have? Were you raised in some country outside of the United States where Socialists win elections so you;ve convinced yourself that it can happen here now?

Up until a year or so ago, everyone thought you would have to have brain damage to believe that Trump's candidacy was anything other than a joke. Up until 8 years ago, everyone thought you'd have to have brain damage to believe that a black man could be elected president. Times change. Things happen. The old rules no longer apply.

[quote] only missed winning the Electoral College by 80,000 votes in total - which is nothing.

Well, that "nothing" ended up being the difference between being the leader of the free world and not being the leader of the free world.

The dirty little secret about women is that they talk a good game but they really don't support one another. That's the god's honest truth. Most women I see at work are always dragging down the ones who move up or who try to better themselves. It can be anything. Don't let some woman come in and talk about her new sofa, or a vacation she's planning. They are a miserable lot and they pick and tear and shit all over one another all the time. None of the women in my office voted for Hillary. Now they're all worried about healthcare.

R234, I don't think we can make this a gender thing when black women voted for Hillary.

It seems more of a race thing. White women can be racist and yes, many are conservative Tea Baggers and pro-lifers. This is something people find difficult to understand for whatever reason. Lena Dunham and Rachel Maddox does not represent the majority of white women. The truth is a KellyAnne and Kim Davis is probably a more accurate fit for Middle America especially

I going to say something mean and stupid and controversial. I'm asking for forgiveness before I type.

Straight white women were the leaders and in the forefront of the movement that brought women many of the rights they have today. That being said, there are a lot of white women whose only goal in life is to meet a man, get married, pump out kids and spend the rest of her days in a relationship. These are also the women who feel more comfortable when a man is in charge. Straight white women will bend themselves into pretzel to land a man. My favorite is the "cool sports chick" who wears the team jersey during the Sunday game.

Now I'm not saying that straight women of other races and ethnicities aren't looking for men, but I think those non white women are more self sufficient and can take care of themselves and don't look to men for their own care and guidance. These women are strong willed and independent thinkers. They don't fall apart if a man isn't in the picture.

I am not saying that all straight white women are this way, but I do feel that more of them are socialized from when they're little girls that their goal in life is to find a man, marry, and have kids. So what happens is, they taken on the politics and beliefs of their husbands. They go where the boys are. This is why, I believe, so many straight white women voted for Trump.

"Hillary Clinton was an excellent candidate" R232 thought the Titanic was an excellent ship.

Also they didn't want Hillary to be hated. They were trying to cover it up.

If you spent even a second in Western PA last October you would have seen the hatred.

Why so smugly self righteous R232? The fallout will not discriminate between republicans and democrats.

"Also they didn't want Hillary to be hated."

That's why they spent 24/7 talking about meaningless email controversies.

[quote]they didn't want Hillary to be hated. They were trying to cover it up.

Cover it up? Are you insane? I agree with Obama, there was a weird magnification of her flaws, completely the opposite of what you wrote.

Hell, I talked to a taxi driver just before the election who *loathed* Obama. Should the media have exposed that instead of contrasted Obama's and Romney's platforms?

Bigots and sexists in bumfuck shouldn't drive media coverage.

I am not quick to throw around the racist word and I realize that many of Trump's supporters are not racist. But I do know that his rallies brought out that contingent. They've tried to reimagine the story as Democratic plants causing all the problems, but we know the truth.

We can't throw the baby out with the bath water here guys. Hillary losing was Hillary losing, our ideas and beliefs are sound. The Democrats didn't give up on the working class as much as they gave up on Democrats because they allowed others to convince them that "others" were the sources of their problems.

While the rich guys aren't paying taxes and shipping jobs overseas, they're blaming welfare mothers for their problems. How is that okay?

What the media underplayed is how dangerous to national security Trump is through his shady relations with Russia, even though they were fully aware of the Steele dossier. They also underplayed just how hated he is.

The news networks underplayed just how much Hillary is genuinely loved and admired by millions.

They overplayed the emails.

[quote] The news networks underplayed just how much Hillary is genuinely loved and admired by a couple of dozen posters on DataLounge.

No you fuckface piece of shit at r244, you didn't fix anything, moron.

[quote] No you thoughtful-yet-realistic gay Democrat at [R244], thank you for fixing my post, kind sir.

R246, if you have a bridge over a fast-flowing river near you please go and jump off it. Alternatively, throw yourself out of a top-floor window or run into a busy street with lots of fast, oncoming traffic.

[quote] [R246], if you have a bridge over a fast-flowing river near you please go and contemplate the beauty of the water Alternatively, gaze out of a top-floor window at the beautiful vistas or walk down a busy street with lots of hot guys on it.

[quote] The news networks underplayed just how much Hillary is genuinely loved and admired by millions.

Unfortunately, most of those millions live in New York and California.

"Unfortunately, most of those millions live in New York and California."

Innumeracy is almost as bad as illiteracy in this country.

I always wondered what would have happened if Jeb Bush didn't run and didn't suck up all the Establishment money right away.

[R226] The American people were looking for an alternative to the failed centrist and pro-corporate policies of the Neo-Liberals embodied by Clinton. Given no viable choice too many of them either choose not to vote or fell for the lies of a reprehensible con-man.

The "American people" are what dragged the Democratic part to the center. They keep giving Republicans control of congress. They've given Republicans control of numerous states (because they hate "pro-corporate polices"). Democratic politicians move to the center to win elections. Voters drove the party there.

The voters don't believe in Republican policies. Every election becomes one about the personal failings of the Democrats. The people would see through it if they still belonged to organizations like unions which would alert them to bullshit, but they don't.

R252 speaks the truth. If you want a more progressive Democratic Party, then democratic voters have to show up at every local, state, and national election. You can't hold people accountable when you don't do your duty and vote.

R244, you provoke people, you get what you deserve. Even though YOU do, the truth is that most people don't hate Clinton.

I will forever have a soft spot in my heart for Hillary Clinton. America doesn't deserve her.

The fucking morons who hate Hillary - who started from scratch and worked incredibly hard for everything she has - because she's "elitist," but believe Trump, who was born a millionaire with zero work ethic, "speaks for me."

Donald Trump was 'hated', and they 'underplayed' that, too.

In order for Democrats to win elections, there needs to be a strong minority turn out. Blacks stayed home. They did not vote for Hillary like they did Obama. If she had chosen Cory Booker as her running mate, it would have helped. Kaine was a horrible choice....boring, unattractive, and he turned people off being so aggressive at his debate with Pence. Hillary made a lot of mistakes. But hindsight is 20/20. All we can do is fight to take back both houses in 2018.

r259, black MEN did not vote for Hillary.

Boycott Todd, NBC, MSNBC & ALL cable news & The MSM.

This and not paying our taxes next year ( it's too late to organize for this tax season) will get their fucking attention.

Yes, Trump was picking up surprising numbers of black men because of his stance against Mexicans. Many black men who work in construction, trucking, HVAC, plumbing or gardening HATE the Mexicans for undercutting them. I heard one black guy on the bus say he will build the wall for free as a slave if it meant keeping the Mexicans out. Then, he said he just wanted the men out but their women can stay

Who doesn't hate her?

Dear Trump Asslicker(s) who is/are bumping all these threads.

Your attempt to dishearten us is backfiring. This barrage of anti-Hillary threads only makes it clear to us that your Orange Leader is about to go down, and you are terrified.

Keep reaching, though. We are sitting back and laughing at you, as is Hillary Clinton.

Here's Chuck Todd making this accusation

Does Fuck Wadd have any idea how much EVERYONE hates him??

Chuck Todd is a Lying piece of shit. All the media did the entire election was bitch about how awful Hilary was.

Chuck Todd looks like a pervy junior high school coach, like the type who would be caught hiding cameras in the girls locker room.

Bump