Election 2016 results

rugcat · Dec 20, 2016

AW Admin said:
I kinda wish Ms. Clinton would stop asserting things like Putin had it in for her personally, or that the hacking caused her to lose.

I think it certainly had an effect, and that and the FBI actions towards the end of the election, certainly made a difference, and might perhaps have tipped the election, but she had already missed the boat entirely for large numbers of white rural voters.

This was a close election in those swing states, and I think a logical case can be made for a whole bunch of different scenarios as to why Hillary Clinton lost.

But I really don't buy the idea that if she only concentrated more on Wisconsin or Michigan, if she'd only reached out more to rural white voters, she would have won the election.

Hillary Clinton was not well liked. The narrative had sunk in deeply that she was corrupt, untrustworthy, power-hungry, and an inveterate liar. All of which, I believe is totally untrue, but decades of a right wing attacks made this perception an article of faith.

Just think of how many posters here on AW, posters did not like Trump, defined the election as between the worst two candidates ever, equating Hillary Clinton with Donald Trump in terms of unworthiness. We had many arguments about voting for third-party candidates, a position taken by many who stated they would never vote for Hillary under any circumstances.

What good would it have done for Hillary to reach out to the rural white community? Even those who might have been receptive to her message considered her a liar and refused to believe anything she said.

Couple that with the successful Trump strategy of characterizing the press as totally biased, liars, scum of the earth, etc. You shouldn't believe a single word they said. All mainstream reporting about the idiocy and total fabrications by Trump was dismissed as lies. All reporting of Hillary Clinton's "scandals" on right wing sites was accepted as absolute truth -- no amount of factual reporting made any difference whatsoever.

Donald Trump told rural white America "you've been screwed, but I will make you great again." Those people didn't want to hear what Hillary Clinton had to say; they didn't believe her and couldn't care less about her policies or plans.

Throw in a healthy dose of xenaphobia and racism, stir in the Russians and the FBI as a little seasoning, add in the Bernie supporters who did not come out to vote because they believed she had stolen the nomination, and there was no way Hillary was going to win these voters.

Perhaps if she'd had some of the Bill's charisma and could have told them "I feel your pain" and made them believe it, things would have been different. But that's not who she is, and not something she could have done however much she would have liked to.

Hillary crushed Donald Trump in the debates. Nobody cared.

I'm sorry, but I don't accept the idea that Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign and that it was all her fault that people turned away from her and allowed a sociopathic narcissist to gain the presidency. Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the voters.

shakeysix · Dec 20, 2016

Four years of Trump might bring voters to their senses. --s6

Maze Runner · Dec 20, 2016

I'd like to see statistics on, for eg., voters who once or twice went for Obama but didn't go for Hillary. Or, Bernie supporters who either sat it out or voted for someone other than HRC. I think this election was about change. Bernie represented change, and for better or much, much worse, so did Trump. One thing Hillary did not represent was change. That said, I somewhere between disappointed and frightened and disgusted to hear the reasons so many cite for not voting HRC.

Vince524 · Dec 20, 2016

rugcat said:
This was a close election in those swing states, and I think a logical case can be made for a whole bunch of different scenarios as to why Hillary Clinton lost.

I'm sorry, but I don't accept the idea that Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign and that it was all her fault that people turned away from her and allowed a sociopathic narcissist to gain the presidency. Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the voters.

I think it's impossible to say there was any one thing that if you could go back and do differently would have made the difference. Bill Clinton blamed at one point her lack of reaching out to blue collar workers.

You state, correctly IMHO, that Clinton won the debates hands down. Of course she did. She came across as competent, knowledgeable, and not an ass. But she clearly didn't say things a lot of people wanted to hear. When the debate happened, many people here seemed to feel she was stunning. Personally, I disagreed, but she came off really well against Trump because he was so bad. You may not (Or may be for all I know) a very fast runner, but if you and I had a foot race, you'd probably leave me in the dust. (And someone would have to call a paramedic.) Her answers didn't give anything to people who weren't solidly in her corner to get in her corner.

In addition, of course, there was the whole specter of her email, the drips and drabs of information. The fact that Donna Brazile leaked debate questions to her. The FOB. The fact the DWS was forced out of the DNC and went right to the Clinton camp.

There was more, but you get the idea. You and many here thought nothing of those, but clearly others disagreed.

Other things may have factored in. She was still ahead in the polls. So how many people thought, 'I'm not voting, because I don't like her that much and she's gonna win.' I think there was a segment of his voters that if polled, lied.

There are a lot of different reasons why she lost. Nobody can say if there was 1 determining factor, but I think the notion that none of it was the fault of the candidate and it's all the fault of the Russians, James Comey, Wikkileaks or the weak minded American voters is folly. Both of them had high negatives, so if the public had been presented with an alternative they liked, they would have voted for that person. Personally, I don't get the reason why blue collar see Trump as looking out for them. He's literally been living in a freaking tower. But they did.

AW Admin · Dec 20, 2016

rugcat said:
I'm sorry, but I don't accept the idea that Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign and that it was all her fault that people turned away from her and allowed a sociopathic narcissist to gain the presidency. Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the voters.

I don't think she ran a terrible campaign, and I didn't mean to imply that.

Just that large number of rural whites did not vote for her.

I think anything she says about the election or her campaign at this point will be used to further tear her down, so I hope she won't say anything else. As much as I admire and respect her, large numbers of people love to hate on her.

But she is absolutely not responsible for Russian hacking.

rugcat · Dec 20, 2016

AW Admin said:
I don't think she ran a terrible campaign, and I didn't mean to imply that.

Just that large number of rural whites did not vote for her.

I think anything she says about the election or her campaign at this point will be used to further tear her down, so I hope she won't say anything else. As much as I admire and respect her, large numbers of people love to hate on her.

But she is absolutely not responsible for Russian hacking.

I didn't think you were.

And I agree, nothing she says now will do anything but hurt her, whether it's accurate or not.

But I'm seeing a trend in the media, on Facebook, etc. that somehow if Hillary had paid more attention and reached out to those white rural voters, she would have won the election. That implies she lost the election because her campaign made stupid choices. And of course, when you lose people will point to various things and say you should've done this, you should've done that – it's always a lot easier in hindsight. I just don't think that her reaching out to those white rural voters would've made one speck of difference.

What would've made a difference, imo, was all those non-Trump supporters who stayed home because they didn't like her voice, or she seemed stiff, or bought into the narrative with that she was corrupt and rotten to the core.

Roxxsmom · Dec 20, 2016

rugcat said:
But I really don't buy the idea that if she only concentrated more on Wisconsin or Michigan, if she'd only reached out more to rural white voters, she would have won the election.

This is what has me scratching my head too. Elections in recent years seem to be won and lost based on who turns out where. This time around, more white, older, rural voters turned out in some important swing states. Last time around, more voters in more traditional democratic groups turned out in important swing states. I'd argue that if Clinton screwed anything up, she failed to inspire as many Black, Latino, single female, and younger voters. Maybe she relied too much on Trump's message of hate to galvanize these people into turning out in numbers that were similar to Obama's election years, rather than in plugging a message that appealed to them.

So maybe the left's predictions were wrong (or at least premature) that older, white, conservative voters are a diminishing and increasingly irrelevant demographic that can no longer win elections for politicians unless they suppress the heck out of non white and younger voters. And maybe we were foolish for believing the polls that had done a pretty darned good job of calling the last several elections. It wasn't just HRC, or even the liberals in general. The GOP thought Trump was going to lose too.

In any case, how can the Democrats give the voters who supported Trump what they want without eroding the support of their own liberal base? Trump told white, rural voters what they wanted to hear, even though it isn't true, and he has no chance of turning the clock back to his supporters' misty-eyed perception of what the old days were like. Those "good old days" before all those other people started taking cuts in the American Dream line and edging out good, hardworking, bootstrapping, white, Christian Americans (who revere billionaires but loathe professionals).

How can any liberal politician appeal to this demographic without becoming conservative themselves?

Celia Cyanide · Dec 20, 2016

Maze Runner said:
I'd like to see statistics on, for eg., voters who once or twice went for Obama but didn't go for Hillary. Or, Bernie supporters who either sat it out or voted for someone other than HRC. I think this election was about change. Bernie represented change, and for better or much, much worse, so did Trump. One thing Hillary did not represent was change. That said, I somewhere between disappointed and frightened and disgusted to hear the reasons so many cite for not voting HRC.

Many of those people liked Bernie for the same reason other people liked Trump--they just thought he was cool. They were not voting on real issues. He was charismatic, and they trusted him. They didn't believe in or care about anything he actually said.

AW Admin · Dec 20, 2016

I'm locking this for now; if y'all really want to talk about this and can do it reasonably, PM and I'll unlock it.

But you've given me an idea.

Election 2016 results

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

shakeysix

blue eyed floozy

Maze Runner

Vince524

Are you gonna finish that bacon?

AW Admin

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Celia Cyanide

Joker Groupie

AW Admin