Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General What's the Democratic Party doing?

The fact that so many voted Third Party to express discontent with both Trump and Clinton is actually an indictment of American voters. I can see not liking Trump because of all those disgusting things he has done or said in the past, but not liking Clinton because of 30 years of Republican mud-slinging (and that's all it was) is nothing anybody should admit. It shows how much people respond to propaganda, and how misogynistic they are. Trump bragged about actual crimes and deeply offensive things. Hillary was "too aggressive" or "too weak to lead", even though those qualities are mutually exclusive.

If you're a Trump or a Clinton supporter, it natural that you can't see someone else disliking them. Whether one will admit it or not, Hillary came across to a lot of voters as being aloof, an elitist, haughty, a knew it all, that she knew what was better for the people than the people themselves knew what was good for themselves. That she deserved to win because she was Hillary.

Then Hillary compounded those attributes by being lazy, letting Trump both outwork and out campaign her big time. She came up with the most inept campaign strategy this side of G.H.W. Bush's 1992 campaign, even maybe surpassing the ineptness of G.H.W. She hid from the media, going over 200 days without a press conference, only going on shows like the view which supported her 100%. Trump was out front in the media every day. It was like Hillary thought she had the election in the bag and didn't have to work at it. She lost that fire in the belly.

Hillary caused her own defeat, had she gave it a half hearted try, she'd would have been president. The fact that both major parties chose candidates that were the most disliked and unwanted in our history wasn't their fault. It was our two major parties fault. It wasn't the Democrats didn't have advanced warning about Hillary. In a February 2016 56% of all Americans said they wanted the Democrats to nominate someone else other than Hillary Clinton. Of course all Americans don't choose the Democratic nominee, Democrats do. But lost on the Democrats in 2016 was the fact all Americans do choose who will be president in November.

Here's the list of all major party candidates favorable/unfavorable's going back to Eisenhower when Gallup and Pew Research started keeping track of these things. Look at who is at the bottom, what were the odds the the two most disliked and unwanted candidates would face each other in the same election? That has to be way up there.

Highest to lowest favorable/unfavorable ratings of each major party presidential candidate.
Favorable/unfavorable
1956 Eisenhower 84/12%
1964 LBJ 81/13%
1976 Carter 81/16%
1960 JFK 80/14%
1960 Nixon 79/16%
1968 Nixon 79/22%
1976 Ford 79/20%
1972 Nixon 76/21%
1968 Humphrey 72/28%
1984 Reagan 70/30%
1980 Carter 68/32%
1984 Mondale 66/34%
1980 Reagan 64/31%
1992 Bill Clinton 64/33%
2008 Obama 62/35%
2012 Obama 62/37%
1956 Stevenson 61/31%
2004 G.W. Bush 61/39%
2008 McCain 60/35%
1992 G.H.W. Bush 59/40%
2000 G.W. Bush 58/38%
2004 Kerry 57/40%
1996 Bill Clinton 56/42%
1988 G.H.W. Bush 56/39%
2000 Gore 55/45%
2012 Romney 55/43%
1972 McGovern 55/41%
1996 Dole 54/45%
1988 Dukakis 50/45%
1964 Goldwater 43/47%
2016 Hillary Clinton 38/56%
2016 Donald Trump 36/60%

Say all you will about the numbers and historic precedence, Pero, Clinton still won the election.

2016 was a complete fluke and it won't be repeated.

And for what it's worth, Clinton knew what was better for the people than the people themselves knew. The people elected Trump after all.

What sort of horrible things did you think would happen if Clinton had been elected? My support for her was certainly not ideological. I keep my ideology and my actual expectations from government in two separate boxes. I knew Trump would be awful and it was obvious from the start...what is it about Clinton that you think makes her ineligible for the presidency?

Not answering for any particular person, just supplying the list of “faults” Clinton is perceived to embody:

1) (And most important) She’s a woman
2) She’s educated, well-read, and knowledgeable
3) She’s experienced
4) She is married to Bill
5) She’s “shrill” (i.e. she opines in public while female, an intolerable crime)
6) She speaks in complete sentences
7) She refuses to provide simple “solutions” to complex problems
8) She’s uppity - refusing to back down when one of her betters (any man) disagrees with her
9) She’s well-off (and being an uppity, shrill woman, those riches could only have been amassed illegally)
10) She once said she didn’t have time to bake cookies (Real Women love to bake cookies. Saying she has better things to do with her time is a slap in the face to every woman in America.)

As one can see, the list is long and all a voter needs to do is to adhere to one of them to disqualify her for any position, much less president.

Here is another ad from the Lincoln project (just trying to put it all together)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1282104708308635648

Isn't saying that Clinton knew what is best for the people than the people themselves kind of elitist? I know most politicians think that way. The partisans from both sides also. But it's like I said earlier, if the Democrats had paid attention to what the people were thinking, wanting or should I say not wanting, they would have won easily. The Democrats choose a candidate that 56% of all Americans didn't want, at least according to that February 2016 poll. The words the non-affiliated, swing voters, independents used to describe Hillary was elitist, aloof, fake, arrogant, superior, disdainful. Of course the words used to describe Trump was obnoxious, uncouth, childish, bully, disgusting and a few more. So it isn't any wonder why 54% of all independents disliked and didn't want neither candidate to become president.

Like everyone else, I assumed an easy win for Hillary. But I didn't anticipate her being so lazy letting Trump both outwork and out campaign her 116 campaign visits, stops, rallies to Clinton's 71. That 71 looks larger than what it was as it included fund raisers to deep blue California and New York.

What was even more amazing was that Hillary Clinton raised and spent 1.191 billion dollars on her campaign to Trump's 646.8 million.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/

This was the first since 1964 when the candidate with the most money lost. What's worse, the money game wasn't even close as Hillary had an almost 2-1 advantage in money. By the way, in 1964 Goldwater raised and spent 12 million to LBJ's 10 million.

Yes, 2016 was a fluke. Everything had to go perfect for Trump to win. The earth, moon, the sun, the planets and even galaxies had to align perfectly. They did. Thanks to Hillary's laziness and her very inept campaign strategy which I didn't address.

I didn't say voters didn't dislike or distrust Hillary. I was talking about WHY they disliked and/or distrusted her. You keep on posting numbers that are pointless. Everybody can look up the numbers. They say nothing about their motives.

It's like you post poll numbers that show the majority of White people don't like Blacks, while I'm posting about racism. There is a higher issue: People should be ashamed. They let a lot of idiotic things affect their judgement, and they got the huge disaster that is Trump. Now the very Republic is in danger and we are the laughing stock of the rest of the world.

Okay, I'll leave it as such. The fact was Hillary was very much disliked and not trusted especially by independents. To me, why is irrelevant. Any political analyst worth his salt would have recognized this fact, I assume the Democratic Party has a bunch of those. Especially after the February poll and gave thought to who might have a better chance of winning.

And you like to blame the voters, it isn't that the voters didn't register their distrust and dislike way before the primaries began. All voters, not just Democrats. All voters decide November elections, perhaps they should have been taken into account.

I know the GOP didn't. so the Democrats follow suit. But we're in changing times. No longer does the Democratic Party control 40% of the electorate and out number Republicans by 6-8 points. Now, in today's new political reality, both parties must take into or should I say should take into considering on how independents view their choice of candidates. Independents are a rising phenomena that will decide more and more future elections.

Hillary was also America's most admired woman 17 years running. Odd that Americans would choose a woman they very much disliked and did not trust for that honor.

You've said many times that you would not, could not vote for her or Donald Trump...and you've listed tons of reasons why other people didn't vote for her...even though she won by 3 Million votes.

I'm just trying to get a handle on what you thought would happen if she had been elected. And why do you think Biden will do anything differently.

In case you couldn't tell by now, I'm not very ideological. I'm certainly not a partisan Republican nor a partisan Democrat. I don't hate nor love Trump either. I think he is a disgusting individual, but I have supported some of his policies and opposed others just like every other president in my lifetime. If I don't like either major party candidate, I have no qualms voting third party against both. I first voted in 1968 when one had to be 21 and have cast a ballot for a third party candidate five times in presidential elections. Only twice was I an avid supporter of a third party candidate, that was in 1992 and 1996. The other times it was more or less a vote against both. I was perfectly happy to let others decide who was their lesser of two evils.

I always disliked Hillary ever since she was first lady who treated the military in and around the White House like s***. Bill treated them very good and respected them. Not Hillary. This stuck with me. It's why Bill is one of the top four president's in my life time even though I never voted for him.

Even then Hillary was acting like she was just too darn good to be around the military. Too, I don't know, aloof, elitist, superior to associate or even be around them. That stuck with me. It's the same for Trump when he basically said that McCain was a bad soldier because he got caught. Something akin to that. From that point on, there was no way I'd ever vote for him regardless of who he was running against. 2016 just happened to pit these two against each other.

Hillary was never liked by the military, active, retired. The reasons vary, but for us old vets, it can be traced back to the time she was first lady who at that time was very disdainful of the military. As someone who's been military his entire life, 21 years active duty, 26 additional years working for the army as a department of the army civilian, there's no way I could vote for either one.

Call it personal where policy never entered into it. I would have voted for any other Democrat which in 2016 against Trump except Hillary. I was even rooting for Sanders to beat Hillary in the primaries so I could vote for him. The same goes for any other Republican against Hillary with the lone exception of Trump. I was perfectly happy to let others decide who the the candidate they least wanted to lose, not win, but least wanted to lose win the office as long as I had a say in the down ballot offices. There's no way I was going to help either one get elected, I was going to do everything I could to stop both. Even though I knew that was a fools errand.