Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government holds a forum with the presidential campaign teams every four years after the election. This year provided more entertainment than usual as Hillary Clinton’s team once again melted down and blamed everyone for her loss…everyone except her.
The prime suspects in Hillary’s team’s eyes? FBI Director James Comey, unfair media coverage (go ahead and laugh at that one…I did), an unfair “double standard” because Hillary’s a female (SEXISM!), and the Russians.
Nope. Not one time did Hillary’s team admit that the Democrats chose an awful candidate that no one liked who never expressed an actual plan as Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway pointed out:
“Do you think you could have just had a decent message for white working-class voters?” Conway asked the Clinton team, then sarcastically offering a message: “How about, it’s Hillary Clinton, she doesn’t connect with people? How about, they have nothing in common with her? How about, she doesn’t have an economic message?”
Joel Benenson, Clinton’s chief strategist, responded: “There were dog whistles sent out to people. . . . Look at your rallies. He delivered it.”
Oh, it gets so much better:
Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald said the Trump campaign had operated in the world of “dark arts.” As an example, she flashed the final issue of the National Enquirer, essentially describing Clinton as a corrupt criminal who should be thrown in jail.”I don’t think you guys give yourself enough credit for the negative campaign you ran,” Grunwald said. “I think it was an incredibly effective negative campaign, and you guys don’t get credit for it.”
Did Grunwald just describe Trump as Voldemort and his campaign team as Death Eaters? I cannot even or odd with these people because I’m laughing too hard.
Get this. Jennifer Palmeieri, Hillary’s communications director, said the team would only do one thing differently: demand a fourth debate:
When Clinton wasn’t on stage with Trump, it was difficult for her message to break through, she said — setting up a dynamic of “Hillary versus Hillary.””What hurt us was (the Trump campaign) coming after her or the press picking at us,” Palmieri said.
Then the team blamed FBI Director James Comey. His agents took a year to investigate Hillary’s personal email server while she served as secretary of state. In July, he recommended the Department of Justice not press charges against Hillary despite the careless behavior of her team. Then it emerged that the FBI found emails on devices belonging to top Hillary aide Huma Abedin as the department investigated her estranged husband Anthony Weiner.
But Comey decided a few days later that he has not changed his mind about prosecuting Hillary. The Hillary team remains convinced this letter somehow changed everyone’s minds:
A second problem was Mr. Comey’s announcements, just days before the election, that the FBI would investigate additional material related to its inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s emails and his subsequent statement that the new emails didn’t change the agency’s conclusion that Mrs. Clinton had committed no criminal wrongdoing.The two announcements came as Democrats and Republicans who had been undecided or backing third-party candidates were returning to their home parties, Mr. Mook said. The Clinton team said that while Mr. Trump continued to consolidate Republicans, the Comey letters stopped Mrs. Clinton’s progress in consolidating Democrats.Undecided voters, meanwhile, broke for Mr. Trump in larger margins than the Clinton team expected, which Mr. Mook also attributed to the Comey announcements.
Hhhhmm….Conway’s responses make me think maybe Hillary should have hired her. Conway pointed out the month of August, which saw Hillary gain a YUGE bump in polls. She noticed Hillary disappearing into “closed-door events, raising money.” Conway used this as an advantage for Trump:
“She got a good bump, but then she almost disappeared,” Ms. Conway said. She said she counseled Mr. Trump to go to where Mrs. Clinton wasn’t—Michigan and Wisconsin, which he eventually won. While critics questioned the moves, “maybe the internal polls said we were down 2-3 points in those places, and not 10.”At the same time, “we noticed that she [Mrs. Clinton] had not returned to Wisconsin, and we had no idea why,” Ms. Conway said.
After Conway made that point, Hillary aide Robby Mook admitted the campaign “should have invested more in Upper Midwest states that Mr. Trump wound up winning.”
Maybe not. I am still shocked that hardly anyone has brought up the silent Trump supporters, especially when the Hillary campaign blames the media for bias against her. The fact is the media latched onto the most extreme and fringe supporters of Trump and portrayed ALL Trump supporters as racist, sexist, and homophobes. This caused many to not voice their support of Trump.
The New York Times public editor Liz Spayd ripped into her publication after her desk received five times more than normal complaints about its coverage during the election.
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