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2016 Election Tag

Hillary Clinton appeared at the Women for Women International event on Tuesday. Seated on stage next to CNN's Christiane Amanpour who moderated, Clinton went through the obligatory process of saying she would have won, but... She then went through a tired laundry list of excuses. Philip Rucker writes at the Washington Post:
‘I would be your president’: Clinton blames Russia, FBI chief for 2016 election loss Hillary Clinton emerged from political hibernation Tuesday by declaring herself “part of the resistance” to Donald Trump’s presidency — and spreading blame for why it is not her sitting in the Oval Office.

One of the things about the 2016 presidential election that most shocked the political elite and Democrats was the failure of the "blue wall."  "What happened?", they wondered.  How is it possible that people in states that Hillary didn't bother even to fly over deserted her?  How could decades of being told that they—as mostly white, mostly Christian, mostly middle class Americans—represented all that was wrong with America possibly have such a devastating effect on Democrats? On Meet the Press, MSNBC's Chris Matthews states that the Democrats have simply moved too far left on cultural issues, specifically on abortion.

The Democratic Party has apparently conducted an autopsy of their stunning loss in the 2016 election but for reasons which aren't clear, they aren't sharing the information with the public. Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan reported at Politico:
House Democrats bury 2016 autopsy House Democrats are going to extreme lengths to conceal a report on the party’s problems. After nearly five months, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) presented his investigative report to lawmakers during a members-only gathering at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters Thursday night.

Amidst all the discussion of the new book Shattered, describing the failed Hillary Clinton campaign, Rolling Stone author Matt Taibbi has written an article emphasizing Hillary's failure to even know why she was running, and the inability of her campaign to convey any reason to the public:
"...a root problem that confounded everyone on the campaign and outside it," they wrote..."[was that] Hillary had been running for president for almost a decade and still didn't really have a rationale." Allen and Parnes here quoted a Clinton aide who jokingly summed up Clinton's real motivation:

Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), deputy chair of the DNC, has rattled the left with his unflinching grasp of the obvious:  Obama, Ellison claims, deserves blame for Democrat losses during his presidency. While Obama himself somehow managed to win election twice, his party suffered the loss of over a thousand Congressional, state, and governor seats.  The party, even the left grudgingly admits, was decimated; what the left is less willing to admit is that Obama's policies—policies Americans consistently said put America on the wrong track—played a role in these stunning losses. Ellison, however, admits that the historic nature of Democrat losses under Obama are not only part of Obama's legacy but are also directly related to and reflective of Obama's poor leadership of the party.

Evan McMullin exploded onto the 2016 presidential election scene as an Independent with a message of conservative values and Reagan-esque ideals.  He didn't make a blip on the radar, and following President Trump's election has turned his sour grapes into a #NeverTrump box of sickly-sweet wine that reeks of desperation and, worse, of self-aggrandizement. To top off his head-spinning fall from grace, McMullin owes nearly $670,000 for his failed presidential campaign.

The book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign has revealed candid details about Hillary Clinton's campaign the months leading up to election night and how she dealt with the massive loss to President Donald Trump. Poll after poll showed Hillary with the lead, which rightly had everyone thinking she would win on November 8. But something happened. The quiet Trump supporters came out of the woodwork and handed her a devastating loss. Authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes wrote that the defeat forced Hillary to do two things she never thought would happen: Congratulate Trump and apologize to former President Barack Obama.

Unable to accept electoral defeat, Hillary Clinton found a new reason she lost the presidential election: misogyny:
"Certainly, misogyny played a role," Clinton said at the Women of the World Summit in New York. "I mean, that just has to be admitted. And why and what the underlying reasons were is what I'm trying to parse out myself."

Conservative author and broadcaster Mark Steyn was on the Tucker Carlson show this week and was asked for his thoughts on the Democratic Party's current obsession with Russia. Steyn explained it quite simply suggesting that Democrats can't accept the fact that they lost the election. It's easier for them to believe it was stolen from them. From the FOX News Insider:
Steyn: Dems Turned Putin Into 'Bond Villain' With 'Drumbeat' Against Russia Author and commentator Mark Steyn said Democrats in Congress effectively made Russian President Vladimir Putin a "Bond villain" by continuing to accuse them of interference and spying.

The 2016 presidential election was, by almost any measure, unconventional and unique.  The Democrats' unfathomable decision to run Hillary Clinton, a woman whose deep and abiding unpopularity among many Americans goes back to the 1990's and HillaryCare—an antipathy that resurfaced when ObamaCare became the focus of the Obama administration, will go down in history as a world-class blunder. A new study of the usefulness and effectiveness of advertising in presidential campaigns addresses the unique nature of the 2016 presidential election and offers insight into the catastrophic failure of the Democrats generally and of Hillary in particular.

A fascinating study by an associate professor at NYU reveals why many voters found Trump the more appealing candidate. Surely, perceptions would change with a gender-reversal, right? Perceptions did change, but not quite in the way they'd assumed. Her Opponent is the brainchild of Maria Guadalupe, associate professor of economics and political science and Joe Salvatore, an associate professor of theater. The resulting play included excerpts from each of the three debates performed by actors:

Joe Scarborough reported something stunning on today's Morning Joe—an insight into just how blatantly, consciously biased one of America's leading newspapers was in its effort to elect Hillary Clinton. Said Scarborough:

"There was somebody that held an extraordinarily important position in print media who brought their people together after Hillary Clinton lost and literally said, 'we did the best we could do. We tried and we failed. But we did the best we could do.'"

FBI Director James Comey just cannot win! Yesterday, Kemberlee blogged that the Department of Justice will review his investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. Today, House Democrats are angry after a confidential briefing over allegations that Russia "hacked" the DNC and Hillary campaign chair John Podesta to sway the election towards President-elect Donald Trump. Those briefed believe Comey is "unfit to lead the agency."