Great politician. Great policy wonk. Brilliant statesman. But he too often operated on very outdated, very wrong assumptions. The key ones being that 1) Republicans would operate and act in good faith and 2) If he played to pleasing the media/political class in DC that they would help sell the benefits of his policies around the rest of the country.
Both were, needless to say very, very wrong.
And the only area I disagree with was that it wasn't a year long smear campaign against SOS Clinton it was a decades long smear campaign. People have for well more than the past year known how they feel about her and nothing was going to change that. That was the issue that many people (myself included) had with her. Yes, on paper and in theory she is by all accounts and amazing woman and a great politician. But she has been since day one of Bill's first term had a massive target on her back that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And many of us knew that was going to be extremely difficult to overcome. The people that didn't vote for her had that decided well before last year. If anything there were more people who came around to her side during the campaign than did not. More people that even voted for her against their own opinions and judgement simply because she was running against Trump. I absolutely do not believe for one minute that she lost more votes than she gained over the past year of campaign.
All any of us have is our own anecdotal evidence but I know a ton of people who before last year would never have voted for Hillary who did end up voting for her both because they legitimately came to like her and also simply because they hated Trump. I don't know a single person who before last year would have voted for her but changed their mind within the past 12-16 months. Not a one.
But at this point anything Hillary related is in the rear view mirror and we just have to keep moving forward. I honestly don't care what the DNC chairs beliefs are other than "Do they want to get all Democrats elected in every election in every location. If the DNC chair doesn't insist that candidates share their own beliefs or impose a purity test as far as fielding candidates then I won't support imposing one on them.
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