Pointing fingers at everyone but herself, 69-yar-old former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly blamed FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama for her loss. She decided before the July 25 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia that Obama would be an integral part of her campaign against 70-year-old real estate mogul Donald Trump. Hillary’s 67-year-old chief strategist John D. Podesta insisted Barack’s high approval ratings would translate well in the general election. Trump had already criticized Hillary in the debates and elsewhere for running for Obama’s third term. Obama made an unprecedented 17 appearances for Hillary, leading up to Election Day, hoping to get voters to carry on his legacy. When the dust settled Nov. 8, Hillary had lost in a stunning defeat, watching Trump carry usually Democratic Wisconsin and Michigan.
When the DNC convention rolled around, a nationally televised audience were treated to the largest most extensive collection of minority participants and speakers ever assembled. Black preachers, Latino activists, Muslim clerics and African American music groups showed independent, cross-over Democrats and undecided voter a lopsided view of the Democratic Party, deliberately shaped by Podesta to reflect its over-representation of minorities. If you watched from TV-land the festivities at the DNC convention you’d think the Party no longer had room for white voters. Hillary’s strategy led by Podesta decided they’d paint Trump as a racist, misogynist and sexist, temperamentally unfit for the White House. Podesta’s strategy involved taking away most minority voters from Trump, instead winding up taking away the lion’s share of white voters from Democrats.
CNN’s Democratic pundit Van Jones told the audience on Election Night that Trump’s win was a “white-lash” due to the changing demographics in America. While there’s some truth to that analysis, the real issue was more related to Podesta’s overkill for minorities. Hillary’s over focus on minority voters drove cross-over Democrats, independents and undecided voter over to Trump, including women and college educated voters. Hillary’s campaign insisted that Trump only targeted blue collar, non-college educated voters, something that didn’t pan out in exist polls. Trump got a higher percentage of black and Latino voters than expected by Hillary campaign strategists. Blindsided by Tuesday’s results, the Democratic Party now scratches its head to figure out what went wrong. Hillary wants to point fingers and Comey and Obama but the whole campaign strategy backfired.
Democratic Party leaders are now wondering whether or not Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would have run a more competitive race against Trump. Since voters looked for change, Sanders, like Trump, offered a more insurgent campaign, questioning Wall Street, U.S. foreign policy and the so-called “rigged” system that sees the country’s wealth going to the top one percent. Thinking that Sander would have run more competitively against Trump is sheer madness. His socialist ideas turn off the majority of mainstream voters, whether Republicans, Democrats or independents. Sanders’ plans to finance an ever-greater social safety net, including single-payer health insurance and free college tuition at state colleges, would have never gotten through a Republican Congress. Whatever baggage Hillary had with her emails or anything else pales in comparison to Bernie’s radical views.
Bernie, like Trump, appealed to disenfranchised workers, whose wages and benefits have consistently eroded over the last 20 years. Hillary’s over reliance on minority voters went so far overboard she finished her campaign with an African American entertainment blitzkrieg at several campaign events. Trump joked that he didn’t need to sing or play guitar to get the tens-of-thousands of crowds to attend his breakneck campaign schedule before Nov. 8. Hillary’s campaign almost exclusively focused on cultivating the minority vote as if that was necessary for Democrats. Podesta showed his age, spending nearly $1 billion is the costliest campaign in U.S. history, without results. Hillary didn’t lose because she wasn’t progressive enough, she lost because she forgot about white working class voters, once the labor union backbone of the Democratic Party.
Trump won the election because he deviated from conservative GOP orthodoxy, moving to the center of the Republican Party. Since former President George W. Bush’s victories in 2000 and 2004, the GOP tilted decisively to the right, essentially taken over by the Tea Party in 2008 and, more recently, the Freedom Caucus. Former GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hammered Trump for not being conservative enough. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) insisted Trump didn’t share his conservative values. Trump proved the GOP could win the White House again by shifting away from extreme conservatism. Looking at the Democrats, it’s unrealistic to think they can focus only on racial, ethnic and gender-based minorities without including white blue-collar voters. Hillary has no one to blame but herself for disappointing so many voters.
