Politics, Society

The Clinton Factor: New York Times Study Suggests That It Was Not Voter Turnout That Determined Election

Hillary_Clinton_Testimony_to_House_Select_Committee_on_BenghaziHillary Clinton has been speaking publicly about her electoral defeat and offering a long list of reasons for the loss except one: Hillary Clinton herself.  A new study by the New York Times however concludes that there was not a failure of Democratic turnout, as often suggested by Clinton supporters spinning the election.  Rather, voters simply rejected Clinton herself.  While Clinton has offered the perfunctory statement that she takes responsibility for the loss, she has been blaming everyone else except herself from the Russians to the FBI Director to self-hating women.  Yesterday, she sat through an interview with Christaine Amanpour at the Women for Women event in New York and proclaimed that, if it weren’t for FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress, and “[i]f the election had been on October 27, I would be your president.” Update: President Donald Trump has fired back at Clinton saying that he simply ran a great campaign.  That assertion is equally debatable since Trump remained equally unpopular with most voters who simply felt that they had no choice (again) offered by the two parties.  As discussed below, I think that the election turned on the manifest demand of the voters for someone outside of the establishment.

We are still waiting for a serious post-election interview of Clinton.  Amanpour did not ask about any of the scandals that plagued Clinton or the fact that she was one of the least popular politicians in the country or that she magnified these problems by refusing to turn over her Wall Street speeches.  She also did not ask why Clinton remained so close in the polls against someone so polarizing as Trump.  Finally, when Clinton refers to her controversies as causing the loss, she is never asked about the fact that Trump faced endless such controversies at the same time but still prevailed against her.  Trump faced unrelentingly bad press and, in comparison, Clinton had overwhelmingly positive (and at times openly supportive) coverage.  Yet Trump prevailed against her.  As David Axelrod said this week, “it took a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump.” We are still waiting for that interview.
Clinton insisted that
“I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off.  The evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling, persuasive, and so we overcame a lot in the campaign.”
She also added again that she lost in part because she is a women and said “Yes, I do think [misogyny] played a role. I think other things did as well. Every day that goes by, we find out more about the unprecedented inference, including from a foreign power whose leader is not a member of my fan club.”  There is a remarkable degree of contempt for female voters in this claim that misogyny had to be in play for any woman to vote against Clinton.  It is a bizarre notion that women have to vote for a woman or they are self-hating women.  It sounds a bit too much like “they couldn’t hate me so they must hate themselves.”
A recent poll showed that, despite Trump being the least popular modern president at this point in his Administration, he would still beat Clinton.  Clinton still remains radioactive with many voters. Before the establishment all but anointed Clinton as their candidate in the primary, polls clearly showed that the voters did not want an establishment figure so the DNC worked to guarantee the nomination to the ultimate establishment figure. However, it clearly goes deeper than that.  Even against one of the most unpopular figures in history (Trump was even worse at 63 percent unfavorability), Clinton struggled even to maintain a majority of women with favorability ratings.  I believe that voters are willing to elect a woman and I do not believe that the last election was decided by self-hating women. There was ample reason to vote against Clinton who was not just the ultimate establishment figure but was dragging a long chain of controversies (as well as polls showing that voters heavily viewed her as dishonest).
The New York Times study found that Trump won by “persuasion” and not turn out. In other words, they rejected Clinton as a candidate as they did when she ran against Obama.  It came down to the candidates: “The voter file data makes it impossible to avoid this conclusion. It’s not just that the electorate looks far too Democratic. In many cases, turnout cannot explain Mrs. Clinton’s losses.”
In these speeches, Clinton is rarely asked about her refusal to turn over her Wall Street speeches or her massive speaking fees from corporate and banking interests or support for virtually every war that came around.  Clinton remained so unpopular that she faced a serious challenge from an elderly Socialist. She was widely viewed as inauthentic and evasive.  In the general election against one of the most unpopular figures in U.S. political history, she was not trusted by many voters, including many women.  The new spin is that these women are just self-haters lacking self-esteem rather than the obvious problems with the candidate virtually anointed by the establishment as the Democratic nominee.
Democratic insiders recognized the danger in the loss to Trump immediately.  After many people ridiculed the selection of Clinton as perhaps the worst possible candidate for this election cycle, they engineered an election tailor-made for Trump.  Many concluded that Clinton was the most likely candidate to lose to Trump, including some saying that she was the only major candidate who would lose that fight for voters.  With the rising unpopularity of Trump, that creates both an opportunity and a liability for Democrats.  Some voters may not just blame Trump but blame the Democratic establishment for bringing him to power with their blind support for Clinton as the nominee.
What was particularly notable in the most recent interview was Clinton’s parting words on her plans for the future: “I’m now back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance.”  For someone who is widely viewed as the ultimate establishment candidate, it may take a great deal more to persuade people that she is back to being an activist, let alone “part of the resistance.” Indeed, the resistance fighters might want a showing of “bona fides” like the release of those Wall Street speeches to confirm that Clinton was not saying one thing to the public and an entirely different thing to Wall Street influence seekers.
The New York Times study counters the concerted effort of Democratic insiders to create a new narrative for the election where Clinton and Democratic leaders are not the cause for the loss.  It was the failure of voters to turn out or Comey or Putin.  They continue to point to the emails even though the content was not altered.  In essence, they are complaining about the public reading the conflicting comments made by Democratic aides and leaders, including the DNC working behind the scenes for Clinton against Sanders.  That point was made in response to Clinton by Julian Assange this week.   There is no acknowledgment that the emails (which clearly misappropriated) revealed troubling levels of duplicity and dishonesty.  They magnified the huge problem that Clinton already had with polls showing that voters viewed her as dishonest.
Again the plain fact is that, at a time when voters showed that they were fed up with the Washington establishment, the Democratic leadership ignored every poll to push through Clinton.  They still have not come to grips with that decision or the control of the party by the Clintons.  The current spin effort by Clinton and her allies in both the media and politics represents a serious obstacle to reforming the party and presenting a stronger challenge in two and four years.
What do you think?

236 thoughts on “The Clinton Factor: New York Times Study Suggests That It Was Not Voter Turnout That Determined Election”

  3. Clinton’s Russian/Wikileaks argument comes down to: I lost because the voters learned stuff about me that I didn’t want them to know. Her Comey argument is similar: I lost because the voters found out that I was being investigated.

    1. But why did not the voters find about Trump and Flynn until after the election?

      1. Because Flynn didn’t put his email communications on an insecure server for Wikileaks to hack.

        1. Why did Comey follow protocol in the Trump Russia investigation and not in the Clinton email investigation? Maybe someone will ask him about that at the hearing.

          1. Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? What is your point? That Comey was part of a Russia-Trump-FBI conspiracy to throw the election to the GOP? What other co-conspirators do you suspect are lurking out there? Bernie Sanders who honeymooned in the Soviet Union? U.S. athletes who participated in the Sochi Olympics?

            I don’t mean to defend Comey, but he said at the time that in view of recently reviewed emails from the Anthony Weiner investigation what he had previously said in public regarding the Hillary Clinton investigation was inaccurate. He felt the need to correct the public record. That may be true or not, but I guarantee you that it will be his answer when asked. We can all agree that he should not have opened his mouth in the first place. Had he not done so, he would not have felt a compulsion to correct what he should not have said publicly in the first place.

      1. How about this: Ivanka Trump will be the country’s first woman president. And she’s a Democrat.

    2. The Democrat’s have their septuagenarian bench: Bernie, Joe Biden, Liz Warren….Hillary round 3?

      1. http://www.theroot.com/does-donald-trump-have-dementia-1794877028 “Rice University history professor and leading presidential historians Douglas Brinkley analyzed Trump’s interviews from over the last few days. Brinkley, who has read hundreds—if not thousands—of transcripts and presidential interviews, concluded that Trump seemed to have a “confused mental state” the likes of which he has never seen. “It seems to be among the most bizarre recent 24 hours in American presidential history,” Brinkley told Politico magazine.” This is serious.

  5. What “scandals”? Don’t even regurgitate any Benghazi crap. A short, succinct, fact-based recounting of actual, bona fide scandals which are clearly and convincingly attributable to Hillary would be enlightening to the person attempting to cobble such a missive together, I’ll wager. Rumors and rumors of rumors don’t count for anything but wasted bytes.

    1. She lost in historic fashion Mark M., because people don’t perceive her as trustworthy. Succinct and fact-based enough?

      1. Well, every candidate loses in historic fashion. And she wasn’t trustworthy, that’s true. But compared with I-never-settle-so-I’ll-settle-for-$25-million-for-defrauding-Americans-at-a-fake-university Trump, let’s ease up on the righteousness… at least a tad.

        1. No, every candidate loses in historical fashion not historic fashion like the “unbeatable” Hillary Antionette. And I’d go ever so lightly on the business scandal front given the Queen’s up-to-the-neck involvement in Whitewater Investments and the money-making machine known as the Clinton Foundation (that died when it had no access left to sell) that made the Trump University “scandal” look like a flap over who got to the parking space first.

          1. My point is proven. “Whitewater” can be filed with “Benghazi” as another Faux Newz Tourette-like reflex, and the “Clinton Foundation” has never even been connected to anything illegal even in the recesses of the alt-right basement-dwellers fantasy world. At least you didn’t trot out any Vince Foster tripe or complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

              1. “Winning” wasn’t part of the issue I raised. Read for comprehension.

    2. What “scandals”? Don’t even regurgitate any Benghazi crap.

      IOW, horrific bad judgment and brazen, serial lying are not a scandal to the partisan Democrat. Thanks for the education!

      1. Again, the issue is whether anyone can identify a “scandal.” Unfortunately for your vague and non-specific list, the fact that Rush and his fellow ilk don’t like her answers, manner of speech or decisions is not rationally related to anything that the reasonable, objective observer would characterize as a “scandal.”

    3. “What “scandals”?”

      Tens of thousands of emails that were work product, destruction of emails that were work product, email server that script kiddies can hack, answers that were clearly the best lies that could be constructed by really smart lawyers – I am sure others can add to the scatter wreckage of the Demo’s best hope.

      Face it, anyone who was not a Clinton or at least a very high administration official would be doing serious time in Leavenworth.

      1. But “scandal”? Really? That’s it? Again, nothing specific, just Hannity /s Rush regurgitated claptrap with a unmoored reference to Leavenworth. It takes facts and evidence to place someone in Leavenworth. I’d really be interested in learning of something substantive that is actually–or even plausibly, at this point–connected to Hillary that can rationally be characterized as scandalous. Again, do not get distracted by the election results. The specific issue here is whether anyone can really identify anything connected to Hillary that is a “scandal.”

        1. Hillary Clinton is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being we’ve ever known in our lives.

        2. As I clearly stated, withholding 30,000 documents of work product for years and then destroying many of them when required to turn them over is scandalous – unless you prefer to deny the obvious.

          Further, mishandling classified material has put less connected officials in federal prison.

          You can try to whitewash Clinton all you want. But facts are stubborn. She ought to be in federal prison, and she would be if not so well connected.

          1. Can anyone think of any other government official or situation where a government official could withhold years of work product, destroy significant portions of it and walk away with no official action taken?

            Can anyone reasonably claim that it is not scandalous when an agency allows an official to withhold work product for years?

            Pretty damning stuff for the agency and the official – Clinton.

        3. Selling access to the State Department (she burned her schedules instead of archiving them). Donations to the Clinton Foundation in return for speeches by Bill. Speeches given in foreign countries by Bill like China for $750k and Russia for $500k among others, while Hillary was Secy of State – and all Bill’s speeches were approved by Hillary’s State Dept. Huma Abedin working for State Dept, Teneo Consulting, and other payrolls all at the same time. Russia Uranium One deal……to name a few.

          1. It’s no wonder she had to keep her own private illegal server and then destroy so many documents, emails, devices and hard drives.

            1. Instead of thanking Comey for keeping her out of prison, she is blaming him for keeping her out of the White House.

  8. Hillary, like issac, just has to accept she lost. And she lost on her own. She ran an incompetent campaign and deserved to lose. And thank God, Bill is not First Husband.

    1. Paul, HRC is my trigger. Loser, liar horrible candidate. I despise her and am sorry that she still in the newz.

    2. Will she leave the dim party? Surely she cannot stay with corrupt DNC, She must run as an independent tin 2018.

    3. I would vote for her. Unless she becomes corrupted like all the rest.

    4. Meet Tulsi Gabbard – the polar opposite of HRC: real accomplishments, not on the Georgtown-Yale, etc. pipeline

      She had some military service in Iraq (in a medical corps), completed a business degree at a rank-and-file private college (she’s never worked in business), and received a pair of military promotions. Other than that, she’s held elected offices or political staff jobs her whole life.

  12. “…While leading the resistance, I plan to write a scathing satire of President Trump!”This woman is well past delusional…Wait! IIRC, Jeanne d’Arc heard her voices too 🙂

  14. As Bill Maher and others have pleaded: get back in the woods. No sane person wants to see or hear from HRC again

  15. If not for Comey, the Russians, etc., she thinks she would have won? Based on what? The same polls that had her ahead up to and including Election Day?

  16. “Rather, voters simply rejected Clinton herself.”

    Three million more Americans (fellow citizens) voted for her.

    Some cities have higher populations than entire states. So the red map is an illusion of strength.

    1. And yet, she still lost. Popular vote doesn’t matter, thank God!

    2. Well, if it was purely a matter of popular vote, the cities’ populations would rule the whole country.

  17. I am big. It’s the country that got small.

    And I promise you I’ll never desert you again because after 2020 we’ll take another election and another election. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!… All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

  18. Very strange woman finally. In the closing weeks, following a bad summer of her limited campaigning, the public collapse and thru Sept and Oct to election day, most reporting in the main stream media was straight from The Desk of Robbie Mook or others of the Clinton camp, I mean in terms of supposed reporting on Trump and ground game, etc.

    They all but said he had no ground game, that the party was not behind him, etc., really silly. They had a good chance to capture the WH, why would they not? And, as it turned out he certainly had a ground game in pivotal states. She blew it. Over and over….

    Sometimes I would think, she really seemed a woman born to be thwarted in life. And that yes, with that in mind she could lose. And then, it happened.

    NOW she declares herself part of the Resistance. LOL… means it is bound to fail.

    I am so dead tired of her and the Obamas. And yet, they stay.

  19. I wouldn’t have voted for Clinton in ’08 and I refused to vote for her this time around. She was the very worst candidate the Dems could have nominated. Has nothing to do with her gender. I detest the woman- and back in ’08 I was a registered Democrat. I’ve since moved to the Republican party although I vote more as an Independent. (Not that I think the Republicans are better. It’s more a matter of being contrary and pissed off at the attitudes and activities encouraged by the Democrats.) I’ve shed no tears over leaving a party that nominated Hillary Clinton. The Dems have become the party of identity politics and exclusion. I’m so done with all that.

      1. And Obama didn’t lie? Gitmo closed in the first year? No more wars like Bush fought? You can keep your doctor with the ACH? The list goes on. Point being pretty much every politician lies to get votes. Gee, turns out Trump is a lying politician as well. I’m shocked.

  20. “Amanpour did not ask about any of the scandals that plagued Clinton or the fact that she was one of the least popular politicians in the country or that she exasperated these problems by refusing to turn over her Wall Street speeches.”
    ~+~
    Many news media haven’t shaken the habit of dodging the posing of such questions to the Clintons and remain true to their commitment to each other as allies of convenience–beneficial to hovering in as much money as possible, and with the Clintons with as much unchecked sleaze as they can get away with.

    The DNC will continue to be its own worst enemy Denial is more than a river in Egypt, it is what has now become a favored tactic and M.O.

      1. Really then why are Trump and his crew under FBI and congressional investigation?

        1. That’s not the point.
          I’m sure she’d be just a aggressive with the machinations and “legitimate” corruption brought into the White House with a Clinton victory. Sarcasm on.
          Her show is the biggest hissy fit from the biggest sore loser entitlement club ever.
          Every day with Trump means a day with out the Clintons.

          1. Clinton was a bad candidate but now we have to listen to that orange painted demented liar every day. I tune him out because what he said in the morning is not even relevant by the afternoon.

            1. I do as well. And you know what? The country is doing just fine.

Comments are closed.