When he spoke it was so interesting. I literally never lost concentration when he spoke. Most politicians make my brain go on to other thought but not the president.

Is the perfect example. Nonstop chickens coming home to roost crap on the news and internet, pundits all weighing in about whether he was even electable anymore, party wondering why didn't this get vetted - should we have gone with a different candidate? (All sounding strangely familiar).

...and Obama pulls out of his hat one of the most well thought and eloquent, broad and honest speeches I've ever heard. And the crisis was over as quickly as it started, more people remember the speech than remember the controversy.

Obama met stuff like that head on, publicly and openly.

head on is exactly the thing that Hillary's people never allowed her to do. Everything was half denial and walkback. I do not blame Hillary for this as much as the people she listened way too much to, whose names I cannot mention for fear of being vote stalked. I will say that the prominent one that got FIRED deserved it.

I think many of Obama's support including myself, loved his honesty and saw it as a great speech.

Those that "say" they voted for Obama and now proudly voted for trump. Saw it as him putting a black man in his place. They never got that Obama was speaking about America's twisted history when it comes to race.

To a lot of people, the Wright moment was like Bill's Sister Souljah controversy. Hillary never went out of her way to put blacks in our place or show she would stand up to us.

This isn't saying she was great on BLM or that the BLM activist were satisfied with her. She just didn't send that message to whites that she'd keep us in check.

Too many things for the other side to attack. I think Obama knew that, which is why he didn't wait to finish his first term as Senator.

All the candidates were too old this time (past normal retirement age).

Reagan is one of the most "appealing" presidents we've ever had. (I don't mean for people on this board, but for the country as a whole).

I don't think that anyone should be ruled out strictly on the basis of age. And that's not simply because Elizabeth Warren is my favorite at the moment.

and I think it might have something to do with younger people tend to be Democrats. I think it doesn't work that way for Republicans. I'm talking about getting the people that lean toward Democrats to show up to vote. Not looking for someone appealing to Republicans. Obviously we already have that in Trump.

It isn't just Republicans who will vote for an appealing older person. Also don't know whether it may have escaped your notice that Bernie Sanders got quite a lot of enthusiastic support from younger Democratic voters.

Let's not become a party that embraces ageism for the sake of what we think is political expediency.

It seems to be something that has worked for dems in the past. Ignore it if you want, but I think the dems do better when they run someone young. Want to change the party and get more voters... stop running so many old people. We will look like the party of the future and change that we say we are if we actually run people that are younger. Also, the point that the previous poster made about not having much history to attack... that would be the younger people again.

I'll continue to support people based on my own criteria and beliefs.

because younger people show up to vote more when the dems are young. We can keep losing too. Whatever. It isn't up to me anyhow.

He is a great public speaker who can inspire people and she fell flat. The Penn. rally day before election highlighted how dry she was. Barrack had them on their feet excited and she came and threw a wet blanket on the crowd. I felt it while I was watching. She was highly qualified, but was missing the "It" factor.

The media told people that Hillary was "unlikable" and you chose to believe it. All who know her found her to be a warm, funny, caring person. I attended several of her rallies. The people in attendance were certainly excited to hear her speak and she connected with them well. Is she as good a speaker as Obama? No. But she does not lack charisma or character.

This is yet another example of the higher standard for women.

These are facts. People didn't like her. It's why she list to Obama in '08. Maybe one on one in personal interactions she comes across as warm, however she could not pull it off in large crowds. She also didn't get large crowds by herself. This does not mean she couldn't do the job, but you have to be able to inspire apathetic Americans to go vote. This is not an attack on her. We now live in an entertainment, reality show crowd. Facts don't matter, and neither do qualifications. Why can't we be honest in our assessment? It is clear to see

I don't know anyone, off the Internet, who was genuinely moved by her personality.

I bet he, and others, could shed a little light on how there are higher standards for blacks.

as long as they're male. Right?

who think otherwise are sexist? Piffle!

I said this:

I was merely saying that Hillary was warm and engaging.

But I don't think that translated on a wider scale. Outside of the rallies, she seemed abrasive and unapproachable.

I am so fricking sick of that argument. I don't see Obama's charisma at all (I don't dislike him, I just don't respond to his methods). I remember getting a call from an Obama person during the primaries and mentioning I didn't care for that kind of "preacher" cadence he sometimes got in his speeches. The caller was baffled. "But most people like that!" (He didn't even try to deny it). "Well, I don't", I said, and hung up.

Worse, if all you have is someone responding to charisma for one person, it doesn't help the rest of the party out much. He has zero coattails. And a large number of people who voted for him in 2008 didn't care enough about his policies to vote to continue them now.

Everything he's done (and he is accomplished, I think he's tried hard and he's had some real victories) is going to be undone, because it's all about personality?

This is everything that's wrong with this country.

As do most who voted Obama.

Obama made me want to quit my job and work for him... do anything for him to make a change.
Regardless of what anyone else says, he was/is more likeable.... just look at the favorable/unfavorable ratings.

of financial collapse.

for the reasons you noted.

Clinton would have won fairly easily in 2008 as well. Maybe not quite as easily as Obama, but you never know.

She was the one that Republicans expected to run against, and whom they had built their entire game plan around. They didn't have a strategy for dealing with an unknown quantity like Obama.

In fact, the Rethugs have been laying the groundwork to defeat Hillary since the early 90s.

The points you made would have effected the margin.

But, that election was a major anti-bush election.

when practically the entire country had had enough of W and his boss, Cheney. Hillary didn't have that luxury. However she did have the advantage that she was running against a complete joke of a candidate.

And yes, Obama was against the war, but he was never in a position to have to vote for it, one way or the other, like Hillary was.

The message is important but so is the messenger. There's a lot of controversy around the Clintons. Some is deserved and some is undeserved. But a lot of people seemed to have Clinton fatigue and have a perception that they're "above the rules". Hillary furthered this with the whole email thing and by appointing Debbie Wasserman Schultz as an honorary member of her campaign after everything went down at the DNC. Both of these were very bad optics and the DWS one in particular was tone deaf. People on the left didn't like her and people on the right didn't like her. She didn't have much of a coalition of voters.

Also of note, Obama was a great messenger for millennials. We can not underestimate how helpful millennial support is as far as energy, grassroots organizing (registration, phonebanking, etc.) A lot of millennials voted for Hillary but weren't excited enough about her to put in the extra time and energy to phonebank, volunteer, etc. like they did for Obama.

nm

by the media.

from the media. Studies have shown that he got a lot more coverage than McCain, but also a lot more negative coverage, even when it was not deserved. I mean, the Rev. Wright mess was blown way out of proportion, but Obama handled it really well in the end. The same with some of the previous things in his life - I mean, his association with that dude from Weather Underground? Really?

Palin got a week of very positive coverage, and then it went 180 on her when she came out as a moron. Of course, it was media silence from her after that, except for appearances on Hannity and Limbaugh. McCain himself did not get a tremendous amount of media attention.

(Trump got way more media attention than Clinton, even if he did get a decent amount of negative coverage... so, maybe the secret is to get a media friendly candidate? Clinton was only in the media in regards to her emails, and rarely her policies/issues)

Huge rallies to generate enthusiasm, 80,000 in Portland, 100,000 in Missouri. Everyone in America knew Obama wanted their vote, he went out and asked for it.

I felt sorry for her. She had to be 100% perfect just to slide by. If she so much as woke up with some bad hair, the M$M tore her up over it.

"change you can xerox", Rezko, 3am ad, "shame on you Barack Obama".

Hillary hammered him on his "lack of experience".

He came back with "good judgement beats experience".

... or try to turn history to meet their own needs.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Obama had a plan and a message.

Hillary had a plan, but no message.

Sure, she had an economic policy, but tell me her one line sentence was when asked to address it.

Her answer seemed to be, "look, it's a complicated issue and it's outlined on my website."

Obama had the three to five word answer and then would tell people to go to his website if they wanted specifics on any given issue.

Policy wise they differed in two major areas, Foreign policy, specifically the middle-east where Hillary favored a more hawkish approach;, and health care reform, especially where it concerned the individual mandate. Obama hammered her on those issues and he won.

This was kind of condescending, and essentially said, "Don't worry your pretty little head about the details. We'll take care of it."

But we have a greater stake in the details than anyone in Washington, and when we leave it to them, they do less than they promised, and compromise too much or give up to easily--unlike when it's a war, bailout, trade deal, or deregulation scam.

But ... must be sexism.

His campaign was very focused on states that had high electoral value and paid very little attention to states like SD and NE he was bound to lose (though, he did manage to win one district in NE). To my knowledge, he didn't even visit NE until early this year. Lived there for 20 years and can't blame him.

If anything, we might have spent too much time in states that were going to be losers in 2016 and not enough in states that everyone knew were battlegrounds from the start.

While not quite the 50 state strategy it very close. My real point is that Hillary didn't visit some strong blue states and that IMHO cost her the election. She didn't even visit Wisconsin once during the primary or GE. Pennsylvania and Michigan came into focus way to late as well. I should have been a bit more clear on that.

He flew in to Offutt Air Force base in 2012 for a fundraiser in Iowa because it's the closest airport. He didn't campaign at all in Nebraska and he didn't visit NE in 2008.

He also spent very little, if any, time in other sure-losers like ID, UT, MT, ND, KS, etc.

That's not a 50-state strategy. We don't need a 50-state strategy for the presidency. We need an electoral strategy.

We need a 50-state strategy for local and state-wide elections.

"My real point is that Hillary didn't visit some strong blue states and that IMHO cost her the election."

Which was my point about Obama's strategy. He focused on the states that were going to decide the election.

Dean.

There are many factors worth considering, but I'll point out a few. Before I do that, I want to make note of the fact that Clinton is approaching the vote total that Obama reached in 2012.

Obama was following Bush, whereas Clinton would have been following Obama. As I understand, it's pretty rare for a party to be in the White House for more than 2 consecutive terms.

Obama did more outreach to rural areas in purple states such as Iowa. That, by no means, suggests the "working class whites" narrative is valid.

The Shelby County v. Holder decision of 2013 made voter suppression a lot easier.

Obama was a media darling. Trump, though, sucked up the airwaves. A ratings-focused media seems to be getting worse and worse, promoting false equivalencies and taking a "Teach the Controversy" approach. We here at DU took note of the CNN reporter's face palm when confronting one of the many Trump supporters who subscribe to patently false beliefs. Well, where was all the face palming throughout the campaign??? Reporters and anchors should have been face-palming every single day in response to Trump, Trump surrogates and Trump voters.

McCain shut down the he's an arab woman.

...he followed George W. Bush.

... I was very relieved when he won the Democratic nomination!

She had already been a punching bag for conservatives with past "investigations" like Whitewater on record. There's some dumb people out there who automatically think, "Where there's smoke, there's fire" after those kinds of things.

She was married to the guy who signed NAFTA and who lied to the American people about not having sex "with that woman." That wasn't her fault, but some people never wanted another Clinton in the White House after that.

Obama ran on Hope and Change and that he was working for the average person. Clinton ignored most of her platform to run her campaign saying that she wasn't Trump. The difference? Obama proffered that if you voted for him you were voting for something, and Hillary campaigned
(especially at the end of her campaign) that she wasn't a monster like Trump and that a vote for her was a vote against Trump.

That was the difference.

goes a long way after a dynasty disaster like the W

That's the most umm...interesting answer that I've seen so far?

Obama was the antiwar candidate, especially compared to her.

You would think she would have figured that one out--or maybe she did, but the money people want war with Russia so bad, she had to shake that tree to get them behind her.

Hillary said in the primary that she'd spend "every hour of every day" trying to ban them and crush the gun culture, and bashed Sanders for not being anti-gun enough. There was definitely a difference in tone, substance, and emphasis between 2008 and 2014/2016 on that issue.

The big thing he did differently is that he did not ignore medium-small town working class areas. Her support in these areas collapsed when compared to Obama's.

It wasn't about policy. It was about her being her. Through no fault of her own, she is not well-liked by the American electorate.

and couldnt pretend that democratic policies were just the same as republican policies.

every 8 years we seem to get these two parties confused, and think one is just less evil than the other. Then we are reminded of what true evil really looks like.

An 18 year old voting in this election was 10 when the last republican was in power, it was easy enough for some democrats, stein, and johnson to convince them that there is no true diff between D and R.

the circumstances in this election are different... this is an incumbent year. There's baggage.


Sigh.

She doesn't excite anyone. She's not very popular or charismatic. She can't connect with people in the ways that Obama or even her husband could. Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain" and people believed it. Obama said he was going to put on his shoes and march with the unions and people believed it (even if he didn't really do so). They came across as authentic and Hillary simply doesn't. She's probably a bit of an introvert and campaigning doesn't come naturally to her.

For illustration, check out the numbers here about how much (stunningly) better Obama did in a white section of Ohio because of that issue:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-hillary-clinton-lost-podcast_us_58420694e4b017f37fe4c532

It's sad that this is absolute truth. Makes me sad and makes me angry.

Who were convinced he was the only one who could win because he was the only one with a white penis. Only The Great White Penis can save us.

It was a crock then and it's a crock now. Always convenient to blame something about your candidate that absolutely cannot be changed, though.

predictors of a trump vote.

But no, no, no. Nothing to see here!

That would be ridiculous.

There was plenty of racism in 2008 and 2012, and yet Obama still managed to win both terms.

I absolutely refuse to accept the narrative being pushed, that women are fundamentally unelectable in this country.

Okay, whatever. I'm finished with this discussion.

predictors of a Trump vote. And Trump won. Those are both facts.

I don't believe what you are saying, so obviously I never said it.

I wonder how important Biden's Iraq War vote will be if he runs in 2020.

things that make us go hmmmmm. 'Merika sure hates us gals.

And the double standard is so entrenched that people don't even notice it.

Remember the exchange between Leslie Stahl and Trump concerning Pence's Iraq vote?

- "He's entitled to make a mistake."

- "And Hillary isn't?"

- "Hillary isn't."

Combined with personality issues

Same problem as Al Gore had:

Gore ran after a good 8 year run by a Democratic president who, despite Republican opposition, turned the country around. Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama got close to completing the job they were hoping to do, but both turned the country around economically (not all benefited, but a dramatic improvement DID happen). People got complacent, started to believe there was either a.) no difference, or b.) a need for a change, even if it was for the worse.

Well, we got our change for the worse both times, and if you think Cheneybush was bad, wait until Trumppence get their hands on the controls.

Bill Clinton had 12 years of Republican presidents to run against, and Barack Obama had 8 years of the worst Republican regime since Warren Harding to run against. Hell, after Cheneybush, even I could have run in 2008 and won the White House. The difference is that Obama was such a surprisingly forceful candidate that even Republican electoral fraud couldn't overcome the huge majority that was terrified at the thought of Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the nuclear codes. The Republicans did their Swing State math homework better this time, and their criminal manipulations appear to have been enough to flip things their way--so far, anyhow.

which makes the differences doubly important.

That's why the 2008 primary was so hard-fought--it wasn't just a battle for the nomination. It was a battle for the presidency.

She ran as the continuation of Obama's admin. He was the change from Bush. That alone could account for enough votes to cause the loss. She nearly won, so it's likely all the factors trotted out post election had a hand. Some didn't like her as well. Some had a problem with her baggage. Some wanted Bernie. Some wouldn't vote for a woman. Some felt her too tied to Wall Street. Some still resent Bill. Etc.... Add all those somes together and you come up short by 80K in WI/MI/PA.

If the roles were reversed and she had run in '08 and Obama ran in '16, would it have turned out differently? My guess is it likely would have. She should have beaten McCain following Bush. Pretty certain Obama could have beaten Trump as the not Clinton Dem, but the world would not have been the same after 8 years of HRC that it is now so we'll never really know.

Seems like the most relevant difference

I cannot believe it took 63 replies to get to this one

Along the same lines as my previous post in this thread.

If Hillary had disagreed more strongly with Albright/ Steinem controversy. That whole young girls voted for Bernie to get boys mess. She would have gotten the same effect of Bill's Sister Soulah/Obama's Wright moments.

Democrats always have to stand up to or put down one of our core groups to get the mass of whites to vote for the Democratic candidate.

.

high ratings don't always mean a win, but sub 40% does always mean a loss: see Democrats in 1952, 1980, and the GOP in 1992 (Bush Sr.'s job approvals thru the election year were sub-40, hence why the [link:fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-ross-perot-myth/|Perot-myth is a lie]), and 2008.

He was exciting and new. I love his passion and charisma. He is an intelligent and compassionate man. I campaigned for him in both elections. He was magnetic and he drew you in. Hillary not so much. It was pretty unfair for her to have to try and follow that up. Hillary has a thick skin, she needed it with all the mess she had to put up with. But there were certain segments of people she couldn't reach.

The scope of Obana's victory was breathtaking, but any Dem who could walk and chew gum was going to win that election. 2012 was s better demonstration of his abilities.

going forward

much less anyone else running on them nor the party really either.

Most voters aren't policy computers or even focused, not beyond the broad strokes, the spin battle, and outcomes which are down the line so a lot depends on who gets the blame.

I think you are trying to make this a far more rational process than it usually is for most people. I wouldn't be surprised if more people went pure "gut"/have a beer with than the policy positions exactly with plenty somewhere in between.

and perhaps most importantly, the worst economy since the Great Depression.

"Supporting" the Iraq War, "consorting with neocons," "looking for more fights." Well, no need to worry now, is there? You've been saved from the Big Bad Hillary, whew!

The dem nominee for 2020 will be able to run as a challenger opponent, attacking all things about the Trump admin. Hillary wasn't able to do this, as a democrat, and hope to retain the Obama coalition.

In 2012, he got to run as an incumbent. But it was close, and he probably would have lost if the FBI director had announced that he was under investigation 10 days before election day.

The party holding the WH for 8 years traditionally has a harder time keeping the WH for another 4-8 (last time it happened was in 1988 with GHW Bush following Reagan). Plus, there was a lot of pent-up right-wing rage (8 years) against President Obama, Democrats and Trump was able to successfully tap into it. I think that, aside from some right-wing misogny, intense burning hatred of the Clintons by some, and some of the smears against Clinton, what it really boils down to IMHO is that Republicans wanted a Trump/GOP Presidency more than Democrats and others wanted a Clinton Presidency. Their people showed up to vote for Trump/GOP. Ours stayed home or diverted their votes to other candidates in enough numbers to allow Trump to win the states he needed to assume the Presidency. End of line.

And berating those people is not a winning strategy.

but it most definitely still happened and was a factor in Clinton's loss.

Obama is vibrant and charismatic and -dare I say it?- cool.

I am tired of the septuagenarians running us into one ditch after another. We need to clean house and give the Millennials their chance. In districts where we have a safe Democratic replacement, we need to oust the ones who keep losing the big battles.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]