They can't blame Comey and the Russians for that.

Can take credit for this massive blunder.

that they had control over.

for Clinton and her campaign staff.

I think she made an epic error in judgement by utilizing a personal server and squeezing every individual, company, and foreign government for donations to her foundation and/or her campaign. If she had used the government servers at the Dept of State, she would be measuring the Oval Office for drapes.

As for Podesta & Mook, they ignored Bill Clinton's advice to spend more resources in the Midwest, and, well, that was a serious fuck up, to put it mildly.

Certainly the Comey letter wasn't helpful, and the Russians being involved in trying to impact the race is bad (but the US has never had a problem interfering with other nations' elections). There were other negative factors as well, but we should not absolve Clinton or her campaign team from any complicity in this failure. $1.2 BILLION... Let that number soak in a minute...

(or given Comey and the Russians and the GOP so much ammunition) if the campaign managers hadn't been so convinced they had it all in the bag. I am not blaming Clinton herself for this; candidates don't make those strategic and tactical decisions - but Mook and Podesta didn't do her any favors and sure didn't earn whatever they got paid.

a week long sweep through the Midwest and a bigger media buy in those states could've turned this election with ease. All of those states she lost by <100k votes would've gone blue and her EC victory would've mirrored an even larger popular vote margin.


I don't foist all the blame on Hillary, and her campaign staff did some things really well (3M vote margin is impressive). But any number of small controllable factors would've flipped the result, and that, combined with the denial on the part of too many fellow Democrats, make a replay of this outcome possible down the road. And that frustrates me to no end, as even pointing out the lessons we should learn gets you flame-sprayed by the die-hard HRC supporters who still view her as infallible. I'm too damn old to suffer through another GOP administration... I'm working as hard as I can to make sure the upcoming one is short and forgettable, and hopefully the last one I ever see.

Yet somehow it's everyone else's fault (but mostly bernies)

So he was ignored. So, so stupid.

it's just that damned stupid and crazy. Bill Clinton's advice should have been the Holy Grail. Aside from Hillary herself, no one should have held sway over his counsel.

But yet some want to ignore Podesta & Mook's complicity in this. smdh...

.... and that's about it

and ensure that whatever might happen doesn't derail the train. The Comey letter referencing a continuing investigation of the emails came out on Oct. 28. "The Clin­ton cam­paign did not go on the air with tele­vi­sion ads in Wis­con­sin un­til the weeks of Oc­to­ber 25 and Novem­ber 1, spend­ing in the end just $2.6 mil­lion. Su­per-PACs back­ing Clin­ton’s didn’t air ads in Wis­con­sin un­til the last week of the cam­paign. In Michigan, aside for a tiny $16,000 buy by the cam­paign and a party com­mit­tee the week of Oc­to­ber 25, the Clin­ton cam­paign and its al­lied groups didn’t con­duct a con­cer­ted ad­vert­ising ef­fort un­til a week be­fore the elec­tion." They should have been advertising in those states long before October instead of making a rather minimal effort after the Comey letter came out; if they had been proactive months previously by paying attention to tracking polls and not taking WI, MI and PA for granted, surely this October surprise would have had much less impact. This should not have been a close election, even with the influence of Comey and the Russians.

Hopefully the DNC learned something from this.

that they saw their path to victory through the Midwest. So why not shore up your support and turnout in the Midwest? Why in the hell was HRC going to Arizona - a state she didn't need and wasn't going to win anyway - 10 days out? Why waste ad dollars in Omaha when they would've been far more useful in Detroit, Flint, Madison, Pittsburgh...

John Podesta and Robby Mook should be tarred and feathered and permanently banned from ANY role in any Democrat's campaign ever... and Hillary should kick each of them in the balls for good measure...

Hillary was winning and it was not even close. AZ was just a cherry on the sundae, to solidify her mandate.

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/18/498406765/npr-battleground-map-hillary-clinton-is-winning-and-its-not-close

The campaign had celebratory NYC fireworks set up for the moment that NY closed, as the election would have been over by then.

I don't care what discredited polls say. Hillary was not going for a 270 electoral vote win she was going for a 400 vote win. That is why she campaigned in AZ and GA and elsewhere.

The hubris of this campaign was so obvious.

Let me end this before I go off the rail.

when it is "your turn," why shouldn't you have hubris?

Yes, there was extreme cockiness and entitlement amongst her campaign, but the other elements made a difference too (Comey, wikileaks). Funny thing is, if the Comey and wikileaks had not happened, then HRC probably would have/could have won even with the hubris. And it never would have been examined or blamed or learned from. Now we have an opportunity to do so, but too many don't want to talk about the hubris or take the opportunity to do better.

I'll start. Never campaign on the basis that it is "your turn." Never, ever. It comes across as grotesquely entitled. It will turn people off, even in your own party. There is a mistake we can learn from and not repeat.

when Bernie lost the Primary. Now all I see are these same people lashing out at Bernie and the rest of us for Hillary's loss.

To that I say, shut up and deal with it! If you cannot be objective and pull together to fix our Party's problems and fight the shit stain then just go home and cry to yourself!

That may be the biggest lesson this campaign taught us all. Nothing is ever certain and no one is ever simply entitled to a victory.

Exit polls: (HRC - Trump percentages, HRC margin)
================================
Pennsylvania: 50.5 - 46.1, +4.4
Wisconsin: 48.2 - 44.3, +3.9
Michigan: 46.8 - 46.8, 0.0
North Carolina: 48.6 - 46.5, +2.1

http://www.inquisitr.com/3742358/2016-electoral-map-results-comparing-exit-polls-with-elections-results-in-light-of-recount2016/

So only Michigan's "actual" vote somewhat matched the exit polls in these 4 states.

It made no sense. And I'm not in a media market that overlaps other states. I mistakenly took it as a sign that the campaign was so far ahead it difnt know where to spend its money.

Red states almost NEVER flip. Takes an event like the Depression or the assassination of JFK to flip them.