Those words, spoken by Hillary Clinton when she was informed that she had lost the election, as recently reported in The New York Times, speak volumes about what was wrong with Hillary as a presidential candidate.
Who were this “they” that she referred to? The deplorable people? The NRA? No one kept her from being president. It was her own flawed campaign that caused her to lose the presidency that was hers to lose. While she has finally admitted some mistakes, she has never owned up to this basic fact. It was always someone else’s fault … especially James Comey. And that makes her a weak person, despite all her strengths.
Democrats have a history of losing because of problems with their campaigns, as opposed to the strength of their opponents or shifting demographics. When Gore lost it was because of problems with his campaign, not the agony over Florida’s “hanging chads.” When Kerry lost, likewise. When Hillary lost, ditto. The recent Democrats who didn’t lose … Bill Clinton and Obama … won because their campaigns did not have major problems. They were candidates who spoke to the people in a way that the people understood, and the people heard and voted.
Ever since the 2000 election, I have argued that Democrats run flawed campaigns. To me, the biggest problem is that they do not have a vision and they do not know how to speak to the people in a way that the people get. So they aren’t able to get someone out of his apathy or change someone’s mind. And so the people on the margins of life, the people who need to be convinced to cast their vote, just don’t vote; and people leaning to the other side vote that way. And that’s a lot of people.
In 2004 I wrote We STILL Hold These Truths to show the Party the way to win the hearts and minds of the American people and win the election. Sadly, despite my repeated efforts to bring the book’s message to the attention of party leaders and candidates, my advice has fallen on deaf ears. Lucky, Obama didn’t need my advice because he did have a vision. And he instinctively knew how to speak to the people, just as Bill Clinton did.
Now we are preparing for the 2018 midterm elections and are in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential elections. Democrats have to be more than the anti-Trump. They have to be clear on what they are offering the American people, especially the middle class and the poor (they comprise 79% of US households), if they are to win, certainly to win decisively.
So far, all I see is a muddle. There is no clear voice, anywhere.
And the DNC is wasting energy and creating more negative political capital than positive with their new lawsuit against the Trump campaign for working with the Russians to defeat Hillary. I see that as doing more to undermine the Special Counsel’s legitimacy than anything the Republicans have done, because it will appear to many people that Trump has been right in his claim that the issue of collusion is a Democratic-inspired with hunt.
The 2018 and 2020 elections are once again the Democrats to lose. Whether they win or lose, it will be a result of the strength or weakness of their campaigns, not a problem in the American people.
