Why Clinton Lost the Election by "George Washington"

                                                            Did Hillary Clinton throw the election?

                                                                            by George Washington

            Looking at the Clinton support from the 2008 Democratic Primary we saw an abundance of support from white working class voters.(http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-03-31/news/0803300390_1_blue-collar-hillary-clinton-voters). Yet throughout the 2016 election Clinton’s support with this group all but disappeared. Not only did the support disappear but Clinton thought it proper to insult the group that gave her so much strength in the primaries. What some call a mistake I assert a sense of something more deliberate.

 “The Deplorables” became not on a calling call for Anti-Hillary sentiment but also led to a movement of sort to make sure she was defeated. Women starting wearing T-Shirts called “Deplorables” to show solidarity with each other and against Clinton. But as BAR journalist Glen Ford points out “deplorables want good jobs too”.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/us/politics/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables.html?_r=0)

Hillary Clinton spent a 13 year period as first lady of Arkansas. So it stands to reason she was extremely versed with this population. It also stands to reason that Clinton would have a tangible memory of the importance of this group considering the tough terrain in swing states. In sum politicians don’t make these sort of “mistakes” unless it was deliberate. We move onto the question of strategy and lack of campaign adjustments.

We have an excerpt from long time Democratic Party operative: “I don’t have to make the case that blue collar voters are, to put it mildly, less than enthusiastic about HRC’s positions on trade and the economy,” David Betras wrote in his 1,300 word missive, citing her struggles in recent primaries.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/11/22/daily-202-rust-belt-dems-broke-for-trump-because-they-thought-clinton-cared-more-about-bathrooms-than-jobs/58339cf3e9b69b7e58e45f1b/)

Again we have Clinton abandoning her base from 2008. But wait it gets worse. Clinton was too close to Obama on the issue of NAFTA (her husbands debacle), the TPP, and earlier in the campaign she was fundamentally opposed to Glass Steagall (again another won of Bill’s debacles). And we have  wonderful column by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: (http://inthesetimes.com/article/18493/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-glass-steagall-wall-street). Clinton was to the RIGHT of Donald Trump on Glass Steagall! Not that I expect Trump to actually reinstate it. Lets examine where Clinton was in 2007 on the question of bank separation. To do this we find one of her important economic policy speeches.

We find clue in this excerpt:

 “Finally, we face new threats that neither the president nor federal regulators have adequately acknowledged or addressed. Take the risk of so-called derivatives and other new financial products that Wall Street is selling.These products offer new opportunities for investors to diversify portfolios and protect themselves against certain risks. For example, a farmer here in Iowa who's worried about the price of corn could buy a derivative that increases in value when the price of corn falls, so regardless of what happens with his crop, he has a chance to break even.But derivatives also create new risks. They can swing wildly in value. It isn't always clear who owns them or how much they are really worth. Owners don't always understand the risks, which is why even the investment banks that created them are losing billions of dollars on these derivatives. And the ripples are being felt from Wall Street to Main Street.”

(http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/21/clinton.trans.economy/)

Clinton slams the derivatives trade but did she go all the way and call for Glass Steagall? Mostly, the following article gives her a close enough. (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/15/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-she-called-wall-street-regula/)

Lets look at foreign policy. We have the murder of Gaddafi: Hillary Clinton remarks on murder of Qaddafi with no trial, "We came, he saw, he died"...http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-saw-he-died/

Then we have the issue of Syria. Many Americans are tired of American interventionism as they no longer see the benefit. The military has been strained as their soldiers come home with blown off limbs, PTSD and other health problems. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has warned against increased engagement in Syria. (http://thehill.com/policy/defense/312675-gen-dempsey-syria-no-fly-zone-could-cost-1b-per-month)

Then behold a few weeks before the election Clinton comes out with another debacle. She calls for a no fly zone on Syria! Clinton also admitted many Syrian would be killed. (http://www.salon.com/2016/10/21/hillary-clinton-admitted-in-2013-that-a-no-fly-zone-would-kill-a-lot-of-syrians-but-still-wants-one/) How many Generals in the military did she piss of with this statement? More than a handful we can guarantee.

HRC was obviously talking to George Soros too much. It is past time to kick George Soros out of the Democratic Party. Soros is famous for crashing currencies. (http://www.businessinsider.com/how-george-soros-shorted-the-pound-etching-his-name-into-financial-history-forever-2010-6)

Finally. The tragic death of close Hillary Clinton friends under mysterious circumstances could have been enough for Madam Secretary to just want to go home and retire. Congressman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (http://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/rep-stephanie-tubbs-jones-dies-012676). Arkansas Democratic Chairman Bill Gwatney. Coincidently Tubbs-Jones and Gwatney died 7 days apart. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us/14arkansas.html). Democratic Party Strategist Kam Kuwata also died under mysterious circumstances. (http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2011/04/kam-kuwata-034944).

I don’t believe the above deaths are conspiratorial but I do believe they are enough to add grief and stress for a Presidential Candidate. In Sum combining weak banking policy, weak trade policy, hawkish foreign policy and being too close to wall st., this was a recipe for disaster. In the 2007-2008 campaign we have qualitative efforts of a strong progressive campaign to be President. The 2016 version of the Clinton campaign was 180 degrees to the opposite. We highlight this quote from a recent quote from Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer: (http://www.the99percenters.net/2016/11/20/schumer-we-didnt-have-an-economic-message/) We didn’t have an economic message. Presidential Politics is all about economics. Quoting the great James Carville “its the economy stupid”.  The fact through the whole campaign Hillary Clinton didn’t have an economic message is no accident. The party without a strong economic message and compelling narrative is almost always the loser.

To be fair. Clinton was essentially running on Obama’s policies which have been a dismal failure particularly in the red states. So she was essentially running on Obama’s policies and not her own. To break from Obama would be to break the party. The party which is now the bootlicker of wall st greed has no direction, no policies and no vision. I can only conclude that on a subconscious level Clinton was tired of politics and that she in fact wanted to lose. Sure she can blame the FBI email, (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/politics/hillary-clinton-james-comey.html) she has to say this for the donors who wasted their money. However this analysis gives us a much deeper view that I believe is worth considering.

George Washington  is a teacher/ union activist living in the Western US