Yes. They are Deplorable.

[haele]

84. Obama caught them by suprise the first time, was the incumbant the second.

Also, Gerrymandering and other election "tactics" that encourage election irregularity hadn't yet become such an established fixture that they were able to be overcome. The Dems screwed up in 2008 when they decided to be magnanimous - because they mistakenly believed that they would be shown the same respect when there was already evidence of a polarization of the electorate going on.
In 2008, Democrats were still playing politics as if Tip O'Neil was still the leader of the House, and the Republicans still allowed liberals and moderates in their ranks. The GOP purged their party in the early 2000's in the name of being tough on terror and standing behind our flag and troops and all that - we should have seen where they were going then and developed a strategy then, instead of running our party as if it were 1989.

Once the Corporate-Religious Reich started winning majorities in state houses and governorships, voter suppression expanded as if on steroids. Walker was a warning shot for Democrats. President Obama did not win in 2012 with as much a margin as he had the first time - it was pretty obvious that voting would continue to get more difficult in the more condensed and poorer districts as time went on.

It took Citizen's United, Robert's court stripping down federally protected Voting Rights statutes. The minority vote was squashed this time around. And the GOP power brokers and their Media partners - both mainstream and internet, already had the anti-Clinton script written. And I'm very sure they had a "Bernie Sanders", and a "Martin O'Malley", and even a "Joe Biden" smear script waiting in the wings, because Democrats can't seem to play IOIYAD as well as Republicans play IOKYAR.
Benghazi and the E-mail server were just a lagniappe to them. Clinton being a woman was just another line on the checklist.

Face it. Because we have fewer authoritarians in our ranks and try to appeal to the greater good, Democrats have to work twice as hard and be twice as pure as the Republicans to attract our voters - no matter how much better our policies are for everyone - as opposed to policies packaged in glitter that are only better for a select few.

It's not fair, but that's how it is.

Haele