Liberal journalist rips Julian Assange for gruesome Trump/Clinton comparison

[karynnj]

14. Sanders does not deserve being lumped with Stein and Nader

I know you hate that he ran and did as well as he did against Clinton. However, it was an issues based campaign. On most domestic issues he was in favor in moving in the same direction Hillary proposed - though he often wanted to go further left. Not surprising as that is exactly as he voted for decades and his speeches were consistent with things he has always said -- as old channel 17 Burlington video showed. (On gun control it was Hillary who was to the left.)

He famously refused to address her "damn emails". You can argue that Bernie's complaints against the big bankers and Goldman Sachs were things Trump then used, ignoring HRC went there too. It is clear to me, that in fact, the only one whose outrage was REAL was Bernie. In the primaries, Bernie's presence made Hillary move to the left - on TPP, which when she left State was the crown jewel of her tenure there as part of the pivot to Asia. In the general election, Trump used the leaked Goldman Sachs speeches - given in 2013/2014 - to argue that HRC was really for TPP. I honestly do not know what she would have done if elected, but I suspected that she would have quietly signalled support and with Obama leading in a lame duck session, maybe with a supplemental bill that did not change the trade deal, but benefited those who would be hurt, it would have been passed. (Note - I think this would have been a good thing -- especially with a bill to aide the "losers&quot Here, it was not Bernie's comments, but the fact that Trump could use her public and private (to GS) statements to suggest she was not being honest on TPP. Note this hits both her trustworthiness and her closeness to GS.

I have seen hundreds - or thousands - of DU posts suggesting that Bernie criticism in the primaries hurt Hillary. Yet, I have very closely followed elections since at least 1968. In virtually any year where we did not have an incumbent President, I could point to even tougher comments used by their opponents. Nothing Bernie said attacked her competence, intelligence or her character. You need look back only to 2008 and you would see that HRC gave the Republicans a gift with her claim that she AND JOHN McCAIN were ready on day 1 to take the 3 am call. There is nothing as stark as that in anything Bernie said - and he absolutely said nothing positive about Trump. Howard Dean started the John Kerry flip flop meme (used against most Senators due to the nature of votes requiring yes no answers) even though he was about as consistent as you could get on issues. Bill Bradley argued that the schmutz of the Clinton years which tainted Gore made him the better nominee - GWB then ran on restoring honor and dignity.

Bernie's campaign was not perfect - as the DNC breakin shows; but the Clinton campaign was far too coordinated with the DNC - almost as if from the beginning she was considered to already be the nominee.

In any close election, there are many things that could be blamed --and there are more external forces that can be blamed for 2016. The Russians, her unfortunate pneumonia, or Comey (though part of the blame for Comey being involved was how HRC handled the email issue in 2013 and when it became public in 2015) can be blamed. She can't fault the unprecedented support from Obama or the fact that the economy was better than it had been in nearly a decade. She has blamed misogyny, but her own campaign anticipated that she would win votes of the more moderate Republican women because she was a woman. She actually won a lower percent of women's votes than Obama did. It is also possible that she lost because the country wanted change -- and HRC was not seen as change. (In fact, it would be rare that anyone from the President's party could -- unless, like Bernie, he/she was not seen as having been in the inner circle and being seen as offering a different agenda.) I looked back in polling report dot com and saw that as early as mid 2015, some of the Republicans were competitive with Clinton - even though over all she led. It is very likely that we were too complacent - especially when Trump was nominated and so much baggage came out.

One thing I have wondered is whether the reason she did not go to WI in the general election and did fewer appearances a day than Trump or past candidates was that she was really still recovering from pneumonia -- and had she done more, she would have risked a PR nightmare if she fainted again or became obviously unhealthy. It was incredibly unlucky that she developed pneumonia when she did.