I'm so GLAD Obama took the going rate for his speech really early on.

[loyalsister]

155. A lot of people did see it as a deal breaker

and 45 got away with convincing some people he was so rich that he didn't need WS money and would not be beholden to them. She handed him that talking point herself and made it impossible to tap into the anger that people on the unfortunate end of income inequality are feeling. Bernie was not helpful because she wound up coming across as defending it every time she talked about economic indicators that a lot of people didn't feel. She has been on the national scene for the adult lifetimes of a lot of people who have felt that gulf widening. Democrats have not done a very good job of engaging those voters. So, their anger festers and a mean candidate who exploited stereotypes to give them someone to blame knew exactly how to win them over.

People who run for office need to carefully identify their weaknesses and how they might be attacked, because they need the votes from people who don't necessarily admire or even like them. Making it easy for the opposition to paint them as associated with corruption by being secretive about it after the fact reinforced the opportunity to keep the erroneous beliefs in the mix.