Clinton campaign - The two Comey letters did us in

How does Comey keep his job? What a disgrace.

 

Whatever. Clinton is smart and capable but not very likable. And she did next to nothing to change that during the campaign.

And her initial snarky and gib comments about her emails and servers opened a crapstorm that stays with her today.

Obama and Hillary do a terrible job of marketing the good work they do.

Ugh.

 

While I agree with pretty much all of that Jim, I do agree with the assessment that the Comey situation most likely chocked off her momentum and made this fiasco possible. At the time of the first release, she was surging with a week to go (of course, who can say really, but it surely would've been a lot closer if that molotov cocktail hadn't been hurled into the mix).

But yeah, all that stuff you said was true, too.

 

I think if Hillary had done something a bit unusual -- select Bernie Sanders as her running mate -- we might be looking at a different outcome.

Years ago in World Events, probably in 2008, I had posted that Hillary would never be president. I well remember the venom and hate directed at her in the 1990s, and the years have done nothing to soften any of that. I knew full well they right would throw every kitchen sink they could find, dredge up the old stuff, come up with new, to stop her. She isn't just disliked by the right, she is HATED. I wish I had been wrong back then.

 

The saddest thing is that many on the far left bought the BS hook, line & sinker.

 

You are SO right, especially by evangelicals for some reason. Here is one post-election example shared with me by one of my kind-hearted relatives:

Franklin Graham: 'The Lord Saved Us From A Godless, Atheistic Agenda'

I still don't get why the Christian right gave Trump a pass on his MOUNTAIN of transgressions, not the least of which was fostering hate toward some of the more precariously situated members of our society (can you get more un-Christian than that?!), while coming to believe Hillary was the spawn of Satan and espoused a "godless and atheistic" agenda. It defies all logic.

 

It only defies logic if you assume such people are willing to perceive nuance. They are not. They wish to view the world in black and white terms. She's the 'spawn of Satan' as you say (as are all liberals - a bunch of godless, baby-killing monsters that must be stopped!), and so the other guy must, by default, be "good". Let the mental gymnastics competition commence!

#wass

 

A key difference between Democrats and Republicans is that when Democrats win, voters shift attention back to their daily lives, while many GOP voters never stop thinking about political strategy. Witness the past 8 years, when from election day forward, they adopted a strategy of saying NO to every single thing Obama wanted to do. The GOP never forgets and never forgives in the post-neocon GOP.

I also don't know that this election is the new normal, or if it was the perfect storm. There were few "regular" candidates -- all of them were either extremist, inexperienced, had tons of baggage, ethically-challenged, factually-challenged, and each and every one of them was unlikeable in their own unique way (excluding Bernie and John Kasich). This was the most vulgar campaign in my lifetime at a time that this country was feeling pretty angry at many things.

Will we return to the good old comparatively boring days of Obama v. Romney, Bush v. Gore after this? Assuming Trump runs again in 2020 (sorry, you thought it was over?), I expect another helping of this foul campaign no matter who he's up against. It's depressing to think about. Perhaps 4 years will shape him into a different sort of candidate. One thing is for sure, he will have an actual political history to run against, and with Bannon as his strategist, I fear we are on the brink of dark times indeed.

 

In other words, this time Trump could simply attack attack attack in all directions and offer only the vaguest of "solutions." No details required. But in 4 years, he will be on defense, and if he has screwed things up, I don't think his sideshow snake oil act is going to play.

And all that will be left to do is welcome President George Clooney. ; )

 

I think a good case can be made (and I've noticed this for a long time) that EVERY single president we've elected since the dawn of television has been the more charismatic candidate of the two.

Eisenhower over Stevenson.
Kennedy over Nixon.
and on and on and on.

When the two were close in charisma level, like Nixon and Humphrey, it was a close election. The closest in charisma ever, arguably, were the only semi-charismatic Bush II and Gore, and of course that was the closest election.

Carter had more than Ford, and won. He had less than Reagan, and lost. Same with Bush I vs. Dukakis (not that Bush was super-charismatic, but more than Dukakis). Then when faced with the more charismatic Clinton, he lost.

I thought this year might break the string, as Trump had plenty of charisma, but also a huge downside and a majority of voters who disliked and distrusted him. But of course he faced an opponent with similar trouble. And the higher charisma won.

That's why the Democrats might indeed have to nominate a Clooney. (Or an Elizabeth Warren). Someone like Tim Kaine, say, might have difficulty, even if Trump royally screws up.

I don't particularly LIKE this observation, but I think it's true. We seem to be suckers for charisma every time.

That's why if Trump does run into ethics/corruption trouble (oh please, oh please, oh please), Dems take over the House, find a smoking gun and impeach his butt, I'm not all that worried about Pence winning in 2020. He'd be just as bad as Trump as President, but unlikely in my theory here to win in 2020 - he has the charisma of a filing cabinet.

 

I am thinking the same thing. Trump doesn't seem to be all that happy that he won, which is odd to say the least. I guess he's used to a certain lifestyle, including a lot more privacy than he's now going to have, and it is starting to weigh on him. I think it's a safe bet that he is going to lean on Pence as much as any president has leaned on their VP in the past.

Also, I don't think Pence hasn't gotten enough credit in helping Trump get elected. Pence is beloved by evangelicals for his positions on LGBT issues (he is FOR businesses being allowed to discriminate and is AGAINST gay marriage), abortion (he passed the strictest anti-abortion laws in the nation), and evolution (he wants creationism taught along side evolution in schools). I think Pence helped some evangelicals look past Trump with the hope that his version of evangelical sharia law might get implemented. They will enthusiastically rally to his side in 2020 if he becomes the candidate.

 

We'll have to disagree on Warren. I think she has lots of charisma, and while I've seen her "on the brink" as you put it, I've seen her plenty of times when she wasn't at all. Had she run and gotten the nomination, I think she'd have won - she'd have generated far more excitement among Democrats than Clinton, she's squeaky clean, none of Clinton's baggage, no emails that the media could turn into false equivalence for Trump's myriad sins, and could have kept most of those surprising number of Obama '12/Trump '16 voters in the blue camp. Enough to carry MI, PA and WI, anyway (collectively decided by fewer than 100,000 votes).

Kaine has no more charisma than Pence, though I like him fine.

The Democrats' recent trouble at the state level means they don't have a particularly deep bench right now. But there's always someone you're not thinking of. I happen to love Sherrod Brown, and he speaks directly to the white midwestern blue collar vote that won this for Trump (though they may catch on to Trump's bull by 2020 anyway). I also think Tammy Duckworth is someone to keep an eye on.

 

Cory Booker?

 

Wait, didn't you mean "run with"?

Um...

No, on second thought you're probably right.

Or did you mean "for them to run against"? Works either way I suppose.

 

Eerily enough, I had this exact same conversation with Japanese folks a few months ago, and while I could easily admit that Trump had the higher charisma by far, I insisted against my own theory that it really just wasn't possible this time.

Unfortunately, the theory stands.

Interestingly, this theory *doesn't* stack up when you look at popular vote counts. Gore lost for one thing (though yes it was a squeaker, you could almost flip a coin on their charisma levels which, yeah, we kinda did), and Hillary clearly trounced Trump popularity-wise. Does this mean only people on the fence break for charisma, in those swing states? Gotta do more research on this.

Another interesting point is that it only seems to work in the general election. In the 2008 Republican primaries, for example, I'd say that Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani (then. not now.), and maybe even Huckabee outshined McCain charismatically. Then there was the 1980 primary challenge by Ted Kennedy against Carter — arguably a lost cause against a sitting prez. no matter what, but still, who was the more charismatic?

Either way, seems like smart (and charismatic) candidate would do well to make this an issue in the primaries — just straight up pitch themselves as "the charisma we need to win".

 

No theory is perfect, but it is kind of striking. Of course, we have a small sample size here too (elections in the TV age).

The observation about the popular vote is interesting. I think it's possible that more educated people - though obviously still highly influenced by charisma - may be somewhat less so than less educated people. They may be more apt to vote on policy, issues, have no problem voting for a less charismatic wonk, etc. Thus Clinton ran up the popular vote totals in more highly educated states like NY, CA, MA, etc. And there's that great quote from the 50's when a supporter told Adlai Stevenson that "In November, every thinking person in America is going to vote for you," to which Stevenson replied "Yeah, but we want to win!"

I also do think that charisma probably plays a big role in people who are indeed on the fence till the end. Then, consciously or unconsciously, they weigh who seems "more like a president," and that leads them to break for charisma, as you put it.

 

I meant that Trump will be up against his actual record, not the vague "I, and I alone, can fix every problem" stuff. If he and the GOP enact a policy, they will have to defend it. And he has promised a LOT of things to a lot of people in the smaller, struggling communities. They are now expecting big new factories and jobs to start springing up in their regions, and quickly. I don't think he's going to have a very long honeymoon period to deliver those factories and jobs. His best bet, and it is perhaps an area of common ground he has with Democrats, is in infrastructure projects. The GOP tried constantly to block funding of those sorts of things, so perhaps it's a big positive that could come out of all this. Roads, bridges, airports and other big projects of that sort are very much needed across the country. Many are in terrible and unsafe condition.

Assuming, of course, he really meant those promises.