Bernie Sanders was a tough opponent, but he was no Barack Obama. She could have defeated him without the fade to the left that brought cries of inauthenticity and underscored her weaknesses. Few believed she was against TPP and her shift leftward didn’t win her many of the caucuses she lost in 2008. African Americans, who were out of reach in 2008, came home to her in 2016, and their votes were not based on ideology but on the Clintons’ long history of helping their communities.
In the general election, she abandoned the vital center and instead ran as a continuation of President Obama, wrongly believing that the country wanted a third term. While some polling dubiously placed Obama’s approval rating as high as 55%, nearly every poll showed 60 to 70 per cent saying the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Her closing campaign picture in Philadelphia said it all — she stood together with President Clinton, President Obama and Hollywood stars. An entire closing weekend surrounded by Hollywood and the past.
America is a centrist country. Only 26 per cent of the voters in the edit polls classify themselves as liberals and the other 74% are moderates and conservatives. By moving to the left, the Democratic Party has increasingly isolated itself and lost voters at all levels of government from the state houses to now the White House. The last time the party became this isolated, Bill Clinton ran as a “different kind of Democrat.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member