After the election, pondering the loss of Hillary Clinton, it seems more and more likely that had Vice President Joe Biden been the nominee, he would have defeated Donald Trump, since Biden has great contact with the white working class from which he came, and which he has always well represented.
Biden is so genuine that he has the ability to connect to the white working class, and he has often spoken of the need for the Democrats to learn to better relate to them, a failing, unfortunately, of Hillary Clinton.
Had Joe Biden’s son not died in May 2015, it is likely that Joe Biden would have challenged Hillary, and very well might have been able to defeat her.
We will never know, but it is clear the 44 year career of Joe Biden in elective public office is coming to an end on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017.
He leaves with a fantastic record of public service and the gratitude of the American people!
Agree! In fact, even Hillary herself would have won had she given more thought to the possible pitfalls of setting up that server in her basement. That led to the low trust numbers, which were just enough to lose.
Some excellent words of advice from the Winning Progressive blog:
https://www.facebook.com/WinningProgressive
We must avoid engaging in a circular firing squad attacking fellow Democrats and progressives. Clinton had to fight against not only Trump and the GOP, but also voter suppression tactics, a media obsessed with creating a horse race, rogue elements of the FBI, the Russian government, and Wikileaks. Despite all that, she appears to have won the popular vote There is more than enough blame to go around for our not winning, but we are now in the fight of our lives to save our democracy and all of the progressive change we’ve achieved over the past decades. Fight politically against the clear and present danger facing our nation, not against each other.
Exactly! We need to be united. http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/11/09/now-is-the-time-for-progressive-unity/
Anti-Trump protests in numerous cities tonight. http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/election-results-reaction-streets/index.html
Lord, help us. Sarah Palin may be in Trump’s cabinet.
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/in-donald-trumps-cabinet-from-hell-corporatism-and-cronyism-run-rampant-and-sarah-palin-may-be-there-too/
Ronald,
You are barking up the wrong tree.
“The Democratic Party” absolutely not the wrong candidate, Hillary Clinton, suppressed nominating the correct and highly electable candidate, Bernie Sanders, and this looking elsewhere, here with Joe Biden, is utter nonsense.
I don’t mean disrespect. But, at the same time, it would be very dumb for me to kindness over assertiveness.
Donald Trump excited enough people to vote. Hillary Clinton certainly did not. Joe Biden would have not excited enough people to vote. A sitting vice president in most cases, as the nominee for president, loses. You have to look to George Bush defeating a slow-to-catch-on Michael Dukakis, from 1988, as an unusual exception. (Before that, look to Martin Van Buren from 1836. And both Van Buren and Bush Sr. became unseated in their attempts to win re-election to a second term.)
Hmmm, you may have a point here, D.
I just wonder whether Bernie Sanders could have overcome the “Soclalist” label as I said in July.
I agree with the Professor. Trump ran an openly anti-Semitic campaign. Bernie would have been vilified.
http://www.shakesville.com/2016/11/if-your-election-postmortem-ignores.html
Post-Trump win bigotry has already started. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/muslim-women-wearing-hijabs-assaulted-just-hours-after-trump-win-n681936
Reports are that Trump wants Steven Bannon as his White House Chief of Staff. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/transition-briefing-passing-the-presidency-to-donald-trump.html?_r=0
Russia had contact with Trump’s team during the campaign. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/moscow-had-contacts-with-trump-team-during-campaign-russian-diplomat-says/2016/11/10/28fb82fa-a73d-11e6-9bd6-184ab22d218e_story.html
Palin and Giuliani will be named as co-secretaries in a newly named cabinet post,– Secretary of Crazy…
The question, Paul, is who is crazier! LOL HAHAHA! 🙂
He’ll probably have Dr. Grain in Pyramids Carson as Surgeon General.
Lawrence O’Donnell just announced that Trump is back on Twitter tonight and is making up lies about the protestors.
It wasn’t the DNC that cost Bernie Sanders the nomination. It was Democratic voters. Hillary Clinton won the total popular vote count in the primaries by 4 million votes. See more info here: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/11/10/the-problem-with-berniebros-gloating-over-trump
Southern Liberal-Ben Carson has had a successful career of separating co-joined twins.
Perhaps he can surgically separate Trump’s impossible campaign pledges from his zombie believers.
I love your humor, Paul! LOL
Former Republican,
Clinton leads in the popular vote by 400,000–not 4 million.
To be fair, most of that margin is from 3 very blue states,another pause to reflect why there is an electoral college.
And if you take California out if the picture, Trump is ahead by 1.1 million votes….
An interesting perspective, Paul. I had not thought of it that way!
Yes, Professor.
You can manipulate numbers to “change” the results, but the bottom line is we’re stuck with the real results.
I read an article yesterday that said if 55,000 people had strategically voted for Clinton in X amount of states, she would have won.
Yeah, and I missed winning the Lotto by two numbers..if only. It’s the political version of playing fantasy baseball!
Paul – We were talking about her lead in the primaries.
Former Republican. Sorry for my rant. Should have read more carefully.
It just seems like there is a lot of Monday morning QB’ing going on and hand wringing over the results and lamenting is not going to change anything except maybe preparing better in 2020 (20/20 eyesight is better than 20/20 hindsight).
I think that voter suppression played a role. Eight states flipped from blue to red: Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The margins were 10% in Iowa, 8% in Ohio, 4% in North Carolina … and 1% or less in the other five states. Over the past eight years, Republicans had passed new voter restrictions in seven of those eight states. (Iowa is the lone exception.) Courts overturned some of the new restrictions, in some of the states, but not all of the restrictions and not in all of the states.
https://bpicampus.com/2016/11/12/too-soon-for-autopsy-results/
Southern Liberal,
I can’t agree. The most virulent form of voter suppression in this cycle were those voters who couldn’t extricate their rear ends off the sofa and go to the polls.
The margins in most of the states you cite in your example are too large to point that as the reason and the states with 1% or less are really not voter suppression leaning states, historically.
As Pogo said, ” We have met the enemy, and it is us”.
It’s multiple things. Part of our blame is on a media that was more intent on chasing Clinton emails than Trump’s real life behavior and statements.
Rustbelt, Can you explain how the media went chasing
after Clinton’s e-mails unfairly? It was a legitimate story as to how she potentially exposed national security issues the way she had her own server. It’s called journalism.
And you think the media downplayed Trump’s behavior and statements? Maybe if one watched Faux News exclusively. I would agree.
But, I think the press covered both issues in a balanced way. Why do you think Trump is focusing on the media as “bad”.
I do think the media does overplay the “horse race” aspect of the campaign’s and less on the issues, but that has been the modus operandi for the last 20 years or more.
The campaigns themselves also focus on the nasty. I can’t t really remember too many ads that didn’t,’ t focus on anything but personalities, especially the last week’s of the campaign.
The email issue was a trivial story. The media was making a mountain out of a molehill.
As for Trump, ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC didn’t treat him as a serious threat until too late.
Paul – Post election data shows that Democratic turnout was up in 2016 in states that did not have GOP governors and legislatures passing voter suppression laws, while Democratic turnout was down in states that did have GOP governors and legislatures passing voter suppression laws.
Paul – The mainstream media – not just Fox News – gave Donald Trump countless hours of free advertising, downplayed his racism, sexism and xenophobia, did not focus on the flesh-and-blood consequences of his policies. And they bent that information all they wanted–peddling all manner and manifestation of lies and rumors about Hillary Clinton, hyping up nonexistent scandals, trying to present Clinton and Trump as equally dishonest, equally deceitful, equally dishonorable.
Seconding about the voter suppression helping Trump cheat: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/11/vote-suppression-laws-helped-donald-trump-cheat-victory.html
Southern,
Democratic voting was down in those states simply because Hilary Clinton received significantly less support than Barack Obama did in the ’08 and ’12 elections.
I meant to say significantly less black voter support in the above post.
Also, the article mentions that there were new restrictive laws in states. It mentioned NH. There were no new restrictive laws in NH, a state I reside and vote in. In fact, NH kicked out two incumbent GOP members of Congress-Guinta in the House and Ayotte in the Senate and now has a full Democratic Washington contingent. It did narrowly lose the Governor slot, as Hassan moved over to beat Ayotte and a relative unknown ran against Sununu, a GOP dynasty family in NH. It also mentioned RI– Clinton won RI– by a wide margin.
I think we have to stop looking for excuses and admit that she was not a strong candidate and marginal voters felt no compassion to go out of their way to vote for her.
Here’s an article in today’s Boston Globe that, again, to me is an excellent perspective of the campaign. Shribman is the executive editor of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, but prior to that was Washington bureau chief of the Globe:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/12/shribman/r1kEAvFubT7k2WgfeHqyVL/story.html
Paul – Many black progressive pundits are saying otherwise. This wasn’t just an economic revolt, as the white progressive pundits are saying.
GOP attacks on voting rights was the least covered story by the media.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/
Princess,
I have no doubt that there was /is a large population that wanted to make “America White” again and voted for Trump.
My point, as was the gist of the article was that there was a large segment that thought the campaign ignored and acted as if their vote was a given.
Shribman also did an excellent piece about a month ago saying that the party represented the financial industry more than the traditional wing of the party. His view, in my opinion, turned out to be quite prescient.
Paul – Our point is that not everyone sat out this election due to anger. African Americans wanted to vote but were denied that right by actions of the GOP.
Here’s the video from Joy Reid’s show about the voter suppression: http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/how-voting-restrictions-suppressed-the-vote-807905860002
Just got done watching MSNBC . . . where they were talking about the protesters (of the impending Trump Presidency) Equating the loss in the electoral college v the popular vote, to a baseball game where one team got more more home runs 5 to 2, the 5 being single rum homers and the 2 were three run.
But they didn’t factor in the gerrymandering and voter Id laws that were equivalent to moving the pitcher’s mound back five feet, thus allowing the one team to get more base runners.
This is the what and why the protesters and the media should be elaborating on.
The fact that the Republican-“led” Congress didn’t reauthorize the VRA is a disgrace, and the fact that this wasn’t a huge story in the corporate media is a scathing indictment of the corporate media.
Southern Liberal,
While I don’t deny that there were instances of laws implemented making it more difficult to cast a ballot, there is no way that what appeared to be a going away victory in the polls for Clinton to the actual results were impacted by those instances.
Again, we are grasping at straws to deflect the reality of the election results. Statements like that sound almost sound like seconding what Trump said all along–the system is rigged. Our response was that Trump sounded like a sore loser before he lost.
Now, we sound like sore losers after the fact, if we cling to these reasonings.
If anything, states are making it much easier to vote with early voting, etc.
This information was found out by investigative reporting by the following: Rick Hasen of the Election Law Blog; Michael Wines of The New York Times; Sari Horwitz of The Washington Post; Alice Ollstein, Kira Lerner, and Ian Millhiser of Think Progress; Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo; Zack Roth, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton of MSNBC; Mark Joseph-Stern and Jamelle Bouie of Slate; David Graham of The Atlantic; Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog, in addition to great local reporters like Bryan Lowry of the Wichita Eagle; Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; and Colin Campbell of the Raleigh News & Observer. ProPublica organized an essential Electionland project with reporters across the country.
Other than a small handful, much of the media treated this as a fringe issue instead of the most fundamental issue in the election.
Agreed, Former Republican. That’s why I don’t consider it to be grasping at straws.
For those that did sit out or threw their vote away to a third party, well, what you ask for is what you get.
Seconded, Rustbelt. I don’t sympathize with them. They knew the danger that was at stake in this election and instead they chose to pout and throw tantrums just because they didn’t get Bernie.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some of those voters in those polls lied, hence why the polling was so wrong.
I am not downplaying the issue of voter ID. This article says Rick Hasen did not be!ieve it caused Clinton to lose the election. That’s all I meant by grasping at straws.
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/experts-say-voter-suppression-laws-didnt-cause-clinton-to-lose/
Obamacare. Another instance where I’m angered at the Poutycrats. They didn’t get what they wanted, sat home and pouted, and let the openly racistTea Party take our government hostage.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/11/14/the-great-skewing/
Wrong title. Needs to be called The Great Screwing.
Same way I feel about them, Leia. They are the progressive version of the Tea Party, minus the racism. Neither group wants to compromise. Neither group represents the majority of Americans.
Like it or not, WE THE PEOPLE, rightly chose Hillary, as evidenced by her winning the POPULAR vote in the primaries and the POPULAR vote in the general election! 🙂
Excellent article critiquing the Dem fight. http://bluevirginia.us/2016/11/dems-need-fighting-new-%e2%80%8eabominable-empire-behalf-people-will-bear-biggest-brunt
Paul – In addition to watching the nightly news on ABC/CBS/NBC and also in addition to watching CNN/MSNBC, we read some of the progressive blogs, Think Progress, Daily Kos, etc., that the professor has listed here. Those blogs have important news information that the mainstream media tends to not give much coverage to. Every election season, those blogs tell about instances of voter suppression by Republicans to keep turnout low. That’s why I said earlier that it’s multiple factors that caused this.
I consider Comey’s last minute interference one of the factors.
There’s been a lot of discussion about fake news lately. Real news is a problem too. http://bluevirginia.us/2016/11/real-news-bigger-problem-fake-news
Speaking of the blogs listed, what happened to the PoliticusUSA link?
Princess Leia, PoliticusUSA appeared on a list of sites said to be false, and misleading, along with Addicting Info, Raw Story, and Crooks and Liars, so they were removed from the blog.
From what I hear about that list Think Progress was on it as well. Many liberals and progressives consider Think Progress, Raw Story, Crooks and Liars to be legit left-wing news sites. Many of them, such as Crooks and Liars, have won awards in the past from Time Magazine, etc. for being top political blogs.
Pragmatic Progressive, Think Progress was not on the list, so is still on this blog.
It was a judgment call that was made based on advice I had from others who felt that the four websites removed were not of the quality that an historian, like myself, should have on the blog.
However, if you wish to cite an article from any of these four, they will still appear in comments.
I second what Pragmatic said. Several of the progressive sites on that list have been referenced by Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, The New York Times, and so on. My fear is that the tech companies are trying to silence independent progressive journalism on the web.
Think Progress was on the list initially. The professor updated her list again and has since removed it. She’s also removed Crooks and Liars…for now.
According to a new update on the L.A. Times, the professor who created the list has taken it down due to threats.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-want-to-keep-fake-news-out-of-your-1479260297-htmlstory.html
There’s a very clear distinction between opinionated writing and fake news. Incendiary headlines on accurate news stories don’t bother me anywhere near as much as out-and-out lies perpetuated on sites like Brietbart or InfoWars.
I regret that some of you are unhappy with the decision to eliminate four websites on the list.
This was done through advice of others, and again, if you wish to cite articles from those four sites, you are more than welcome to do so.
I’m disappointed with mainstream media for the same reasons the Blue Virginia blog mentions. Important issues, such as fighting climate change, are barely getting any coverage. Instead we hear about shark attacks and celebrity scandals.
In this Trump era, with progressives shut out of power, America needs the kind of tough-minded, independent, non-corporate progressive journalism that blogs such as The Washington Monthly provides.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/11/18/who-will-keep-trump-and-the-press-in-check/#.WC8iBNJ8CHE.facebook
Regarding “real news”, mainstream media’s addiction to both-sider-ism contributes to the problem. For instance, when a climate change expert and a climate denialist are given equal footing, the American people are not being given the truth and it becomes impossible to have an informed conversation.