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She let her campaign degenerate into infighting. If she can't run a campaign how can she be President? There was also nothing innovative about her other than that she was female.
Give the devil his due, Trump, at 70, ran the first Internet campaign ever. And I mean Internet at the core, not just trappings like websites. And even though not a political professional he understood that running up votes in California and New York served no purpose.
Is the Electoral System flawed? I don't know, I guess it depends from which side you view it.
How do we change it? Simple, read Article V of the United States Constitution, and follow the instructions contained therein.
People always want to throw the Electoral College out when they get a vote they don't like.
In truth, the wisdom of the Electoral College is apparent to me. It keeps candidates from simply flogging the population centers and instead forces them to campaign out in what some people call Flyover Land. It also keeps politicians from ignoring the needs of those in those states.
Hillary Clinton is the pluperfect example of that. In her March 13, 2016 town hall appearance, Hillary Clinton said the following:
So for example, I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?
And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.
Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
Well, it was a noble sentiment except for a salient point -- by eliminating coal mines and coal companies by dint of executive order, the governing class had already forgotten about them. Even so, she didn't really speak to their problems in any substantive way. Theory is one thing. But when you're a 50-year-old high-school graduate who performed well-paying, dignified work in the coal mines, just the way your dad and grandad did, this speech basically told you, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."
Just an incredibly ham-handed statement. Because what 50- or 55-year-old guy with a high school diploma is going to be able to start over? At best, he can maybe hope for an assistant manager position at an Auto Zone or a Denny's somewhere. Even then he'll have to move because the only industry in town was just shut down by executive fiat. Even so, Clinton completely failed to campaign in places such as Michigan and Wisconsin, spending her time schmoozing with talk show hosts and A-list celebrities, the kind of campaign someone would wage if they didn't have to schlepp it out into the heartland. And she paid the price on Election Day.
So when Hillary Clinton said that, I remember thinking to myself, 'There goes Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.' Coal miners had traditionally been loyal Democratic voters, the kind of guys who filed into the polls and voted for Obama twice. But the policy wonks on the coasts kind of forgot they existed. In fact, the Kentucky gubernatorial election in 2015 should have been a harbinger. Those coal counties, once dependable Democratic votes, went Republican after suffering mightily at the hands of new environmental regulations sluicing out of Washington. Yet Clinton was out there prating on and on about shutting down more coal mines five months later.
Ditching the Electoral College, if anything, means that those guys get marginalized even more. Not everyone can live in the BosWash corridor or write code out in Silicon Valley. There are people who farm, work in factories, and otherwise get their hands dirty every day. In their eyes, it's not just the bankers and Wall Street who are the culprits. It's the pointy-headed bureaucrats in DC, the guys who have a well-paid job for life.
If you don't understand why Donald Trump won (And, trust me, I didn't vote for the guy either) or thought it was because American overnight turned into a howling mob of racists, then you are pretty much Exhibit A why the Electoral College should exist in the first place.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 09-18-2017 at 05:07 PM..
Ditching the Electoral College, if anything, means that those guys get marginalized even more. Not everyone can live in the BosWash corridor or write code out in Silicon Valley. There are people who farm, work in factories, and otherwise get their hands dirty every day. In their eyes, it's not just the bankers and Wall Street who are the culprits. It's the pointy-headed bureaucrats in DC, the guys who have a well-paid job for life.
But don't you understand, the elites enjoy and are entitled to power?
People always want to throw the Electoral College out when they get a vote they don't like.
In truth, the wisdom of the Electoral College is apparent to me. It keeps candidates from simply flogging the population centers and instead forces them to campaign out in what some people call Flyover Land. It also keeps politicians from ignoring the needs of those in those states.
...
So instead, they don't go to major cities in solidly blue or solidly red states. Thus ignoring huge segments of the population.
And not only that, how many candidates campaigned in Eureka, Nevada or Bluff, Utah or Wolf Point, Montana?
And "when they get a vote they don't like"...as if that happens frequently. I have opposed to the EC since I was in junior high, and that was half a century ago. Don't such broad characterizations of people. Let's face it, Republicans like it the way it is.
So instead, they don't go to major cities in solidly blue or solidly red states. Thus ignoring huge segments of the population.
And not only that, how many candidates campaigned in Eureka, Nevada or Bluff, Utah or Wolf Point, Montana?
And "when they get a vote they don't like"...as if that happens frequently. I have opposed to the EC since I was in junior high, and that was half a century ago. Don't such broad characterizations of people. Let's face it, Republicans like it the way it is.
That's a ridiculous statement.
I'm not a Republican. However, I do live in flyover land.
If changes are to occur concerning the Electoral College, then Article 5 of the US Constitution needs to be activated....otherwise, that's the way the President/Vice-President is elected!!
I'm not a Republican. However, I do live in flyover land.
Really? How much time did Hillary or Donald spend in L.A. (in general campaigning, not fundraising), SFC, New York, Boston, and the major cities of NYS? (And yes, I know Hillary kicked off her campaign in NYC, but that was for the visuals). I'm talking about general campaigning.
Really? How much time did Hillary or Donald spend in L.A. (in general campaigning, not fundraising), SFC, New York, Boston, and the major cities of NYS? (And yes, I know Hillary kicked off her campaign in NYC, but that was for the visuals). I'm talking about general campaigning.
What are you?
I'm a militant independent. When someone tells me they are a Democrat or Republican, I tend to look for their lobotomy scars.
Actually, if you were a student of the 2016 campaign, you'd realize that Hillary actually didn't campaign in several key states such as Wisconsin.
Trump didn't campaign in California or NY. But he did go to dependable Democratic strongholds such as NJ, WA, CT, NV and IA during the general campaign. Meanwhile, Clinton stuck to traditional Democratic power centers.
Really? How much time did Hillary or Donald spend in L.A. (in general campaigning, not fundraising), SFC, New York, Boston, and the major cities of NYS? (And yes, I know Hillary kicked off her campaign in NYC, but that was for the visuals). I'm talking about general campaigning.
What are you?
They spend lots of time in NYC and LA fundraising. And Hillary has her marital bliss home in Chappaqua, New York.
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