The Wild Reed: Quote of the Day

Thursday, September 07, 2017

Quote of the Day

The simple facts are these: Senator Sanders enjoyed so much success in the primaries and Donald Trump won the election because they both tapped into widespread voter anger against the very establishment Hillary Clinton represented. And to top it all off, they both were simply more convincing and persuasive as campaigners than Secretary Clinton ever was or could be.

Think about it. Was there ever a time when Sanders or Trump didn't sound authentic & angry when they were on the stump? Love or hate them as candidates, they sure seemed like they were speaking from the heart. And their hearts were eerily as angry as a critical mass of American voters. By contrast, Clinton ran anything but an ad-libbed campaign with everything from her speeches to her tweets looking like they had been vetted by a team of advertising experts for weeks before seeing the light of day.

The Clinton campaign's repeated claims of how "experienced" and "presidential" Clinton was just made the case stronger that she was indeed part and parcel of the "establishment." It also made her come off as if she was perhaps unaware of the real concerns and anger so many voters hold to this day.

The Democrats and establishment liberals in general might want to start fixing this by following Sanders' personal example instead of bashing him. The latest Harvard-Harris poll shows Sanders is the most popular active politician in America. Leave it to Clinton's bad timing to release a book blaming him for losing the election just as that poll was released.

. . . What the political and media establishments don't get is that they all lost the election more than Donald Trump won it. It's probably impossible to prove or even ask about this question in a reliable poll, but Trump's victory was more about people voting against Clinton and all of Washington than people actually voting for him.

His stubbornly high unfavorable poll ratings give us more than a hint that this is true. But by continuing to attack him instead of changing their message, all of establishment Washington does nothing to improve its fortunes or esteem among the voters.

The good news for the Democrats is that Hillary Clinton's new book is an excellent example of what not to do and say for the next four years and beyond.