Hillary Clinton: It was "intervention by Comey"

[karynnj]

23. Absolutely agree

In fact, every election that was close, means almost anything could have made the difference.

In HRC's case, consider something not her fault at all. Had she not gotten pneumonia, there would not have been that essentially negative story (ranging from raising health concerns to images of HRC almost collapsing to taking "too long" to satisfy everyone in explaining what happened) and it likely might have caused her to prudently cut back on her personal appearnces. This was pure bad luck. Also, someone on her staff likely wrote that "basket of deplorable" line - imagine if someone had red flagged it and she did not give Trump that gift, that rallied many to Trump who might have not voted for him. (consider she was targeting women - including those married to many, who even if they were not who she meant by deplorable, saw themselves labeled thusly.)

This is not an attack on HRC. Imagine that someone in Ohio had identified that fewer voting machines allocated to Democratic strongholds a few weeks before the election and challenged it. The number of votes lost by people who had to abandon the effort to vote because they could not stand in 4 hour plus lines because of work or family is unknowable, but likely enough to move Ohio to Kerry's column. Not to mention, if the unusually patient and polite Kerry had simply said - "I just answered that, next question" - rather than saying that he just explained his votes - and that he had "voted for it before he voted against it" -- or if he had answered with his more careful response - maybe appreviated to say he voted for a version of the funding that rolled back future tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% because they were no longer affordable with the costs of the war and then made a protest vote against the Bush approved version that added the cost to the deficit and the debt. That original answer was actually quite good. We all know what happened with the second answer he gave rather than just cutting the questioner off. Not to mention, the media and many important people in the party pushed him to pick Edwards, who had received undeservedly positive press in the primaries. In teh general election, he was a prima donna, promised to do things and then didn't and essentially acted as if he would almost prefer losing 2004 and setting himself up for 2008. Kerry was said to have not been impressed with Edwards, preferring Durbin or Gephardt, both of whom would have been better advocates and had ties in the rust belt. Here, Kerry should have gone with his own gut, though the media had already set up a negative narritive that suggested that if Kerry did not pick him it was because he thought Edwards (who lost to him by far more than Bernie did to HRC) would outshine him.

With Gore, imagine if when a FL county found that the felon list had major problems - when someone found her own husband (not a felon) on the list had not just refused to use the list, but took the problem to the Clinton justice department. Now, the Clinton/Gore administration would have had to deal with this carefully, but remember that claims that it was political were easily countered. The Secretary of State was high in the Bush campaign and the governor was Jebb ... and the company that produced the list was tied to Republicans and was from Texas. I know that Gore really won -- but those lost votes, almost all of AAs were mostly for Gore. Not to mention there are many many reasons this should have been dealt with for reasons of racial justice.