Flawed: Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good If Youre A Female Presidential Candidate

[karynnj]

11. ANY losing candidate goes through that same nonsense

Consider that the nominee is someone who had the political skill and accomplishments to get the nomination. When that person loses, many find it easiest to scapegoat the nominee. In many years it might be that the other side had an advantage that could not be overcome. Other times, our infrastructure pure and simple was a mess. It might be that our message as conveyed did not win.

Yet, the candidate becomes the scapegoat - especially as the history of the election is rewritten to scrub many errors of the winner and to emphasize far beyond reasonableness the flaws of our candidate. The media wants a narrative that "makes sense" - you lose because you make mistakes.

I suspect the difference is that you cared more about Hillary Clinton than any previous candidate. I can tell you that both DU and Daily Kos were scathing in their attacks on John Kerry in 2004. Ignored was that he ran a high road campaign, with relatively few gaffes and nearly pulled off what should have been an unexpected upset. DU JK existed for many months as a safe space for the few of us - shocked that he seemed almost as hated as GWB. In the media, you had Bill Clinton essentially diminishing both Al Gore and Kerry - contrasting himself as someone who could win.

What is particularly annoying is that any real person will do something over the almost 2 years that you work impossible hours that is really a bad idea. When it likely hurts most is when there is an element of truth in the accusation and, for many, that becomes the whole story. Some might say that HRC's big mistakes were made before she declared - she skirted the MOU on how to keep the Clinton Foundation separate from the State Department, she ignored at least the spirit of the Obama policy designed to increase transparency by not archiving her email with the State Department when she left, and - knowing she intended to run for President and she did not NEED the money- giving those high paid speeches to audiences like Goldman/Saks. None of these were illegal, but she paid a political price for each of them. You could observe that it was Trump with REAL court cases - including the Trump University one he settled right after the election. However, part of the explanation of her loss will likely be these three things.

One observation - HRC enjoys far greater support here than Kerry did in January 2005. I looked and I do not see that Clinton supporters need - as we did - a safe space.