A little historical reminder for journalists
by digby
I keep hearing and reading that Clinton lost big in the 2008 campaign because of her political ineptitude and terrible personality and that she's facing the same problems this time which will inevitably lead to similar rout in the primaries.
Perhaps it will happen. I cannot tell the future. But I would suggest that reporters at least remind themselves of what actually happened in 2008 before declaring her campaigning to be terminally disastrous and inept.
Here is what actually happened:
Considering that Clinton was running against one of the most gifted politicians of our time it was pretty damned close. In fact, it was the closest primary race in history.
This is why she is the presumptive nominee. She may not make it over the finish line this time either. It's a different year with a different set of circumstances. And who knows, maybe Joe Biden will jump in and Democratic voters will see him as the next Barack Obama. Maybe they're decide that Bernie Sanders' time has come. But lazily reporting today that she's always been a terrible campaigner who couldn't win is a totally fatuous and inaccurate narrative. The winning margin in that race was 127 delegates out of 4,126.
He won it fair and square, but it was a close to a tie as you can get. This idea that the Democratic party has always found her to be a "cold and old" (as Bob Shrum called her) loser is a reflection of Villager fever dreams, not reality.
Update: I'm hearing several reporters discuss how much better at retail politics Joe Biden is.
He ran twice for president and got zero delegates. Zero. One of those times was against Clinton.
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