As we approach the release date for Hillary Clinton’s What Happened, one thing is clear: Democrats would rather she just walk away with whatever dignity she has left. The book will rehash how bad her campaign was, how bad the Democratic Party is post-2016, and will continue to give the GOP another opportunity to fundraise ahead of the 2018 midterms. Democrats and media folks ask why conservatives continue to mention Clinton months after her loss to Donald Trump. It’s because she continues to re-inject herself into the debate. Her super PAC that was created to specifically fund organizations fighting the Trump agenda keeps her in the limelight as well (via Bloomberg) [emphasis mine]:
Many Washington Democrats, though unwilling to criticize her in public, wish she’d “move on,” as Senator Al Franken has put it. They fear that her complaints help Trump make his case that the controversies surrounding him flow from the Democrats’ bitterness about their 2016 loss.
They prefer the approach taken by Al Gore after his equally controversial loss in 2000. Gore didn’t really criticize the administration of President George W. Bush for almost two years, even though he, like Clinton, won the popular vote while losing in the Electoral College. (Gore lost when the Supreme Court stopped a vote recount in Florida.) Gore went on to start a new career, winning a Nobel Prize and Academy Award for his work on climate change.
Associates hoped Clinton would also find a way to make a different contribution, perhaps as a university president or foundation head. There have even been suggestions that she move overseas for a couple of years.
Clinton could make a contribution speaking out selectively on important issues, drawing on her wealth of experience.
But she remains haunted by her defeat. The gist of her message next month, based on her public statements and accounts of private conversations from people who’ve talked to her, will be: I accept the blame for what happened, but the bigger problems were Russian meddling, Comey’s on-again, off-again handling of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe of her private email server, the Democratic Party, and maybe even some of her own campaign staffers.
The Clintons, associates say, are convinced that the election was stolen.
This woman has still not gotten over the loss. It’s all her fault. Again, the Russians and James Comey didn’t tell her to shun white working class voters and skip campaigning in the Rust Belt. What Happened drops into book stores on September 12.
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