But somehow its just fine to proclaim her defeat was inevitable. Sorry but to quote Trump, WRONG!
For any career politician a flub has cost them. Remember Howard Dean, his crime was being over excited. Anyway, the reason Trump has gotten away with so much is because he isnt a career politician. That has kind of given him a teflon suit. His supporters like what they are hearing so they dont give a damn about anything else. There is not a career politician who could possibly get away with what Trump has. And look what good its done him in the long run. He is crashing and burning and its likely he will face a historic beating in the election. You cant apply Trump’s uniqueness to Rubio, its apples and orange.
I think that you make a generally valid point this election the GOP definitely had a strong path to winning a few years out. But they didn’t listen to themselves and do anything. They didn’t grow their base and demographics shrunk it even before they started destroying themselves. To support the claim Clinton would lose you at least have to show how Clinton couldn’t hold the larger Democratic base and in particular how she would lose the centralists. These seem to be her particular strengths.
Here’s how she would lose the middle:
Her unfavorable are insanely high. There are a ton of folks supporting her purely to keep trump out. While i feel her actual positions on many things actually are reasonable, I’m evaluating her based on her actual policy and statements. A huge number of folks base their view of her upon some meadia construction established for decades. And favorability has a huge impact on elections. Again, the only reason it isn’t currently is because Trump’s are even worse.
The economy is incredibly weak, and has recovered slowly. While i understand that any “average GDP growth” includes Obama’s first term where the economy was in free fall due to circumstances beyond his control, the resulting numbers are still damning on paper.
Trump isn’t getting some hidden cache of voters that another candidate wouldn’t. They will all vote for literally anyone over Clinton. So anyone who isn’t crazy is going to get voters on to of Trump’s numbers.
Ultimately we’ll see what happens in ejection day. If it’s some crazy blowout, then a defeat of Clinton wasn’tt a given. But if it ends up being close at all, then i think any other candidate could have won, because any other candidate would do way better than Trump.
The real growth rate of the economy as a percentage of GDP has been sluggish, at best. This contrasts what commonly happens after a severe recession, which is usually vigorous economic growth. For instance, over the past year we’ve had 0.9, 0.8, and 1.4% growth. That’s pretty bad.
Here’s data for the real GDP growth by year:
You can see, the highest GDP rate growth we’ve seen at all under Obama is 2.66% which is amplified by the fact that the economy took such a massive hit in 2008.
Beyond that, we still have a problem with unemployment. While this doesn’t show itself in the U3 numbers which have largely recovered, the overall participation rate in the labor pool is still historically low. The reasons for this are multifaceted, and include things like baby-boomers retiring, but also includes folks who have simply dropped out of the labor force due to not being able to find work for years. To put this in perspective, the current u6 rate has recovered to a point which is still higher than its been at anything other than the highest points of economic status in the past decades. It’s still a full 2% higher than it was in 2007, and 3.25% higher than it was in 2000.
That’s beside the point when the statement is that it can be used against Clinton. Sure you can argue, but as we’ve see, simple arguments seem to have pretty good sway. Someone more competent than Trump could’ve done damage.
Well, there were a few Jim Webb and Max Baucus type Democrats in the Senate at the time, not to mention Joe(mentum) Lieberman, along with the GOP, insisting that half of the inadequate stimulus be “pushing on a string” business tax cuts and such, which are terribly inefficient for stimulating the economy when NO CUSTOMERS are walking through the door. Why would anyone actually do anything but put those tax savings into the safest savings vehicles possible? Stupid stupid stupid. BTW it was thanks to Baucus and Lieberman that we didn’t get a public option in the ACA.
Also, between Franken’s being seated super-late because of the crazy close election in Wisconsin + attendant legal challenges and recounts, and Ted Kennedy dying and eventually being replaced by Scott Brown in Feb. 2010, the Dems had a super short window where they actually had 60 votes for cloture in case of a filibuster. Now sure, they could have just immediately declared war on the GOP and gone “full nuclear” and change the Senate rules to do away entirely with the filibuster, but what with the country trying to come together (as it turned out, HA!) after the 2008 election they didn’t feel that was the most politic thing to do.
Pretty bad in comparison to what exactly? You’re looking at the past and thinking it’s an indication of the future which is an okay measure but really a rookie way to view it. Where’s the GDP growth in comparison to other like country GDPs over the same period of time… and when I say like I don’ t mean China, India… I mean Canada, the UK. I think you want to equate the lack of some high growth rate, some number you equate as high, as a failing of a particular administration. You don’t take into account that administration started with negative and I don’t think we’re that far off from the growth rates of other nations. Aka, we don’t live in a vacuum where a single president can just grown the GDP at will.
I’m not laying any blame at all, but the reality is that voters don’t tend to really care about the nuances if blame. If the economy is bad, and you are in office, it’s bad for you.
Sure. And there are economists who think it was misguided. Folks tend to pick those who support their preconceptions when choosing who to listen to. Ultimately, I’ve found that is essentially impossible to change anyone’s mind on economics, as there is always room for folks to justify mistakes by just casting the blame on something else.
Two things about this:
Yes, I’m already aware of this talking point that you are repeating. But it’s ultimately not actually effective at convincing someone who doesn’t already think things are great.
Second, this presupposes that the US economic growth rate is automatically in lockstep with other western economies. This has, historically, not been the case. For instance back in the 80’s, the US economic growth rate was crushing European nations. Like 1984, the US had a growth rate of 7.3%, while the UK was at 2.3. Germany was at 2.8. That was of course the peak of the recovery, and the rate dropped back down, but was still above the EU at over 4%.
Of course it takes into account that he started in a hole… As do statements like “created ten million jobs”. But you’re missing the point here, within the context of the conversation. I’m not blaming Obama for everything. I’m merely pointing out that the economy is not good. And really, by most objective measurements, we are not seeing a great economy right now.
Recall, that the point here is as an impact on the election. Generally, though perhaps not always, a poor economy is a bad thing for an incumbent party.
