© Doug Mills/The New York TimesHillary Clinton on Wednesday in New York. On Saturday, she told donors that the F.B.I. director’s letter to Congress “stopped our momentum.”
Hillary Clinton on Saturday cast blame for her surprise election loss on the announcement by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, days before the election that he had revived the inquiry into her use of a private email server.
In her most extensive remarks since she conceded the race to Donald J. Trump early Wednesday,
Mrs. Clinton told donors on a 30-minute conference call that Mr. Comey's decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument."There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful," Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, "
our analysis is that Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be,
stopped our momentum."
Mrs. Clinton said a second letter from Mr. Comey, clearing her once again,
which came two days before Election Day, had been
even more damaging. In that letter, Mr. Comey said an examination of a new trove of emails, which had been found on the computer of Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of one of her top aides, did not cause him to change his earlier conclusion that Mrs. Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information.
Her campaign said
the seemingly positive outcome had only hurt it with voters who did not trust Mrs. Clinton and were receptive to Mr. Trump's claims of a "rigged system." In particular, white suburban women who had been on the fence were reminded of the email imbroglio and broke decidedly in Mr. Trump's favor, aides said.
After leading in polls in many battleground states, Mrs. Clinton told the donors on Saturday, "we dropped, and we had to keep really pushing to regain our advantage, which going into last weekend we had."
"We were once again up in all but two of the battleground states, and we were up considerably in some that we ended up losing," said Mrs. Clinton, whose tone was described by a donor as stoic. "And we were feeling like we had to put it back together."
Comment: Critics on social media are calling for Comey
to resign or be fired. An
email from the head of the Clinton campaign's opposition research to staffers also blamed Comey:
We believe that we lost this election in the last week. Comey's letter in the last 11 days of the election both helped depress our turnout and also drove away some of our critical support among college-educated white voters—particularly in the suburbs. We also think Comey's 2nd letter, which was intended to absolve Sec. Clinton, actually helped to bolster Trump's turnout. We knew from the start of this election cycle that our campaign faced a series of structural challenges with which we needed to contend:
- Global forces that we're driving deep-seated anger at institutions the world over, and an angry and alienated electorate at home that was frustrated with our political economic system.
Right there they acknowledge the problem - and it
is a problem. But Clinton offered no solution - she couldn't. That would mean changing the "political economic system" that she supports, and which supports her. The email also lists the "strategies" empoyed to meet the challenges facing the campaign, highlighting their success in "addressing the anger and frustration many Americans felt about wages and good-paying jobs" and disqualifying Trump, "making him unfit to be president." Note that phrasing: they
made him unfit to be president.
- Exit polls show that 63% of voters do not believe Trump has the temperament to be president.
- Exit polls also showed that he was the most unpopular nominee on Election Day of any candidate in modern history with a net favorability of -22 (38-60).
No mention of the fact that Killary was
trailing close behind him, at -14 (41-55). Here's how they explain what happened:
- Voters who decided in the last week broke for Trump by a larger margin (42-47). These numbers were even more exaggerated in the key battleground states. ...
- There is no question that a week from Election Day, Sec. Clinton was poised for a historic win. In the end, less than 110K votes out of tens of millions cast on Election Day made the difference in this race. It is worth noting that Jill Stein alone got 130K votes in those three states---and though her votes don't distribute perfectly to cover the margin across the three states, it is an important reminder of the influence of 3rd party votes.
Clinton insider Sid Blumenthal agrees,
calling Trump's win a "coup d'etat" - "the result of a cabal of right-wing agents of the FBI in the New York office attached to Rudy Guiliani." John Podesta was right about Sid when he wrote on January 1st of this year, "Sid is lost in his own web of conspiracies. I pay zero attention to what he says."
Blame everyone but themselves. Pure hubris.