Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton. I consider myself, and most would probably agree, pretty astute in political science and the practical workings of American Politics; yet I have been baffled, along with many others like me, as I have watched this now eighteen-month long election cycle. Why?
Because somehow we ended up with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as nominees for the highest office in the land. Arguably the most important elected office in the world (though Justin Trudeau may be handed that torch any day now...let's all hope). Here we are going to talk about Hillary Clinton's nomination - why she is so disliked - and why that is entirely the fault of the National Democratic Party.
Secretary Clinton's nomination shouldn't have surprised me, because Democrats are exactly dumb enough to do this, and I say that, as a lifelong Democrat. I say this because Democrats have the advantage going into every single election, despite an electorate that seeing a growing number of Independent voters, more than ever in American history, Democrats still have more registered voters than do Republicans. Yet if you pay attention, you see that Republicans currently control the Congress as well as a number of state legislatures and Governorships. How does this happen? Simple actually, Democrats don't vote. You can't blame that on anything other than the fact that Democrats are terrible at conveying their message. Hillary Clinton is evidence of that.
A quick lesson about the American Primary System. Primary elections are scheduled by State and local governments in line with the National Parties. They set the rules, which are different for each party and from state to state. It's a confusing process for anyone to understand - so needless to say it's easy to convince people you are being treated unfairly in the process, as the Sanders campaign (more so his supporters) argued. This is not true - the system is not rigged - it's just designed to give the loser more hope than they should have. The same happened to Sec. Clinton in 2008. More people wanted Obama, but enough wanted her to keep her relevant longer than she should have been.
The Democratic Party, to its credit, attempts to be very little 'd' democratic in their selection process. Rather than the winner-take-all system used by the Republican Party - the process most Americans are used to seeing - they use what is called a proportional representation system to award delegates during the primary season. There are some nuances to this, but essentially each candidate gets the percentage of the delegates that corresponds to the percentage of the vote they earned - provided they reach a designated threshold of votes. Sounds nice - but this essentially leads to primaries like we saw this year, and saw back in 2008 - a long-fought primary between strong candidates that is supposed to result in a fair and respected outcome - when the national Party stays out of it, unlike this year.
This year we saw the dark horse candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, come seemingly out of nowhere to challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination. This is something that got a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons.
Hillary Clinton was the presumed nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2016 election pretty much from the time her 2008 primary election ended. Having a standard bearer candidate is somewhat normal in the Republican Party - but not in the Democratic Party, and that is where the trouble starts. Up until now, the saving grace of the Democratic Party is that they were able to inspire fantastic candidates, most of the time (I'm looking at you 2000 and 2004!) The Democratic Party has historically been able to adapt themselves to the will of the voters and find candidates that are refreshing and inspiring. That's definitely true of Barack Obama, even Bill Clinton was captivating as a candidate. Jimmy Carter had a sweet "boy next door" charm; Kennedy was dubbed American royalty; Truman was pretty awkward and not a great candidate but had the credentials of stepping into the job in the middle of a global war and bringing it to an end. Before him, the Democratic President, Franklin Roosevelt, was elected four times by the American people.
Now we have Hillary Clinton. There is no question as to whether or not she is qualified for the job. She has arguably the best resume of any Presidential Candidate ever, yet still is having trouble winning over American voters. Political pundits on television talk about this a lot, but all seem unwilling to point out the reason for this. Democrats are obnoxious, and Hillary is the embodiment of this trait. Remember, I am a self-professed Democrat so I am calling myself out here too. We have the better message - registration data can back that up - just like the trend of Independent voters breaking for Obama in the past two elections. Truth be told, Independent voters are more like closet partisans - they agree ideologically with the party but are too embarrassed to identify that about themselves - which says a lot. Data will show you people with more advanced degrees identify themselves as liberal (helpful for Democrats) in far greater numbers than they identify as conservative. This is great and all, of course you want to be able to argue that your party is well educated and informed. But what that also means is that we are the Party of all those snotty kids from school who always knew the right answer and blew the test curve every time. Of course people hate us, they always have. Unless we are humble about our intelligence. As we saw with Obama and Bill Clinton, but brilliant but as a result of their humble beginnings, never really saw themselves as the brilliant professors they were. Hillary Clinton however, knows she is the smartest person in the room and has a way of making everyone around insecure when she points it out to them with her almost arrogant speeches where she points to her success despite all the obstacles in place for women. Yeah, that's great Hillary - but no one likes a show-off. A little humility would go a long way to winning over voters.
The Obama Coalition - Clinton needs them - and can't win them over. Why? Because she refuses to acknowledge why they don't like her. She says it's because she is a powerful woman. No, it's not. It's because you're obnoxious and superior and almost talk down to people who don't support you. Here is the ironic part about it all ... that isn't her personality at all. That is her political persona. If she could just manage to be Hillary out there - the one her closest supporters know - the one we saw be human and tear up during a small gathering during the New Hampshire primary in 2008. The one who adorably said her feelings were hurt during a debate when she was told she wasn't 'likable" according to voters. The Hillary Clinton that was described by her husband at the Democratic National Convention this year. She seems like a decently cool chick. I wish she was running for president - and I think America does too. It's pretty clear after last week that Donald Trump isn't going to be our next president - but if Hillary would just be herself for the next few weeks - the humble Hillary, the fun and coy Hillary, the tender-hearted Hillary - maybe America would actually be excited about her, rather than the ambient, "yeah, we're ready I guess" feeling currently felt.
