Tuesday, December 20, 2016

If only she had listened to her husband?

Donald Trump's victory was confirmed by the Electoral College but immediately there are calls for impeaching him. Even some Republicans hate him so much that they reject him as a president. Texas Republican elector, Chris Suprun, who voted for Ohio Gov John Kasich, said,"As a person who has played fast and loose with the law, Trump will likely be impeached within the first year of his Presidency by responsible Republicans in Congress." The anger is all the more because Hillary Clinton has received 2.7 million popular votes more than Trump, about 2% of the total votes cast, as predicted by opinion polls. Only the USC/Los Angeles Times was right by consistently predicting a Trump victory, by consistently getting it wrong in giving a lead to Trump in opinion polls. Clinton won the heavily populated states of California, New York and Illinois, with large immigrant populations, while Trump won most of the swing states. Clinton got a majority of 4.3 million votes in California alone, without which Trump has a majority of 1.4 million popular votes. Seems that it was Clinton's election to lose and she did. How? Apparently, because of a single typo. Clinton campaign Chairman, John Podesta received an email claiming to be from Google, advising him to change his Gmail password immediately. This email was shown to a computer technician, Charles Delavan who replied,"This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately." Delavan maintains that he meant to type 'illegitimate'. Whatever the truth, WikiLeaks got hold of 60,000 emails which they started dumping one hour after a tape surfaced, showing Trump boasting about groping women. But the Clinton campaign team got things wrong by not paying attention to people on the ground. When local organisers in Michigan began to get anxious they were overruled. Clinton campaign manager, Robbie Mook says he never heard of the complaints. Trump won the state despite getting 30,000 fewer votes than George Bush did in 2004 when he lost the state. "They believed they were more experienced, which they were," said Donnie Fowler. "They believed they were smarter, which they weren't." Not just the presidential campaign, the Democrats lost the Senate as well. There were 24 Republican Senators up for reelection compared to 10 for the Democrats so the Democrats were certain of winning enough seats to get a majority. Surprisingly, it was Trump who pulled many of the Republicans, who were almost certain to lose, to victory. But perhaps, Hillary's biggest mistake was not listening to the arch-campaigner, her husband, Bill, who blamed Podesta and Mook for her flagging campaign. A few days before the election the two had a furious fight, with Bill throwing his phone towards the Arkansas River in rage. An old campaigner can smell a defeat.

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