Poised for her new book release Sept. 12, “What Happened,” former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she now blames her Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential race Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), siphoning off too many votes, handing the election to President Donald Trump. Excerpts from Hillary’s new book indicate that she no longer blames former FBI Director James Comey for reopening her email investigation Oct. 28, only two weeks before the election. Hillary and her campaign Chairman John D. Podesta blamed Comey before fingering Russian President Vladimir Putin who Hillary insisted ordered the hack of the Democratic National Committee and Podesta’s private email. Hillary blamed Bernie for impugning her reputation when it came to Wall Street, where Hillary raked in oodles of cash for a number of confidential speeches.
Hillary’s blame game goes all over the map, now pointing fingers at the ever-popular Bernie Sanders. While it’s ironic that Comey and the Russians take a back seat to Bernie, Hillary never blames herself as a below-par candidate. “Because we agreed on so much, Bernie couldn’t make an argument against me in the are on policy, so he had to resort to innuendo and impugning my character,” said Hillary in the book’s published excerpt. Hillary said Bernie could not in the debates come up with a single example of how she changed her tune on Wall Street. Yet Bernie brought up Hillary’s 2001 vote for Bankruptcy bill, make it more difficult for average folks to discharge debt under the new legislation. Bernie cited plenty of examples of Hillary’s close ties to Wall Street, making millions from speaking fees, despite insisting during the campaign she was a Wall Street outsider.
Hillary said in “What Happened” that Bernie reinforced Trump’s characterization of “Crooked Hillary,” the message that Trump took to rallies all over the country. “Nonetheless, his attacks caused lasting damage, making in harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign.” Hillary surely knows that her email scandal, FBI investigation and questions of how she managed a “play-to-play” racket while running Obama’s State Department was a dark cloud over the campaign. If anything, Bernie dismissed publicly during the debates the email and Clinton Foundation “pay-to-play” scandals. It’s ironic that Hillary concluded that Bernie’s followers, after a bitter primary loss, wouldn’t transfer their progressive votes to Hillary. Hillary mentions nothing in her book about the WikiLeaks revelations about her corruption.
Hillary’s ethical dilemmas hit a fever’s pitch one day before the Democratic National Convention July 25 when DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigned after WikiLeaks revelations that she colluded with the Hillary campaign to sabotage Bernie. Bernie’s followers never got over Hillary’s behind-the-scenes manipulation at the DNC to sabotage Bernie’s campaign. Heading into the DNC in Philadelphia, Hillary picked Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) July 22, knowing that Wasserman-Schultz was out as DNC Chairwoman. Hillary had every opportunity to pick Bernie as her running mate, something she refused to do because of the prevailing wisdom that two liberals on the ticket, one calling himself a “Democratic Socialist,” wouldn’t fly in the general election. Many Hillary advisers urged her in the strongest possible way to pick Bernie as her running mate.
WikiLeaks continued to expose Hillary’s inside contacts with CNN, getting debate questions in advance from interim DNC Chairwoman and CNN contributor Donna Brazile.. Despite denying the charges, CNN fired Brazile Oct. 31, 2016, nine days before the Nov. 8, 2016 election. In Hillary’s book, she mentions nothing about her part in DNC corruption or receiving in advance from Brazile debate questions posed to her and Trump. Hillary blames Bernie now for her loss because she doesn’t want to admit her personal failings dogging her campaign. When you consider Hillary could have erased all the negatives posed by Bernie picking him as her running mate, she did what so many other past nominees did: Pick the wrong running mate. Kaine gave Hillary no special value as a running mate, certainly not the national following Bernie commanded in the 2016 primaries.
Hillary lost the 2016 campaign because her baggage caught up with her, not because Bernie questioned her character. Her character was subject to scrutiny for years, eventually getting the better of her when voters were forced to choose between her and Trump. Hillary repeated what Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) did in 2008 and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012: Picked the wrong running mates. Had Hillary picked Bernie in 2016, the election might have gone her way. Bernie had the lion’s share of the youth vote, deciding to stay at home or vote for Trump in 2016. Hillary made such a big deal about Comey and the Russians sabotaging her campaign, it’s astonishing that in “What Happened” she blames Bernie. While it’s true that picking Bernie might have saved her campaign, it’s also true that Hillary carried a lot of baggage in the 2016 campaign eventually doing her in.
