Hillary Clinton promised in 2016 that she would make history, and she did.
She lost a winnable election where she enjoyed every conceivable advantage over her opponent, including a roughly 2-to-1 edge in campaign spending. Clinton then went on to become the first failed nominee in modern American history who cannot manage to move on.
John McCain returned to the Senate after his loss in 2008 to Barack Obama. John Kerry similarly went back to work in the Senate after the 2004 election and later joined Obama's administration. Al Gore still complains about losing in 2000 to George W. Bush, but he also found a new calling and made his mark as a (self-appointed) spokesman for the planet. Bob Dole left politics altogether after his defeat in 1996 and went on to star in commercials for Pepsi and Viagra. George H. W. Bush split his time after 1992 between charitable work and his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine. Walter Mondale returned to his law firm. Jimmy Carter has Habitat for Humanity.
Each accepted failure and moved on with life — some more begrudgingly than others.
But Clinton has a score to settle with the world.
The former secretary of state's many public appearances over the past three years have served the sole purpose of allowing her to name and blame persons, places, and things she believes caused her to lose in 2016. Many of them, she says, robbed her of her rightful spot behind the Resolute Desk. Clinton lives now to mourn her failed candidacy and to lash out at anyone she deems to have been insufficiently loyal.
Clinton's postelection grievances are not limited just to Republicans. She has now focused her ire on her chief 2016 primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and his supporters, both of whom Clinton excoriated recently in a new docuseries.
“Honestly,” she said, “Bernie just drove me crazy. He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him [in the 2016 primary]. Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done. He was a career politician.”
She added, “He did not work until he was like 41, and then he got elected to something. It was all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
Clinton did not leave it at that, but she continued her attacks during a promotional event for her docuseries. “[Sanders’ [supporters] were relentless, ruthless, in not just attacking me but people who supported me,” she said. “And he seems to turn a blind eye, to approve, the same kind of behavior with respect to how other candidates, particularly women candidates, are being treated online by his rabid followers.”
The Vermont lawmaker, who was one of the most active and engaged surrogates for the Clinton 2016 general election campaign, is not alone in finding himself on the receiving end of the former secretary's fury. He is merely the latest entity in a long list that Clinton has attacked since she lost to President Trump. To date, she has gone after the FBI, the Electoral College, systemic sexism, the news media’s coverage of her campaign, alleged voter suppression tactics, “fake news,” and even the voters themselves, accusing them all of depriving her of the White House.
Clinton’s obsession with naming her enemies even saw her attack U.S. combat veteran and congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, calling her a “Russian asset” amid a broader discussion about how former Green Party nominee Jill Stein allegedly cost the Democrats the election (also untrue).
Try as Clinton might to relitigate that campaign, she won't convince people that she ran a great campaign, that she was a great candidate, that she did not really lose, and that the world conspired to keep her out of the Oval Office. This is unprecedented behavior for a failed nominee. It is deranged even. Somewhere in her Chappaqua home must be a room hung with cobwebs where, like Miss Havisham, she laments the perfidy of everyone who dumped her at the Election Day altar.
The thing about Hillary Clinton clinging bitterly to her place in political history is that, unlike Gore, it is only sour grapes. It is not the occasional complaint amid a larger personal pursuit of new things. Clinton, who is now a self-appointed leader in the anti-Trump “resistance,” is not fulfilling rhetoric about continuing to fight for her or the Democratic Party’s values. She is not particularly engaged in activist causes. She wants only to argue in public that she is right and that everyone else is wrong.
Clinton's continued presence in public life serves only her own interests, and it comes to the detriment of former allies and even her own party. Though unprecedented, it is not unexpected. Indeed, we should expect nothing less from the hopeless candidate whose campaign slogan was “I'm with her.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-wont-hillary-clinton-just-go-away
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