The first question to Hillary Clinton during Wednesday night’s Democratic Debate went right after the former Secretary of State’s latest vulnerability: her unexpected loss in the Michigan primary.
“Secretary, you have been starting to sound like the nominee lately, but many voters are saying not so fast. Where did you fail last night in Michigan,” Univision’s María Elena Salinas asked Clinton.
“Well, look, I won one of the contests and lost another close one,” Clinton said, sidestepping her political upset. “I was pleased that I got 100,000 more votes last night than my opponent and more delegates. So this is a marathon, and it’s a marathon that can only be carried out by the kind of inclusive campaign that I’m running.”
Salinas pressed Clinton again, asking “What went wrong in Michigan?”
“It was a very close race. We’ve had some of those,” Clinton said. “I’ve won some. I’ve lost some. But, you know, I was very pleased by the overall outcome last night. And now we’re on to the states for next Tuesday and I’m looking forward to campaigning hard in all of them.”
Michigan is not the Super Bowl, guys.
Did they ask Bernie what went catastrophically wrong in Mississippi? I thought not.
Exactly. Living in Michigan, Sanders was never out of this. Lots of job loss and animosity towards the ruling class. That was a dumb question.
First, the race outcome has been severely colored by the massive, major polling fails. What happened was not some seismic upheaval, but rather more or less what should have been expected (and what the Clinton campaign internals were showing for some time). If the race had been publicized as “very close” for a week or so before, the Sanders squeak-out would scarcely have made much news.
Second, the large number of non-Democrats allowed to vote in this “Democratic” primary affected the outcome in a big way: among actual Democrats voting, Clinton won by 16 points.
Third, when Clinton won Iowa by a couple of points, the Sanders campaign repeatedly called it effectively a tie. Now a couple of points is a smashing victory?
Did they ask Bernie why Hillary won Flint, and 65% of the African American vote in Michigan?
G*dDamn!