Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump (the least popular canidate ever) for a number of reasons, but her tone-deafness about the money in politics is definitely one of them. The vast majority of people left and right agree that billions of dollars from various interests OBVIOUSLY corrupts politicians, regardless of whether anyone can point to a specific quid pro quo.
In the primary debates Hillary defended the established system while Bernie loudly spoke a truth which ALL the American people recognize.
Trump capitalized on this issue, telling his Republican opponents they were for sale and making claims that he was “self funding” and that he would be different because he didn’t need the money donors give. Of course he was mostly full of crap but it worked and in the general election Hillary couldn’t attack him on that because she accepted even more money than Trump from large donors. And despite her defense, EVERYONE KNOWS THOSE DONORS ARE MAKING AN INVESTMENT.
And now she will hold a very exclusive gala to thank her biggest donors...
The Dec. 15 evening gala at the Plaza Hotel will be held in the iconic "grand ballroom," one of New York's most opulent spaces. It is also small by mega-party standards, holding a few hundred people…
Clinton's reliance on big donors was a central theme in her protracted primary battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who accused her of being beholden to big money interests and too cozy with rich Wall Street and corporate types...
On the Nov. 12 call, campaign finance director Dennis Cheng told participants that top donors had brought in more than half the nearly $1 billion Clinton raised...
www.washingtonpost.com/…
Her inability to get real Americans to show up at her rallies was directly connected to her inability to forgo millions in superPAC money and the money from the fat cats who may or may not even come to her party. Apparently some of them are mad about the poor campaign she ran.
If the DNC had lived up to their own bylaws the primary would have gone to the guy who raised PLENTY of money by asking regular people to chip in what they could. Had the DNC played fair president elect Bernie Sanders could now be thanking STADIUMS full of people.
But now we have our candidate thanking a few hundred fat cats, and Nancy Pelosi keeps her power, and the Democratic party slides further into the grave.
We heard a lot of rhetoric from HRC and her allies about “dark money” and such. Their actions speak much louder than their words. Pelosi and the other “leaders” of the party need to decide if they want to keep taking fat cat money or if they want to win elections. They obviously screwed the pooch this go-round, and they should step aside and let those who aren’t as tone deaf about corruption take over. The American people can see that the billions flowing in from various interests are a serious problem, but our “leaders” see that money as necessary. Obviously it was clearly demonstrated in the primary that if a candidate is honest and their ideas resonate with the people, the people will step up and provide not only money but energy and enthusiasm, which was clearly lacking at most HRC events.