So her reaching out to congressional leaders and party stalwarts early in the game to get commitments from them was shrewd political calculus on her part and she used this to block Sander's insurgency. She understood that in the end presidential elections are a numbers game. After all, he was dominating the national narrative, he was raising more money, gave far better speeches, and he was bringing the energy to the campaign. He also beats Donald Trump by far bigger margins than she does according to most polls. So his supporters concluded on the basis of this that the system was rigged against them. Some people felt that this political preordination was not good for American democracy.
In retrospect Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Primary by doing what she does far better than any politician -- male or female -- in America today. She is disciplined and has the patience to stick to the hard grind of retail politics. In plain English? She spent the time necessary to build and cultivate relationships both within the Democratic Party and the general populace. Before the first vote was cast she had visited Black churches across the nation and set up her political campaign headquarters in New York City's Blackest borough -- Brooklyn. This borough is home to over 800,000 registered Democratic voters and she demonstrated that just because New York City is a "safe bet" she was not taking its voters for granted -- she respected them and cared about their issues.
Finally, she used a female strategy in politics that worked for her. Unlike male politicians she built coalitions and brought people together at the local community level setting up her formidable national machine one Congressional District at a time. Where there were problems she worked to find common ground and empowered her surrogates to take action in her name. This built trust where that was needed. The upshot and result? 208 members of Congress have endorsed her.
Retail politics is a real tough and hard grind. And, as I said, she is better than most American politicians at this. Its' her strength and her campaign knew it. She never was going to win the nomination by great oratory or charisma. The Sanders campaign with all of the things going for it could not come up with an answer to that kind of politicking. I argue that this requires singular focus and an ability to learn from mistakes, and adapt quickly to issues on the ground. I know nobody who is better at this than Hillary Clinton. Remember now, she served as a United States senator from New York in an organization that was still populated by men who sought to impeach her husband and who humiliated her when she pushed for universal healthcare reform.
This is an exciting time in American politics. At last we have a female candidate who has a very good chance of becoming the first woman president of the United States running in a process that has always been set up to showcase male attributes. Maybe its time to recognize that Hillary Clinton is a really formidable politician. America has had 56 presidential contests and 33 of them were help before women got the right to vote. I believe that the glass ceiling has been shattered back to back -- America's first female presidential nominee and perhaps its first female president, succeeding this nation's first Black president.
And you wonder why Republicans are pissed?
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