The Election: What Just Happened?
Distinguished panel explains the Trump victory at Restoration Weekend.
December 9, 2016
Frontpagemag.com
Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion "The Election: What Just Happened?" which took place at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2016 Restoration Weekend.
Video:
Election: What Just Happened? from DHFC on Vimeo.
... ...
I believe it was a rebellion against political correctness. It was really the failure of identify politics. Hillary Clinton won a smaller share of the female vote than Barack Obama did in either 2008 or 2012, and I think that's because people realize that the most important fact about her was not her gender. It was her character defects or perhaps her agenda. We can talk more about the numbers as we get into the discussion. I also believe it was a repudiation of Barack Obama, in large part, a presidency that failed on its own terms. Every year since 2010, the White House has overestimated economic growth to come. You look at his signature healthcare plan. Obamacare did not bend the cost curve. It didn't extend insurance to all Americans. It didn't allow people to keep their own doctors, as we know. It didn't allow people to keep their own health plans, and lately it hasn't even allowed people to keep his healthcare plan, so a failure all the way around. I think voters rejected it. They rejected the Obama new normal of slower growth and diminished opportunities. We can talk more about the impact politically, electorally, of that repudiation, but it is stunning that the Obama era has been an absolute disaster for Democratic politicians other than Barack Obama. It now ends with a Republican White House, Senate, House, 33 governorships, 69 of 99 state legislative chambers, so an absolute disaster for Democrats, and as we know much of the Obama program was done through the phone and the pen, which now can be erased. So, I'm not going to say maybe we'll look back and it was all just a bad dream, but it's possible you'll see in the next year really the dismantling of the whole Obama program.
Pat was talking about the collapse of the political industry. We look at how wrong many pollsters were, how wrong so many folks in the media were and so many political consultants. You look at the Trump campaign, the rookie spending roughly half the money as his opponent, breaking every rule of politics, ignoring all the advice from the experts and finding a way to win. And you had a similar situation -- I was focused on the Wisconsin Senate race where Ron Johnson was basically given up for dead last summer. The Washington Republicans stopped sending him money, and the Washington consultants lost interest, and I think he had lost interest in them by that point. He contacted his brother who had worked in public television of all places and also there was one of his staffers, who had once had a job in TV, and she had an iPhone with a camera, and that's how they made the ads that turned the tide in that race. It was a homemade effort, and he succeeded and came back to beat Russ Finegold when all of the professionals had basically abandoned him, so it's a fun moment for people who like seeing the conventional wisdom absolutely trashed, repudiated, blown up, exploded, and that's one of the messages.
I also think it's kind of inspiring thinking about Donald Trump and how far he came in this race where I think there may be a bias; people thinking that 70-year-olds don't change a whole lot. Maybe thinking that they're not as adaptable as some other people, but you think about where he started last winter and how unprepared, non-substantive he seemed in those first Republican debates. You get to the final debate against Hillary Clinton, and he beat her discussing constitutional jurisprudence. He beat her describing the impact of the intricacies of the Heller Decision. It really is amazing because you think about how Hillary Clinton in the media telling was the ultimate policy wonk and always read all the briefing books and was up on all the issues, and yet he was the one running the substantive campaign at the end, and that's why I kind of thought he might pull it out. I can't say I guaranteed a victory, but she was essentially running an issueless campaign largely about him and his shortcomings, and he was running about reviving economic growth, reviving our healthcare system. Their "drained the swamp" is a great slogan, but behind it was a substantive set of proposals on term limits, lobbying reforms, etc,. which I think resonated with a lot of people, so he turned out to be the policy wonk, another kind of shocking result from this election. Anyway, we'll have time to talk some more, but thanks again for having me.
...
Moderator: James, anything to add on that?
James Freeman: Sore losers. I like the term I read on Twitter, hyperbole babies, so I think that kind of describes it. I mean, obviously if there's people doing violence, criminal acts, they need to be prosecuted, but in terms of the general just sort of young people upset about the results, they need to get over it. I think one nice result of Tuesday is that free college was rejected.
Pat Caddell: One quick comment on that. I would like someone to go through and have, literally, I wish we had that thing where you have purple thumbs where you voted, so we could get a count of how many of those kids out there or whatever actually voted as opposed to protested.
Moderator: Can we get a hand for our panel this morning?
The Election: What Just Happened?
Distinguished panel explains the Trump victory at Restoration Weekend.
December 9, 2016
Frontpagemag.com
Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion "The Election: What Just Happened?" which took place at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2016 Restoration Weekend.
Video:
Election: What Just Happened? from DHFC on Vimeo.
... ...
I believe it was a rebellion against political correctness. It was really the failure of identify politics. Hillary Clinton won a smaller share of the female vote than Barack Obama did in either 2008 or 2012, and I think that's because people realize that the most important fact about her was not her gender. It was her character defects or perhaps her agenda. We can talk more about the numbers as we get into the discussion. I also believe it was a repudiation of Barack Obama, in large part, a presidency that failed on its own terms. Every year since 2010, the White House has overestimated economic growth to come. You look at his signature healthcare plan. Obamacare did not bend the cost curve. It didn't extend insurance to all Americans. It didn't allow people to keep their own doctors, as we know. It didn't allow people to keep their own health plans, and lately it hasn't even allowed people to keep his healthcare plan, so a failure all the way around. I think voters rejected it. They rejected the Obama new normal of slower growth and diminished opportunities. We can talk more about the impact politically, electorally, of that repudiation, but it is stunning that the Obama era has been an absolute disaster for Democratic politicians other than Barack Obama. It now ends with a Republican White House, Senate, House, 33 governorships, 69 of 99 state legislative chambers, so an absolute disaster for Democrats, and as we know much of the Obama program was done through the phone and the pen, which now can be erased. So, I'm not going to say maybe we'll look back and it was all just a bad dream, but it's possible you'll see in the next year really the dismantling of the whole Obama program.
Pat was talking about the collapse of the political industry. We look at how wrong many pollsters were, how wrong so many folks in the media were and so many political consultants. You look at the Trump campaign, the rookie spending roughly half the money as his opponent, breaking every rule of politics, ignoring all the advice from the experts and finding a way to win. And you had a similar situation -- I was focused on the Wisconsin Senate race where Ron Johnson was basically given up for dead last summer. The Washington Republicans stopped sending him money, and the Washington consultants lost interest, and I think he had lost interest in them by that point. He contacted his brother who had worked in public television of all places and also there was one of his staffers, who had once had a job in TV, and she had an iPhone with a camera, and that's how they made the ads that turned the tide in that race. It was a homemade effort, and he succeeded and came back to beat Russ Finegold when all of the professionals had basically abandoned him, so it's a fun moment for people who like seeing the conventional wisdom absolutely trashed, repudiated, blown up, exploded, and that's one of the messages.
I also think it's kind of inspiring thinking about Donald Trump and how far he came in this race where I think there may be a bias; people thinking that 70-year-olds don't change a whole lot. Maybe thinking that they're not as adaptable as some other people, but you think about where he started last winter and how unprepared, non-substantive he seemed in those first Republican debates. You get to the final debate against Hillary Clinton, and he beat her discussing constitutional jurisprudence. He beat her describing the impact of the intricacies of the Heller Decision. It really is amazing because you think about how Hillary Clinton in the media telling was the ultimate policy wonk and always read all the briefing books and was up on all the issues, and yet he was the one running the substantive campaign at the end, and that's why I kind of thought he might pull it out. I can't say I guaranteed a victory, but she was essentially running an issueless campaign largely about him and his shortcomings, and he was running about reviving economic growth, reviving our healthcare system. Their "drained the swamp" is a great slogan, but behind it was a substantive set of proposals on term limits, lobbying reforms, etc,. which I think resonated with a lot of people, so he turned out to be the policy wonk, another kind of shocking result from this election. Anyway, we'll have time to talk some more, but thanks again for having me.
...
Moderator: James, anything to add on that?
James Freeman: Sore losers. I like the term I read on Twitter, hyperbole babies, so I think that kind of describes it. I mean, obviously if there's people doing violence, criminal acts, they need to be prosecuted, but in terms of the general just sort of young people upset about the results, they need to get over it. I think one nice result of Tuesday is that free college was rejected.
Pat Caddell: One quick comment on that. I would like someone to go through and have, literally, I wish we had that thing where you have purple thumbs where you voted, so we could get a count of how many of those kids out there or whatever actually voted as opposed to protested.
Moderator: Can we get a hand for our panel this morning?
The Election: What Just Happened?