An upcoming autobiography by Hillary Clinton will touch on the mistakes she made and the reasons she lost the 2016 presidential election.
While the book hasn’t yet been released in its entirety, it has been reviewed by CNN and other media outlets. Like any major publication in the modern day, excerpts and passages have been leaked to the press.
Reactions from the political establishment and media have been mixed, with some congressional leaders dismissing confessions and ponderings they say are now irrelevant.
An opinion piece by CNBC blasted Clinton for being too generous in laying blame to other parties for her loss.
Among the most controversial text leaks was a page-long tirade against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who was Clinton’s primary opposition in the 2016 Democratic primary.
Clinton accused Sanders of acting as a distraction, deriding him as a candidate who didn’t stand for the values of the party and set her up for the same attacks laid by Trump during the presidential campaign.
In her book, Clinton compared her one-time opponent with a deranged hitchhiker from Ben Stiller’s 1998 movie, “There’s Something About Mary.”
“A deranged hitchhiker said he’s come up with a brilliant plan,” Clinton wrote, describing a scene from the movie. “Instead of the famous ‘eight-minute abs’ exercise, he’s going to market ‘seven minute abs.’ It’s the same, just quicker. Then the driver, played by Ben Stiller, says, “Well, why not six-minute abs?
“That’s what it was like in policy debates with Bernie. We would propose a bold infrastructure plan or an ambitious new apprenticeship program for young people, and then Bernie would announce basically the same thing, but bigger,” she complained. “On issue after issue, it was like he kept proposing four-minute abs, or even no-minute abs. Magic abs!”
President Obama even cautioned Clinton not to hit too hard against Sanders, lest she alienate his voters and a part of the Democratic Party’s youthful base.
“I am proud to be a Democrat,” she said, “and I wish Bernie were, too.”
Clinton also complained about a lack of support from former Vice President Joe Biden, who suggested Democrats didn’t have a solid strategy to win over middle-class voters.
However, in the midst of all the finger-pointing and blame-casting, Clinton did manage to accept some responsibility for her loss. She did admit that she was “dumb” for sending confidential emails over a private, non-government-secured server, and that she could have done a better job speaking her mind on the campaign trail.
All in all, the excerpts from the book show a glimpse at a hardly-changed Clinton who didn’t have the reach to capture the hearts of voters who were, at least in 2016, disillusioned with politics as usual.
Sources
By bashing Bernie Sanders in her new book, Hillary Clinton proves she still doesn’t get it
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