Four Less Years - From the Vault

THIS APPEARED IN NOV 2016 - Why did Hilary lose? There is a bias against intelligent woman, she didn't motivate the black vote, Nafta & rich gutted middle America factories and a downtrodden white class woke up for 5 minutes, incumbent party loses White House after 8 years regularly, the debates ended too soon, the FBI got involved (in today's NYTimes, Hilary cites this), 20 years of gerrymandering weighs on outcomes – through this and before, when he vanquished a string of Republican contenders that to an exceptional degree resembled losers on the Apprentice, Trump was lucky. Does any of this sound familiar?

When I was a lad what a kick in the face it was when Nixon took power. In 1968, in March, I'd gone door to door for McCarthy, all my friends had seen the Democratic Convention debacle, had no use for Johnson, or his appendage Humphrey. As the days to election day neared, as they got closer, as we descended like drowning swimmer into November '68, there was trepidation and last-minute push for Humphrey in my little orbit. My girlfriend E. worked at the Racine Public Library, and went through the staff proselytizing for the Happy Warrior, trying to talk people into voting for him. Practicality surfaced, the gap closed, but the momentum was Tricky Dick's. He was the lucky one in 1968.

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