How We Lost

1. Hillary played the popular vote versus the electoral college. I would have thought that after Gore's defeat in 2000 that anyone with the last name Clinton or Gore would have figured out that elections are not won through the popular vote, but rather through the electoral college.

I know some people will argue that the electoral college should be abolished, but it's not based in reality. It takes a constitutional amendment to change the electoral college, and with the amount of states, House seats and Senate seats that Republicans control - let's just say that we have just a good a chance as abolishing the second amendment.

2. There is a generational divide within the Democratic party. Exit polling shows that a good portion of the Obama coalition stayed home during this election. Millennials were down 5% nationwide for Hillary when compared to Obama in 2012. Hillary, also, lost 5% of the African-American vote and 6% the Hispanic vote when compared to Obama in 2012.

Most of Sanders support came from millennials. Their concerns were more oriented towards what their generation is facing in the future (student loans, environmental issues, good paying jobs coming out of school... etc...) and not on issues like Social Security or major wedge issues like immigration.

3. The party as a whole needs to take a long hard look at our relation with corporate America. The neo-liberal wing believes that all issues can be solved through the market based solutions, but in reality this is not true.

Remember when neo-liberals argued that gay marriage should be legalized for the impact it would have on the wedding business? Just plain old liberals believe that markets have a use, but are not an end all be all to our problems. Gay marriage was finally legalized because it was finally reasoned that it was just the right thing to do - markets played absolutely no role.

Our party took a huge generational leap forward when we nominated Obama, but an even larger one backwards when nominated Hillary. Voter turnout (see 2) proves this point.

4. DNC leadership has been a complete disaster. In 2008 we controlled the Senate, House and Executive. In two years, under the guidance of Debbie Wasserman, we lost 63 seats in the House, which cost us the House. We, also, lost 6 seats in the Senate, but still managed to retain control. In 2014 we lost the Senate. And don't even get me started on Gubernatorial seats and state houses.

Debbie, failed this party in the grandest of ways.

5. This was a change election. Hillary represented the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. What independent voters wanted, and quite a few liberals, was a candidate of change. The Bill Clinton years were good for when they were, but they're not suited for the world of today. Stating that she would put Bill in charge of the economy was not the best of ideas. Any economist worth their weight in salt will tell you that Bill Clinton got lucky from the explosion of the internet, and fortunately for him he managed to get out of office just as the bubble was bursting. His long term economic policy is what lead to many of today's woes. Keeping Greenspan was the biggest mistake Bill made, but at the time he was lauded for it by neo-liberals and Republicans alike.

6. Hillary was a flawed candidate coming out of the gates. Let me say this upfront: There was nothing in Hillary's emails that is illegal. Now, let's not confuse illegal with poor judgement. What Hillary did with the email server was bad judgement, especially for someone who had aspirations of running for president.

Unlike Bill, or Obama, Hillary has a severe problem with coming off as genuine to large audiences. Some will argue and say "you have to get to know her on a personal level", just one problem with this statement - there's only one Hillary Clinton vs millions upon millions upon millions of voters in this country. It's impossible for every voter she needs to reach to get to know her on a personal level.

This is not to even mention that Republicans just plain out hate her. Any other person would have not nearly come under as much scrutiny as anyone with the last name Clinton.

One of the biggest memes going around on this very website was that Hillary has already been vetted, and they were right, she was. Those same people also chose to ignore her flaws. Yes, the overwhelming majority of accusations were false, but without the charisma and ability to connect with audiences she is/was unable to convince voters that they were/are false.

In conclusion: At some point, this party needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and search its soul for what it wants to be. It can't be everything for everybody - politics does not work that way.

Furthermore, we need to examine our candidates and admit when our candidates have flaws.