Way The 2016 Elections Played Out

How To Lose An Election
As far as the media was concerned it wasn't about the elections but instead lining their pockets trying every possible way to achieve the highest ratings and selling the most print they could. Stirring up controversies proved a valuable tool for them. On one hand you had Donald making himself readily available via numerous campaign speeches and frequent appearances if only under friendly network settings. On the other Hillary--overlay optimistic about assuming victory--didn't match the same rhetoric Donald was putting into his campaign. Nor willing to appear as readily on TV. As a result Hillary received less coverage. This allowed Donald Trump to seize the campaign spotlight with his flamboyant style. Donald was the to go to guy who could both fill news columns and airtime stirring up controversy. Things hungry media feeds on.


The Bernie Sanders Factor
What neither party saw coming was the impact Bernie Sanders would have. Him being set aside by the democratic party proved to be a big mistake. There were rumors of scheming against Bernie within the democratic party before Hillary officially declared her candidacy. One could argue whether or not this led to Bernie's elimination in the primaries. Let us take a look at a few advantages his presence might have brought if he had not have been eliminated. (1) A huge fuss was made over Hillary's speaking fees. Bernie neither spoke to wall street executive gatherings nor received fees. This would have been one less talking point against the democrats leading contender.

(2) People were in a frenzy slugging it out between both leading candidate's baggage they'd bring to the White House. Meanwhile Bernie's record is clean as a whistle. He doesn't have a foundation nor own a bunch of businesses whereby he could benefit from some decision he made He doesn't have a boatload of emails hanging over his head. Wikileaks didn't have a thing on Bernie.

(3) Bernie's net worth is around $528,000 compared to the Clintons said worth of $121,000,000--250x's larger. With Donald nobody knows. Let's just agree he's well off. I'm sure many reading this might be in the same camp as Bernie. Factoring in a home, savings, cars and whatever it's not too unreasonable to say Bernie pretty much squares with the rest of us peons. If not certainly a whole lot closer then the other two. This would lead one to believe Bernie could better relate to the average family's income. More importantly it tells us he hasn't gamed the system in Washington to become a multimillionaire like the rest of the bunch down there. Talk about draining the swamp-- electing Bernie would have been a good start.

(4) Republicans had the advantage of knowing Hillary would be the front runner democrats would put up eight years down the road. All eyes were on sacking the quarter back carrying the football. Which in this case was Hillary. This gave them plenty of time to prepare. Bernie's sudden appearance could have thrown them off their game. In ConclusionNeither Donald nor Bernie received their respective party's support. The difference was republicans didn't impede their candidates. I'm not sure the same can be said for the democratic party. No one can say whether Bernie could have won against Trump. We'll never know since it wasn't the way things turned out. However it still makes me wonder if it had.