Keller @ Large: Democrats Need To Move On From Hillary Clinton
BOSTON (CBS) - One of the many differences between the Democratic and Republican parties is the way they view their failed presidential candidates.
The Republicans tend to treat their losers as if they simply struck out their first time at bat. No problem, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney; you may have blown it the first time around, but you're still a player.
The Democrats? Not so much.
True, Al Gore ran and lost before winning the nomination in 2000, but he's been the exception in modern times. George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, John Kerry – you're one and done.
Hillary Clinton was an exception.
But after losing what seemed like a winnable race to Donald Trump, she is running into a lot of negativity from fellow Democrats as she peddles her campaign memoir, and no wonder.
As the writer Joanna Weiss points out in her review of Clinton's book, it is full of justification and evasion, with Clinton giving "lip service, but no true sense of reflection, to her role in confirming that she was an entrenched part of the hated establishment, an obstacle to the broad change that so much of the electorate wanted."
Politics is all about timing – it doesn't matter how good a candidate is if they run the wrong campaign at the wrong moment.
And in addition to having poor timing, Clinton was not a good candidate, isolated, out-of-touch and awkward.
Unlike the people who irrationally hate her, I see no reason why Hillary Clinton shouldn't keep advocating for her beliefs.
But she shouldn't be surprised if even Democrats are more than ready to move on.