Readers React: Hillary Clinton lost because she was a bad candidate, not because of sexism

To the editor: It’s rather hard to believe that columnist Robin Abcarian still wonders why “so many people hated Hillary Clinton.” Abcarian admits that Clinton was a “flawed” candidate, but she writes that compared to our current president, Clinton “towers over the man who beat her.”

Clinton’s loss cannot be attributed to the fact that she was a woman, but rather because she ran a poor campaign.

It was Clinton who called millions of people in this country “deplorables.” It was Clinton who stated that under her administration, coal miners would be put out of work. Abcarian seems to forget these campaign missteps, among others.

Clinton’s loss had little to do with her being a woman. She was the wrong woman.

The country will be ready for a woman president when she presents herself as someone with sound policy and a vision for the future of our country, not because it’s time to elect a woman as president.

Janet Polak, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: While I agree with Abcarian on the obvious and painful bias against women and minorities, I suggest that 2020 is not the time to test how we might be able to reform the Democratic Party’s thinking. There is too much at stake.

The prime and only consideration in choosing the nominee must be to pick the person with the best chance of beating President Trump.

The 2016 lineup of Republican hopefuls each degrading each other gave the worst of them an opportunity to win the nomination despite his lack of morals, truthfulness and fitness to fill the office. A lineup of Democrats acting in a similar way would provide Trump more fodder for his bigotry.

Please keep the fight for genuine equality in the fore, but not at the expense of four more years of this dysfunctional and despicable administration.

Paul Elder, Agoura Hills

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