A lot of people woke up losers today.
We have covered far more than one-hundred elections and we have noticed something about the losers. They seldom blame themselves for their loss.
It’s always somebody or something else—lying television commercials, lack of funding, an October surprise of some kind, misuse of the power of the incumbent during the campaign, a national or natural disaster, unfair media, among other reasons.
We’ve heard dozens of concession speeches. But not once has a losing candidate ever said, “I wasn’t good enough.” But quite often that’s the reason people lose. The voters have decided they’re not good enough for the job the candidates wanted.
A lot of factors go into voter decisions but in the end many of the votes are cast because citizens think the other candidate is better even if “better” is a matter of choosing a lesser evil—a self-condemning statement because surely there would have been better candidates if voters wanted to do more than complain on the day after.
Read or listen to the concession speeches this year. Let us know if anybody says they just weren’t good enough. Because, in all honesty, they weren’t