No! She lost because she was a bad candidate and ran a very very horrible campaign. (Are you reading those interviews and articles, or do you only concern yourself with Russia nowadays?)
So, let's take this step by step...
I presume you don't doubt that somebody have the DNC and released info that was damaging to Democrats in general and Hillary in particular. You agree that happened, right?
So, do you believe Russia was involved or not?
Regardless of whether or not it was Russia, you claim it had no impact on Hillary's success/failure?
You probably accept that Podesta's emails were hacked and released cause great difficulty and embarrassment for Podesta and Hillary's campaign? Good...
So, do you think it hurt or helped Hillary's campaign? I presume you agree that it gave a lot of material for Trump to chew on but do you honestly think it didn't help Trump?
Ah, but who did it? We know Wikileaks released the emails but do you accept or reject the allegation that Russia was involved?
If you haven't read the report (and there's zero indication that Trump has) it's really pretty compelling and not in a spy thriller sort of way. It's pretty dry and you need to read the background and understand what the verbiage they use means.
Unclassified version of intelligence report on Russian hacking during the 2016 election on Scribd.
What about the paid internet trolls? From the report:"Moscow's influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations -- such as cyberactivity -- with overt efforts by Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries and paid social media users or 'trolls.'"
Do you believe Putin himself ordered the effort? From the report:"We assess that influence campaigns are approved at the highest levels of the Russian government - particularly those that would be politically sensitive."
If you understand the way Russia operates, nobody would expect anybody in Russia to be freelancing like he mentioned a few weeks ago. No, Vlad, it wasn't a bunch of patriotic hackers screwing with us...
Do you believe that Putin was crying a grudge against Hillary? Also from the report:"Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him."
Do you believe that is was a goal of Russia to undermine the US faith in democratic process and throughout the world? Again from the report:"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."
You're a smart guy Joe, do you honestly reject the premise that Russia tried to and successfully meddled in the 2016 election? And if you accept that it was Russia, do you honestly think it had zero impact on the two campaigns; hurting Hillary while helping Trump?
Do I think Russian meddling was the only reason Hillary lost? Nope...she was a flawed candidate who ran a poor campaign. But I'm pretty sure that it had an impact and that impact might have been the difference in the results.
Then ya gotta ask why so many people in Trump's world had ties and connections to Russia and why Trump STILL talks favorably about Putin and Russia? Do I think the campaign colluded with Russian operative? I don't know...the investigation is still going on and I'm willing to wait until it's over to make that determination.
But, the real issue isn't about collusion...that's looking backwards which does no good, the real issue is what the Russians did and how do we prevent that from EVER happening again...don't ya think that's important?
