There’s many still in mourning over )Hillary Clinton’s shock loss of the US election – apparently none more so than the former candidate herself.
In one of her few direct comments about the 2016 election, Ms Clinton blamed two major obstacles in her campaign for her eventual defeat.
“If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at a Women for Women International event in New York.
“I take absolute personal responsibility. I was the candidate. I was the person who was on the ballot. I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had,” Ms Clinton said.
“But I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off.”
This assessment of the 2016 election was presented by FiveThirtyEight statistician Nate Silver in December last year, who felt Ms Clinton would have “almost certainly” become president if not for Comey’s letter.
“The evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling, persuasive, and so we overcame a lot in the campaign,” Ms Clinton revealed.
“The reason I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days.”
Ms Amanpour questioned Ms Clinton on whether she believed misogyny played a role in her election loss.
“Yes, I do think it played a role. I think other things did as well. Every day that goes by, we find out more about the unprecedented inference, including from a foreign power whose leader is not a member of my fan club,” Ms Clinton said, in a not to subtle reference to President Putin.
“It is real, it is very much a part of the landscape, political and socially and economically.”
According to CNN, friends and aides of Ms Clinton say she while she is more at peace with the result of the election, she’s still focussed on the Russian government’s interference in the election.
The extent of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election is still being investigated, but the CIA concluded last year that Russia acted to help Trump win.
Despite the “painful process reliving the campaign”, Ms Clinton will be releasing a book about her campaign which she predicts will be out by fall.
But for now?
“I am now back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance.”
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