Don't blame Hillary Clinton -- ‘Dear Madam President’ makes more excuses for her election defeat

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Former aide on Hillary's 'deplorables' remark, new book

Jennifer Palmieri, author of 'Dear Madam President,' comments on Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and obstacles that women face when running for office.

Excuses, excuses and more excuses just keep coming from Democratic partisans to explain why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential race to Donald Trump. The latest installment comes from Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s campaign communications director, and – spoiler alert – Palmieri concludes the loss wasn’t Clinton’s fault.

Palmieri’s new book is titled “Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World.” It could have just as easily been titled “Don’t Blame Hillary: More Excuses 2.0.”

Hitting the media circuit to promote her book, Palmieri said of the aftermath of the election: “It does show that we don’t have any models for our young girls and young women who are coming up in the world now to look at for how to lead.”

Believe it or not, young girls will be just fine even without Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.

Young girls have no female role models they can look up to as leaders? All because the country didn’t elect Hillary Clinton? Seriously? There are no women in leadership positions in this country?

Perhaps we should introduce Palmieri to our ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley; Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen; Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao; female members of Congress from both parties; former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice; and many, many other prominent and powerful women.

Believe it or not, young girls will be just fine even without Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.

Palmieri appeared to contradict herself when she said that while she doesn’t believe all people were sexist in voting against Clinton, “I do believe we encountered an unconscious but pervasive gender bias that held Hillary back in many ways.”

Palmieri also said in a media interview that even people who didn’t vote for Clinton thought she could do the job. One has to wonder if Palmieri has some sort of mindreading superpower that enables her to get inside a voter’s head, or if that’s all drummed up hyperbole to support her “gender bias” argument.

When she’s done pointing the finger at those with a gender bias, Palmieri also puts blame on the campaign, saying staffers tried to model Hillary Clinton after a man.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would be able to successfully tell Clinton how to campaign, who to be, or what image to portray. If they could, one would think that Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment that contributed to the ultimate sinking of her political ship never would have happened.

In her book, Palmieri dispenses her advice to women who want to run for office. The irony is that she spent an entire campaign doing just that and her candidate lost.

Here’s some gender neutral, universal advice: don’t make excuses.

In her book, Palmieri writes: “We need to understand what happened. We need to make the path easier for all women working to succeed in whatever role they choose. The unease we felt toward Hillary could hold any woman back anywhere.”

Should Hillary apologize for her criticism of female voters?

Hillary Clinton clarifies criticism of female voters. Jessica Tarlov and Kayleigh McEnany debate the Trump voter comments.

It is absolutely baffling that almost 18 months later, Clinton supporters are still asking themselves what happened. The “unease” toward Hillary was directed at the person – not the woman.

Clinton’s path would have been easier if she had made it easier by being a better candidate. She could have started by not alienating an entire “basket of deplorables.” Or by not telling people in an entire industry (coal mining) that she was going to throw them all out of work, thus threatening countless others in similar industries who happened to live and vote in key states.

It doesn’t take gender bias to want to protect your job in a rotten economy.

Hillary Clinton was unlikeable and proved twice that she’s unelectable. She lost the presidential primary race to Barack Obama and lost again eight years later in the general election to Donald Trump.

One more time: Hillary Clinton didn’t lose because she is a woman. She lost because she was a bad candidate with a bad message. Good leaders take personal responsibility. If we want to model something for girls and young women, let’s model that.