As is to be expected, blame for Hillary Clinton’s improbable and ignominious loss to Donald Trump is being laid everywhere except where it belongs: at the door of the candidate herself.

She has joined the blamers claiming that she lost because the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey announced the reopening of the investigation into her unauthorised use of a private server.

“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “Our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum,” Clinton said according to the

New York Times on Saturday, November 12.

According to the paper, she said: “We were once again up in all but two of the battleground states, and we were up considerably in some that we ended up losing,” said Clinton, whose tone was described by a donor as stoic. “And we were feeling like we had to put it back together.”

Neither Hillary Clinton nor anyone in the Democratic party hierarchy has said she is responsible for her sound defeat by Donald Trump; for as usual it is never the Clintons’ fault.

I believe a contestant is never entirely without responsibility for losing an election irrespective of what part other persons or circumstances played in it.

In effect what Hillary Clinton is saying is that had James Comey not said that the FBI had reopened investigation in the e-mail affair she would have romped to victory.

Would she?

From Hillary Clinton got the Democratic Party nomination the major polls showed her leading Donald Trump and that she would be elected president right up till voters went to the polls after both of James Comey’s letters. On November 7, 2016, the day before the election, an

ABC/Washington Post poll had her leading Trump by four points;NBC had her by four points;CBS by four points;FOX News by four points; and this was similar to most other polls. She entered the election on November 8, 2016 with a 70 per cent chance of winning; and that was up from 65 per cent two days before the Sunday when James Comey announced that he had found nothing different from before.

So it must have been that between the morning of the 8th when polls opened and the evening when they closed things fell apart for her. That is unlikely. Her momentum was slowed but she was still ahead. So if there is anyone to blame it is the pollsters who consistently predicted that she would win when she would not; and who may have knowingly distorted their own findings not to reflect the movement that brought Donald Trump to the White House.

About that there may be be some doubt; but about this there is none: Hillary Clinton is to blame for her own defeat. She was an unpopular and unlikable candidate due to her history of dishonesty and her lack of a clear message.

In July, the

Washington Post reported: “…68 per cent say Clinton isn’t honest and trustworthy, that’s according to theCNN poll, and it’s her worst number on record. It’s also up from 65 per cent earlier this month and 59 per cent in May. The 30 per cent who see Clinton as honest and trustworthy is now well shy of the number who say the same of Trump: 43 per cent. You heard that right: Trump — he of the many, many Pinocchios — now has a large lead on Clinton when it comes to honesty and trustworthiness.”

This was complemented by the fact that she had no plan to offer Americans, except to continue what Barack Obama has done for the past eight years. And she felt she needed no plan, for Donald Trump was so unfit for office that no sane voter would choose him over her. She gave one paltry press conference since the year began; Trump gave over 15. And she never went on any of the news shows, despite being repeatedly invited to do so. She felt she didn’t need to: She was a Clinton and it was her time now. Her husband Bill said the exact words only days before the election.

A sense of entitlement and corruption caused her to lose; not James Comey who only spoke about investigations of the wrongs she had done.

Ewin James is a freelance journalist living in Longwood, Florida, USA. Send comments to the Observer or eroyjames@aol.com.