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Cokie Roberts Shares Election Thoughts At MCLA
By Jack Guerino, iBerkshires Staff
03:29AM / Saturday, November 05, 2016
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ABC News and NPR political commentator Cokie Roberts.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — In all her years covering politics, Cokie Roberts said she has never seen an election like this one.
 
"It’s bad," ABC News and NPR political commentator Cokie Roberts said Thursday at a press conference. "We have seen divisions in American society before but nothing like this."
 
Roberts, who has won numerous awards throughout her over 40 years in the business, spoke at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Thursday night as the featured speaker for the sixth annual Michael S. and Kitty Dukakis Public Policy Lecture.
 
When asked why Republican nominee Donald Trump has made it so far, Roberts said it comes down to changes in society causing disruptions for people. She cited North Adams as a city born from the industrial revolution. A revolution that forced people off the farm and into cities, totally changing the way people lived and earned a living.
 
Roberts said today many feel left behind by the technological revolution.
 
"For the people who are educated it is a boom and for the people who are not it is a disaster," Robert said. "It is easy to try to blame somebody, to blame immigration, blame globalization and all that but the truth is it is technology."  
 
She said cultural changes that also disrupt those unwilling to accept change.
 
Roberts said this kind of discomfort and unease can open the gates for a candidate like Trump.
 
"When someone comes along and says they can make it the way it used to be and that person also happens to be a TV star who has had a show that millions of people have watched and when you combine all of those things you get Donald Trump," she said. 
 
She said she felt the coverage of Trump was unique but added that Trump’s run at the presidency and popularity is nothing to dismiss.
 
"If people are attracted to that person it is not nothing," Roberts said. "The fact that he has crowds of 30 and 50 thousand people showing up is not nothing. It’s not dispositive by any stretch of the imagination…but he did run against 12 Republicans some of who, like Jeb Bush, spent $150 million in TV ads and got nowhere so you can’t just say it’s a media phenom."
 
Roberts added that there have been many heated elections, such as this one, but none as openly crude amplified by a 24-hour news cycle. 
 
"The worst of it comes from a major party candidate and you have to cover it. You have to bleep him all of the time but it would be wrong to say we have never heard this kind of language before," she said. "The difference is this is much more pervasive. In the olden days, it was out there in little newspapers now it is out there in the entire atmosphere and it is not pleasant."  
 
As for the polls, Roberts said you must take them with a grain of salt and they only offer a snapshot of the race.
 
"Horse race polls mean nothing and pollers will tell you that they are not predictive but they are a snapshot of the race at that moment in time," Roberts said. "They scare you to death or give you great comfort and they certainly show movement and they show candidates where they have to shore up support." 
 
She said she had a similar opinion on the debates, however, felt they were useful because people pay attention to them.
 
"People only pay attention really as a nation a few times in the course of the campaigns: the convention and the debates," she said. "As much as they are all kind of staged that is when everybody is watching."
 
She said she has moderated many debates in her life and said "they are horrible and just make you want to die" but felt the last of the three debates moderated by Chris Wallace was the most successful. 
 
Roberts was asked if she thought this election sparked a wave of feminism with many women coming out with firsthand accounts of abuse by Trump.
 
She said she recognized three main feminism focus points during the campaign: the democratic convention, the release of the recording with Trump’s sexual abuse comments and when Trump called Hilary Clinton a nasty woman.
 
She added that she felt the campaign’s events have brought an enhanced conscience to feminism.
 
As for third party candidates, Roberts said this election is ripe for one to rise because of the negativity among the main party candidates. She added that the third-party candidates in this election do not have the numbers to win and recommended voting for someone who can actually become the president. 
 
Roberts said the election is worrisome especially with divisions it is creating throughout the country. She said she was especially disturbed by Trump's remarks about not accepting the results of the election.
 
"Trump could easily win this election and I think his statement about keeping us in suspense was very disturbing," Roberts said. "John Adams…hated the fact that Thomas Jefferson beat him but he accepted it. He snuck out of town and didn’t go to the inauguration but still it was a remarkable moment in world history."
 
"This funny little country on the banks of the Atlantic that had decided to play with this experiment of the consent of the governed and actually meant it replaced a sitting government," Roberts said.
 
"It was phenomenal and the world could not believe that it happened. It is a tremendous strength of our country and to call that into question is very damaging."
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