By Chris Moody, CNN Senior Digital Correspondent
Monumental blunders and political gaffes just don’t seem to have the same kinds of consequences this election year.
It arguably torpedoed Mitt Romney’s president campaign when he was surreptitiously recorded claiming in 2012 that 47 percent of the nation won’t support him because they want freebies from the government. But that seems seems downright quaint beneath the behemoth shadow of “mistakes” in 2016.
To wit: Donald Trump triumphed in the Republican primary contest despite insulting nearly every interest group in the nation. Hillary Clinton didn’t skate through the Democratic primary, but she certainly benefited from Trump hoovering every ounce of media oxygen during her less-than-stellar moments on the trail, as she tried to match the excitement as a primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, who self-described as a democratic socialist while officially running as a Democrat.
On both sides of the political aisle, mistakes were made. Stupid things were said. And yet, here we are. You’d think, given the unprecedented distrust and poor favorability voters have for both major party candidates, that the time would be ripe for a third party option.
But this week the Libertarian alternative blanked on a foreign policy softball and the Green Party alternative has a warrant out for her arrest.
Let us pretend for just a moment that truth really does matter and words really do have consequences (lol, I know, right?), and apply the the longstanding rules of political gaffe coverage to this bewildering and unprecedented election.
Looking back, here are just a few of the “gaffe” moments of 2016:
“What is Aleppo?”
Whet your gaffetites with this mishap from someone not named Clinton or Trump. In this case, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson — a third-party nominee who has received an uncharacteristic amount of attention and scrutiny because of the main-party candidates’ lack of likeability — was asked a simple question about the humanitarian crisis facing the city of Aleppo, Syria, as a result of the nation’s ongoing civil war.
“What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo,” Mike Barnicle asked Johnson on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in September.
“What is Aleppo?” Jonson asked, appearing genuinely curious.
“You’re kidding me,” Barnicle responded.
“No,” Johnson said, looking around the room.
“Aleppo is in Syria,” Barnicle explained. “It’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis.”
“OK, Got it,” Johnson said. “Got it.”
Johnson later issued a statement that he was human and would continue to make mistakes, but would surround himself with qualified advisers when he’s in the White House.
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Insulting key states
With the Iowa caucuses just a few months away, in October 2015, Trump insulted Hawkeye State voters by retweeting a post suggesting residents there were mentally ill. Trump tweeted, “@mygreenhippo #BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much#Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP.”
The slight was even too much for Trump, who blamed an intern in a statement that could probably win a short-form poetry contest.
Iowa Republican caucus-goers ultimately did reject Trump, choosing Ted Cruz instead.
Sorry for insulting coal miners who’s vote I really want
Sometimes when you try to appeal to one voting demographic, you brutally insult another. Clinton certainly did so when discussing her energy plan at a March CNN townhall.
“We’re gonna put a lot of coal miners and a lot of coal companies out of business,” she said at the time.
The remark came back to bite her when she actually visited coal country, and was confronted by an unemployed miner about what she said.
“I don’t know how to explain it other than what I said was totally out of context for what I meant because I have been talking about helping coal country for a very long time,” Clinton said during a swing in West Virginia two months after the initial remark. “It was a misstatement because what I was saying is the way things are going now, they will continue to lose jobs … It didn’t mean that we were going to do it. What I said was that is going to happen unless we take action to help and prevent it.”
Mocking the disabled
Trump swears he did no such thing, but in November 2015 he was accused of imitating New York times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis.
“Now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy,” Trump said, positioning his hands to look like a person who has the bone disease. “‘Ah, I don’t know what I said! I don’t remember!’”
Clinton has used this footage of this rally in her television ads, attacking Trump.
Choking another party’s candidates is funny because we disagree with their policy positions!
Plenty of candidates in the past have been in trouble for not shaming supporters who say uncouth things during rallies. John McCain in 2008 was criticized for laughing when a supporter asked him, “How do we beat the bitch?” Trump in 2015 was castigated for not correcting a fan who said Obama was “not even an American.”
So it is fair to bring up Clinton, who in October 2015, laughed with a supporter who said he wanted to “strangle” then-Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina? “I wouldn’t mess with you!” Clinton said.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Right? (No.)
Invoking 9/11 when attacked for ties to Wall Street
One of Bernie Sanders’ most effective attacks against Clinton was his critique that she was too cozy to Wall Street. She had to know it would come up regularly, and during a Democratic primary debate in November, she bungled her response by bringing up the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 to defend her support for bankers.
“I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked,” Clinton said. “Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy. And it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.”
Still not a good answer
Clinton had another opportunity to address the Wall Street issue when she sat down with CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February.
Instead of invoking the terrorist attacks, she took a flippant approach.
When Cooper asked if she thought it was wise to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from big banks before launching her campaign, she shrugged and responded, “Well, I don’t know. That’s what they offered.”
Looking for a save, she added, “They’re not giving me that much money now.”
Bernie Sanders Democrats were not amused.
Attacking family of a fallen American soldier
One of the most emotional moments of the Democratic National Convention came when the father and mother of a Muslim-American soldier confronted Trump from the podium about his rhetoric about Muslim Americans.
“You have sacrificed nothing and no one!” the father, Khizr Khan, said about Trump.
Trump responded by insulting the mother of the fallen soldier by insinuating that her husband didn’t allow her to speak because she was a woman. And in response to the accusation that he has not sacrificed?
 “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump said. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done, I’ve had tremendous success.”
Instead of moving on from what was clearly a losing battle with an American Gold Star family, Trump kept up the feud for several days.
“Look at my African-American over here!”
When speaking at a campaign rally in California in June about race relations, Trump paused to point out that there was a black person in the audience and decided to call him out.
“Look at my African-American over here!” Trump said. “Look at him. Are you the greatest? You know what I’m talking about?”
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