COMEY: THE MAN WHO SAID TOO MUCH.

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On Wednesday, FBI Director James B. Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his announcement, days before the 2016 presidential election, that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. The investigation ultimately did not turn up anything of note — and many say it cost Clinton the election. [New York Times / Adam Goldman]  On Wednesday, Comey justified his decision: “Having repeatedly told this Congress we're done and there's nothing there, there's no case there, there's no case there, to restart in a hugely significant way, potentially finding the emails that would reflect on her intent from the beginning and not speak about it would require an act of concealment in my view.” [CNN / Tom LoBianco, Manu Raju, Mary Kay Mallonee]  The bottom line: Even if his decision swayed the election, he’d do it again. “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election. But honestly, it wouldn't change the decision.” [NPR / Brian Naylor]  Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images ---- Comey’s decision definitely impacted the election; the question is how much. One example: Looking at absentee votes versus Election Day votes for both Clinton and Obama suggest that leading up the election, Clinton was performing nearly as well as Obama did. Then on Election Day, following Comey’s actions, her support plummeted, a phenomenon that could help explain why she lost Florida, for instance, where she had won the early vote with 56.3 percent. [Vox / Sean McElwee, Matt McDermott, Will Jordan]  A scene from Hillary Clinton’s final campaign rally, in Philadelphia, November 7.  Brooks Kraft / Getty As absurd as it might seem to relitigate a past election, Democrats have to grapple with the question of Comey’s influence to decide how much responsibility they bear for their own defeat. As Democrats conduct an autopsy on the election and grasp for a way forward, they need to understand how they managed to lose so badly and so surprisingly — and what role years of party stagnation might have played in creating the circumstances that led to Clinton’s defeat. [Politico Magazine / Edward-Isaac Dovere]  Hillary Clinton, for her part, says she takes responsibility ... but seems to blame Comey more than anyone. Just yesterday, she spoke at a Women for Women International event in New York and told moderator Christiane Amanpour, “If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president.” [Washington Post / Philip Rucker]  Hillary Clinton’s face projected at Javits Center in New York City, where she was supposed to shatter the glass ceiling. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) But as Vox’s Jeff Stein points out (in his review of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed 2016 Campaign), there are two theories of how Clinton lost that aren’t so simple as “James B. Comey.” The first is that her campaign failed her; the second is that she failed as a candidate. Stein writes of the latter argument, “It is in uncovering proof of this second thesis where the book is both most persuasive and most arresting — and where its lessons for the Democratic Party are the most salient.” [Vox / Jeff Stein]  A fourth theory emerged this week after leading Democratic pollsters shared new post-election findings with the Washington Post. As Greg Sargent writes, “A shockingly large percentage of these Obama-Trump voters said Democrats’ economic policies will favor the wealthy — twice the percentage that said the same about Trump.” So a broader messaging failure on the part of Democrats does seem to be at play. [Washington Post / Greg Sargent]   CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times Realistically, the answer lies somewhere in the center of these poles. A stronger candidate who did a better job selling the Democratic Party’s vision might have weathered the last-minute Comey revelation better. We’ll never know definitively. To get a big-picture understanding of the election, you can’t dismiss any of these factors — including the role Comey played. [New York Times / Amy Chozick​]