My, how times have changed. While Trump only gained support nationally following his remarks that “Second Amendment people” ought to step up and help prevent Hillary Clinton’s nomination, she herself was subject of a verbal gaffe in 2008 in comments to a South Dakota newspaper that made national headlines.

While she sort of apologized, it wasn’t directly to Sen. Barack Obama — whose campaign called it an “unfortunate remark” as they padded their lead heading into primary contests that June.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?” she said at the time. “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Was Hillary suggesting violence?

Flickr/Ron Cogswell

Trump’s comments this year were all the outrage — until something more outrageous was spoken by the brash billionaire (probably in the two days that followed). Mass media hyped it as Trump “suggesting violence,” while the campaign downplayed it as the GOP hopeful rallying gun rights activists to head to the polls and prevent a liberal Supreme Court Justice nomination.

The Clinton comments came at a moment when Clinton was being pressured to either string together some primary wins, or exit the contest so that Obama could prepare for the months ahead where he’d facing the Republicans. And, much like Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016, she refused to leave. That is the omission she said was responsible for her comments over Sen. Bobby Kennedy — that major party nominations sometimes aren’t wrapped up until the bitter end, due to unforeseen circumstances.

The post-gaffe election of 2016

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

In the understatement of the year, CNN writer Chris Moody proclaimed back in September that “monumental blunders and political gaffes just don’t seem to have the same kinds of consequences this election year.” Trump has proven time and again that nobody in America is off limits when it comes to attacks, insults and low-blows — and Hillary has made her fair share of remarks that might’ve torpedoed any other candidate in any other election year.

You can blame social media, blame the state of the economy or blame our eroding attention span. Or, perhaps call it a symptomatic reaction to the over-the-top sensitivity and constant self-editing required to be politically correct on today’s college campuses — but neither candidate has the sort of polished verbal appeal as some of today’s more suave world leaders.