A better candidate

by | May 2, 2016 | Editor's Blog, National Politics, Presidential race | 25 comments

Here’s my bet. Hillary Clinton turns out to be a far better general election candidate than most people think. She’s struggled in the primary this year as she did in 2008. Fighting Republicans, though, is a whole different matter. Nobody has more experience.

The Clintons just aren’t very good at fending off attacks from their left. In 2008, Bill Clinton, who was once called our “first Black president” by Toni Morrison, was derided for making racially inappropriate comments when African-American leaders started to abandon his wife in South Carolina. This year, Hillary Clinton has failed to connect with the millennials who are driving Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

This fall will be different. African-Americans have rallied to her cause. While younger voters will still be important, Clinton can connect with middle-income, middle-aged white voters, particularly women, who make up swing voters. Barack Obama’s campaigns depended on a strong outpouring of the base. Clinton will win with a decisive victory of the middle.

Sanders supporters think that she will be the subject of withering attacks from Republicans. So what’s new? She’s been enduring and weathering those attacks for almost 25 years now. If anything, she’s better equipped to respond than any Democratic candidate in our lifetimes.

Besides, GOP attacks will fall flat. For one to work, it needs to be relevant to the voters, grounded in truth, and delivered by a credible messenger. Even if the GOP can find subjects that meet the first two criteria, they won’t find one that meets the third. Republicans have overplayed their hand in attacking Hillary to the point that they’re no longer believable.

Since Bill Clinton took office in 1993, Hillary has been an obsession of the right. They’ve accused her of everything from treason to murder. Any new charge that pops up in the last six months of the presidential campaign will be met with eye rolls from most voters. Clinton is the most vetted presidential candidate we’ve ever had. None of the charges against her have stuck and anything new that comes out will be met with skepticism, even if it’s true.

Clinton faces problems with trust but some of that will go away once she’s the nominee. I suspect her high disapproval rating is driven as much by resentment of the left as from the middle. Her unfavorable ratings started climbing after Sanders got into the race. Once he’s out, they’ll start coming back down as she solidifies the Democrats behind her.

Over the next six months, Clinton will become a formidable candidate. She’s more comfortable appealing to the middle than to the base. She’s not inspirational like Obama or ideological like Sanders. Her brand of politics appeals to a middle that is narrower today than it was when her husband ran, but is still a substantial part of the electorate. What she loses with the base, she’ll make up with moderates. And compared to Donald Trump, she will re-emerge in the general election as the stateswoman in the race.

25 Comments

  1. A. D. Reed

    One of the problems I perceive is that so-called left-wing, progressive Sanders supporters parrot the same accusations against Hillary that the right wing has been making for years, invariably without any evidence, any proof, anything beyond innuendo to back them up. And as some posters note, none of those attacks has ever been successful, not even her most vitriolic enemies in Congress and Rove-land has produced evidence of wrongdoing, there has never been a smoking gun or even a gun or a shell casing for any of their diatribes. And she knows, none better, how to beat them at their game. They all seem to be certain that “she’s gonna be indicted any day” for emailgate, or Benghazigate, or being-Hillary-gate. Well, it ain’t gonna happen.

    Yet I see it here, too, where Bernheads insist that Clinton will spend all her time fending off accusations from Trump, and seem to imagine that saintly Bernie would be a nominee who wouldn’t be attacked because he’s so pure. First, as if that mattered to the right-wing attack machine; second, if he’s so pure and invulnerable to attack, why won’t he release his tax returns?

    • Melinda Baran

      Why won’t she release her Wall Street speeches?

      • Kellis

        Because she would then be exposed for the money grubbing liar she is. She is not concerned for the middle class in this country; she was at one time, but to go from being one of the poorest first couples to being worth over 50 million dollars in 15 years takes a person a long way from where they were. She and Bill have it now, and she is going to make sure they have more. Bernie has pushed Hillary to the left, but I doubt very seriously that she will stay there very long if she is elected. Then she will start selling us out. I have waited since RFK was killed for a leader who could ignite this country and lead us away from the neo-con hawks, a leader who had vision and could make plans that the people could imagine and would back, a leader with the spirit of FDR; we can have that leader now, and we may never get another chance to choose a leader. Hillary and Donald aren’t that far apart on a number of issues, and they are both a far distance from Bernie. When you get in that voting booth, no one will ever have to know who you voted for.

        • Melinda Baran

          Good reply to why she won’t release her Wall Street transcript speeches, Kellis. And, I agree with you.

  2. Lee Mortimer

    Let’s just say that the biggest strength Hillary has going for her is Donald Trump as the opponent.

  3. Edison Carter

    “Campaigners” and “selling ideas” for votes don’t win elections: It’s the voters that go out, and show up to vote that make for a “win”.

    Let’s see if she has the political steam (if she is the Democratic Party Nominee) in the GE to beat the frightening and fascist alternative, Trump. She has some large obstacles to overcome such as to win the Sanders voting block with their concerns and political ideas, as well as the Independents that so far, have supported Sanders throughout the entire primary season. Heck, they overwhelmingly voted for Sanders 70 to 30 just yesterday in the conservative state of Indiana primary over her rival.

    Now that should be a serious wake up call for Clinton and the DNC to either sit up, listen to and heed, or face the alternative.

    These are politically interesting times, in this country. We are at a major crossroad.

    • Melinda Baran

      I agree that we are in “interesting times.” And, I expect many many Republican and Democrat voters still remaining to cast their state primary election ballots will look at the names Clinton and Trump–and decide to switch to Sanders between now and the end of spring.

  4. Cosmic Janitor

    There are going to be some very disappointed Hillary supporters after the election and rightfully so; regardless of how she is repackaged, her actions as SOS are historic fact and can neither be refuted nor glossed over, and these actions bear her out as a loyal neo-con war hawk and a war-criminal. She had a hand in State Department initiated coups in both Haiti and Honduras that lead to the popularly elected leaders of those countries being deposed – in violation of international law; then she led the charge on false premises to destroy the country of Libya for the US. Transnational corporations to plunder. Then there were the advanced military weapons sale – that bypassed US. State Department protocol, to countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar with questionable reputations in foreign affairs, where these same countries had also happened to make sizable contributions to the Clinton Foundation. She recently campaigned in NY stating she would escalate the Syrian crisis with no fly zones and boots on the ground, in a conflict in which the US. has no legal standing. She has also publicly made hostile remarks concerning Russia and Iran – as a matter of fact she sounds just like Dick Cheney. Is this someone the Democrats’ want in office or have they been misled by the US. corporate news media and the DNC. ?

    • Cosmic Janitor

      Another pertinent Hillary negative: into her State Department she brought two of the most vile republican neo-con war hawks – Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland, whom she appointed to Assistant Department Head positions. Then came the US. NGO color revolution and coup in Ukraine. Every country the republican neo-cons have targeted for regime change has been left in utter ruins and in a state of perpetual war. Is this the type of leadership democrats believe will help right our country’s slide into capitalist fascism? Does anyone think that putting the establishment’s (Wall Street) chosen candidate in the Oval Office is going to put an end to the banker tyranny destroying the economy and very fabric of our country?

  5. Apply Liberally

    Considering that there was no “stand down” order (except in the minds of Hillary haters and the websites they follow), that there was no Benghazi “scandal” (as seven House investigations, chaired by Republicans, have concluded), and that HRC made mincemeat of her inquisitors during 5 hours of grilling on Benghazi, several of the comments made on this thread are absurd and pure drivel.

  6. Jerry Williamson

    Thomas, I pray to High Heaven that you’re right!

  7. HunterC

    What does this straw man argument about Clintonian history have to do with anything?

    A better discussion would be to analyze who as a Presidential ticket (P and VP) would best help Democrats down ballot.

    There has been ample polling showing how both Clinton and Sanders stack up against a variety of Republicans. Do a post on that.

    Even better, tell NC Democrats what they should be doing as it relates to the national ticket. There is clearly nobody at home in the party handling that key business.

    Anybody receive any info on the June 7 statewide judicial race that will decide the NC Supreme Court?

    Didn’t think so. And absentee ballots have been available for weeks.

    • Christopher Lizak

      Spend you time working with Deborah Ross and the Democrats running for US House.

      Clinton is a lost cause.

      All Trump has to do is peel off 10% of the African-American vote and he wins. His pitch is to bring back the jobs that globalization sent to other countries, and put an end to domestic labor having to compete with imported slave labor. You know – “It’s the economy, stupid”. Hillary’s pitch is same old, same old – to continue crushing minorities with the war on drugs and the privatized school-to-prison pipeline that her husband set up.

      Not hard to see how this turns out.

      • TbeT

        Really? Huh.
        You going with Trump vs. an overwhelming number of political analysts going with a HRC/Dem win.
        I think I’ll save your post/prediction, and re-read it after election day.
        Then I will either compliment your stunning insight, or laugh at your stunning conceit.

  8. Frank Spaulding-Bey

    She lacks the energy and strenght that Trump will bring as he is going to wear her out in the general election campaign process and become America’s next president.

  9. Elzabeth O'Nan

    I disagree. I want a candidate that can spend more time and energy defending my rights as a citizen and less time fending off accusations. I want a candidate that doesn’t get more money from speeches than from individuals.
    Bernie Sanders is still the only candidate by and for the people.

    • Matt Phillippi

      I hate to break this to you, but in the modern political climate any Democratic President is going to spend a large portion of their time fending off baseless attacks from the right. President Obama who was decisively elected twice spent the first year of his campaign fending off attacks from idiots who didn’t even think he was American. I forget who led that charge, though for some reason I can’t remember that walking combover’s name. Even now there are people claiming he’s a Kenyan Muslim socialist. I’d rather have a President who’s proven they can fend off these attacks than one who acutally is a socialist. And while I’m on the point, one who actually knows how they’d pay for all the programs they’ve proposed.

    • Melinda Baran

      Amen, Elizabeth O’Nan!!. Bernie is the only honest, credible, and trust-worthy candidate for President.

      • A. D. Reed

        If Bernie is so honest, credible, and trust-worthy, why won’t he release his tax returns?

        • Melinda Baran

          He did release his 2014 return and his wife says she’s busying working on 2015. All that was in last month’s news. His taxable income was $204,000–primarily from his Senate salary and their social security checks.

  10. Dean Vick

    If you believe the Republicans and the right Hillary is a liar and should be in jail. These allegations fall flat when put up against the truth. PolitiFact has rated Hillary has telling the truth more than any other candidate, while Trump tells more lies or half truths than anyone. No one who has run for President has the qualifications more than Hillary. If you are hiring a person for the position, she is the ideal candidate. The country has a very bright future with Hillary Clinton as its leader.

    • MikeW

      I have a story to tell as a US Army Veteran. First of all, it is an understood code of honor that no one ever leaves a soldier behind, under no condition. But this happened. Whether or not Hillary sent the stand down cable, I don’t know; she is most certainly possesses the political clout to cover it up and the fact no one will accept that responsibility tells me it’s pretty high up on the totem pole that sent that stand-down cable.

      But what really gets my goat about Hillary is why I fought in the US Army. You see, the US Army taught me a valuable lesson in their acronym “LDRSHIP” which stands for “Loyality, Duty, Respect, Selfless-Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage”. We also learned to accept responsibility for our subordinates. Our military is setup to where if a high-level officer has soldiers that run amok, he accepts that responsibility and generally takes the brunt of the fallout.

      In the Benghazi scandal, I didn’t see Hillary point fingers at herself, I saw her commit the most epic atrocity in the history of the United States of America, she pointed fingers using Political Correctness squarely at the First Amendment suggesting that no one should post negative videos of the religion of Islam.

      No veteran or active duty military can accept this political atrocity as a Commander in Chief.

      • Old Trooper.

        As a veteran I never got to “accept” my commander-in-chief. He simply WAS the commander-in-chief. As a sworn soldier I accepted that. As far as Benghazi 8 separate Republican- led inquiries have concluded Hillary did NOTHING wrong. What part of that do you not understand? More importantly while the administration requested additional security at our embassies congress refused. What have you been smoking?

      • csoup

        “the most epic atrocity in the history of the United States of America” ?
        A bit of hyperbole there?

        How about The Trail of Tears
        The WW2 interment of tens of thousands of US citizens of Japanese descent
        Slavery!!

        This is exactly the point of the column.
        “Republicans have overplayed their hand in attacking Hillary to the point that they’re no longer believable.”

    • Clara Lawrence

      The fact is we need decent people to run this country. I admired Hillary before when she ran against Obama. Now she is running with charges attached. Why is it, most people would have never been considered to run for the election but she is in the race. We have morally deflated the standards for this Nation. The things I once believed does not apply now. Our political system is corrupt.We no longer decide who we want in office, the electoral vote does.

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