Update. Sorry about the incorrect attribution to Josh Marshall. Having said that nothing gets on TPM without his approval. The point still stands. Hillary should be beating this guys pants off. Let me be clear SHE IS A GREAT CANDIDATE!!! She is going to win!!! She could ride a wave if she would just make her message crisp.
If you haven’t read Josh Marshall’s analysis on why Hillary hasn’t pulled way ahead it’s definitely worth it. It is a great open letter to her and her inner circle. It really captures, in a non-finger pointing way, what she can do to put more daylight between her and Donald. She has amazing structural advantages in the race, despite being the candidate from the party that has been in power for the last eight years. She just needs a bogeyman (Oh, she has those) and she needs to speak clearly and concisely (were talking two sentences/five words each max) as to how she will defeat “it” Her advisers need to be more
Political campaigns are thematic. They are not about detailed proposals. That’s what governing is partly about, although politics is crucial to governing, too. The most successful campaigns can be summed up in slogans and simple demands. I think of Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988 (who had to face the third term problem), Bill Clinton in 1992, George W. Bush in 2000, and Barack Obama in 2008. These campaigns had easily remembered slogans -- yes we can, compassionate conservatism, putting people first, kinder, gentler nation, making America great again (Reagan and Trump) and they had simple programmatic proposals – end welfare as we know it, an across the board 33 percent tax cut, read my lips; no new taxes, withdraw from Iraq, and not a dime from special interests.
He compares and contrasts Elizabeth Warren’s response to the Wells Fargo account scam:
Warren told Stumpf, “You should resign. You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Then he shows how Hillary’s campaign responded:
Clinton’s response was an open letter to Wells Fargo customers. “I was deeply disturbed when, last week, we found out that Wells Fargo had engaged in widespread illegal practices over many years… Today, Wells Fargo’s CEO will appear before Congress. He owes all of you a clear explanation as to how this happened under his watch. There is simply no place for this kind of outrageous behavior in America.” Clinton then went on to present a raft a proposals for reforming the banking system:
Hillary is going to be a great President, and yes I strongly believe she is going to win, but she should be up double digits. She should be bringing the Senate with her by now. I disagree with Josh when he says the press is not unfair to her. That’s just not borne out by the facts, They treat her miserably.
It’s not all her fault, but she needs to put the rhetorical foot on the pedal a little more in the coming week, and she has to frame Trump and his policies as dangerous and stupid, and do it without resorting to a position paper. It needs to be short and sweet and to the point. The debate would be a nice place to reset.
