Clinton camp’s wounds self-inflicted
Key battleground states take a turn toward Trump
Heading into Labor Day and the official start of the political season, Clinton advisers were brazenly crowing about multiple paths to a landslide victory for the Democrat in November. What a mistake that was. The premature spiking of the football broke one of the cardinal rules of politics: “underpromise and over-deliver.”
After two of the rockiest weeks in an already tumultuous campaign, Clinton finds herself in a dead heat nationally with Donald Trump, according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll. A Rasmussen survey even had the GOP candidate pulling ahead, and her campaign flacks are now openly using the term “under-dog” to describe her candidacy.
The outlook is even bleaker for Clinton in battleground states that hold the key to the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House. According to a CNN poll, she’s falling behind Trump in Florida, Ohio and Nevada — all purple states twice carried by President Obama — whose combined 53 electoral votes make up nearly 20 percent of the magic number.
While their specifics may differ, Clinton’s major slip-ups share two common themes: They are problems of her own making, and they are rooted in her deep aversion to transparency.
Her problems with the truth have haunted her throughout her quarter century in the national spotlight. It has fueled the perception that the Clintons play by their own set of rules, and driven her “not trustworthy” numbers to eye-popping levels.
Consider the recent flareup over Clinton’s health. The entire episode was exacerbated because of her team’s refusal to be forthright with the press. There are few things reporters hate more than being kept in the dark, and that’s precisely what happened in the hours after her collapse was recorded on an amateur video.
Very few people would begrudge an early exit from an event due to pneumonia. It was the scant details and shifting story that drove the media nuts.
Speaking of reporters, Clinton was already facing a barrage of questions about her reluctance to hold a press conference. In contrast to her free-wheeling opponent, 289 days have passed since Clinton met the press in a no-holds-barred setting.
Of course, the greatest example of Clinton’s secrecy is her private email server, the story line she just can’t shake. More than a year and a half after the story first broke, Clinton has yet to come up with an excuse that passes the smell test
Standing on stage beside Clinton last fall, socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders famously declared, “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” Yet a Reuters poll last week showed that nearly half of Americans don’t share that sentiment, and remain “very concerned” about the server.
There’s another old saying in politics: “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” Clinton’s problems are keeping her on near-constant defense and preventing her from prosecuting the case against her opponent.
Beyond the race for the White House, Clinton is now becoming an albatross for Senate Democrats. Republican candidates in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire have all seen an uptick in their competitive races as Clinton’s woes have piled up.
There are still seven long weeks to go in this campaign, and anything can happen. The first debate a week from tonight could upend the entire political atmosphere. But with Clinton’s problems lingering and her inability to put away her opponent, wary Democrats are no longer boasting about landslides. Instead, they’re relying on hope. As America learned the hard way from the Obama years, hope is not a strategy.