Sunday, November 8, 2015

Cheap shot: He'll take the low road

Dust Bowl, Dallas, North Dakota, 1936. Image via Wikipedia.
Because that's what Republicans do best, according to Matthew Continetti for the National Review, and that's how they'll win a campaign against Hillary Clinton, should she be the Democratic nominee, taking the low road, by persuading the public that they don't like her:
The Obama campaign spent a fortune in the spring and summer of 2012 defining Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch businessman who didn’t care about workers. To beat Hillary Clinton, Republicans will spend a similar amount defining her as untrustworthy, unlikable, and aloof from the day-to-day life of people without a family foundation.
Because folks really need the Republican party to tell them whether they like her or not, I guess. "Dear Mr. Priebus, I've been wondering: How do I feel about Hillary Clinton? Could you run some commercials letting me know? P.S., I am without a family foundation."

And then Plan B is to pray for more crime:
Likely Obama will release additional nonviolent offenders before he leaves office. If but one of these former inmates commits a violent crime, Hillary Clinton will own it. And any Republican who ignores the issue will deserve to lose.
Because as Continetti says, "A race to the bottom is a race we can win." It's just playing to the GOP skill set.


(I think that "family foundation" trope is a loser, by the way. Say what you will about the Clintons, and much of the awful part may well be true, but the fact is that Bill and Hillary followed up a life of public service and relative poverty culminating in his presidency by very quickly and entirely openly making a ton of money, as best-selling writers, in some variant of what's otherwise known as the American Dream; and then turned immediately to leveraging and spending their fortune through that foundation to continue trying to make the world a happier and healthier place. If you want to compare that to the Bushes and Romneys who were born with tons of money and spend whatever time they have not running for or being in office making more of it, or, if they're exhausted with that, painting portraits of their toes, go ahead. And where "the Clinton Foundation is among the most forthcoming of major charities and nonprofit foundations—especially those headed by public figures", the George W. Bush Foundation is funded mostly in secret and devoted to building an Ozymandias-style monument to that most inept and catastrophic of US presidents in a vast propaganda palace. Don't even ask about the Romney family foundation.)

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