The polls have already confounded the prognosticators who were predicting a Hillary Clinton win in November by showing Donald Trump even or ahead in the head to head matchup. In order to understand this a few political rules of the road must be invoked and examined.
First, after 8 years of occupying the White House the party in power always changes hands; especially true in the modern era of mass communication where the person in power has dominated your computer screen, phone, tablet and T.V. for almost a decade. The country is weary of a retread in the form of another president from the same party. It has only happened once in the past 64 years and that was in 1988. Even then following iconic Ronald Reagan the country was ready to swap parties in the executive mansion when Mike Dukakis opened against George HW Bush with a 17 point lead. This makes Hillary Clinton’s embrace of Barack Obama’s administration in the primaries very risky.
The other premise is based on strategy. Now that Trump will focus his verbal attacks squarely on Mrs. Clinton she will not hesitate to return fire equally if not stronger. She’ll do this because no one is hungrier and less principled in politics than the Clintons. Recall convicted murderer Billy Ray Rector. In order to burnish his pro death penalty stance, Bill Clinton temporarily left the campaign trail in 1992, returning to Arkansas to sign the execution papers of a death row inmate. Rector used a gun to give himself a frontal lobotomy and suffered severe brain damage as a result. Bill didn’t flinch when he signed on the dotted line.
Team Clinton’s acute political acumen and memory will also guide her hand. They will reference Dukakis in ’88, Al Gore in ’00 and John Kerry in 2004 as examples of hauteur’s of moral rectitude, who refused to return fire on seemingly outrageous accusations and instead of winning their races, went down in defeat.
In addition Hillary suffers from what I call ”the brother in the White House” syndrome, meaning Barack Obama knew he didn’t look like other presidents whose pictures hang ceremoniously on the White House walls and because of that recognition, overcompensated by minimizing issues important to the African American and urban communities.
Hillary, recognizing her disparity and cautious political practices will overcompensate by appearing ‘strong’ not ‘weak’, which is why the perception of being a hawk in foreign policy is very important to her.
Alas, the strategy of matching fire with fire is doomed to failure for Secretary Clinton. An old axiom from politics 101 states that lower voter turnout favors the Republican. This is why Democrats are always promoting voter rights and Republicans look for ways to place limits on voting qualifications. In the last 50 years, discounting re-election campaigns there were 6 contested elections for the White House. The lowest 3 in voter turnout were in order, 1988, 2000 and 1980. Those 3 are often cited as the most acrimonious. All 3 were won by the Republican. The other 3, 1976, 1992 and 2008 were won by Democrats. If Trump and Clinton slide this election through the mud in the form of appearances, debates and advertising as all indications point this way, in fact both potential/presumptive nominees suffer from extremely high disapproval ratings already, it will drive down voter turnout to record numbers. This solidly favors Trump.
Does this mean we should shop for the golden “T” to fix above the White House portico? No.
The narrative of the election, as presented through the prism of the mainstream press, accounts for at least 85% of the outcome. Not many voters are persuaded by door knockers, robocalls, billboards or the cacophony of television ads that will be descending on swing states starting in mid-September.
Hillary has to build a strong narrative based on her persona and the message of the campaign and stick with it throughout. The worst is a peripatetic message that tries to pander to a disparate electorate. She must be strong in her convictions of whom she is and where she wants to take the country. Any deviation from this message will be the death knell of her campaign. There can no longer be a headline like the one from SEPT. 7, 2015 in The New York Times stating ‘ Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say’ (by AMY CHOZICK ) . Just ask John Kerry, Al Gore, Mitt Romney and the 2008.1 Hillary Clinton how it worked out for them.
In 2004 it was pointed out in the press that during John Kerry’s campaign he did not bring up religion and the next day Kerry was quoting scripture in his speech.
Look no further for an exemplar than her primary opponent this year, a septuagenarian democratic socialist, he almost beat her because he had a strong message and he stuck with it. Same with an African American by the name of Barack Hussein Obama who was 2 years out of the Illinois state senate.
Hillary should also marginalize her husband’s presence in the campaign, a great political asset in any other circumstance but Americans want to vote for their future not 20 years in the past. Sec. Clinton must explain where America will be in 2017 not where it was in 1997 as if she were a nostalgia piece produced by Tom Hanks for CNN.
Lastly to help precipitate Hillary’s strategy she has to scale down the amount of people in the room. Her advisers are too many and too incongruous. The consulting team has to be lean and nimble. Bernie mostly had Tad Devine, Mark Longabaugh, Jane Sanders and Jeff Weaver in the room. Barack had David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama. Strip down all the consultants from 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2008 and get advice from a smaller coterie of advisers.
If Donald Trump is elected president, Democrats and independents will long for the days of George W. and Dick Cheney. If Hillary Clinton wants to be the last defense between Donald J. Trump and the nuclear codes she has to campaign smarter.