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Snarking about Hillary Is Not the Way to the White House
A number of GOP candidates are engaging in Hillary-bashing over allegations that she used her office as secretary of state to help her husband’s business dealings, prop up speech-making fees, and grease the path for foreign governments to donate massive amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation. But here’s a warning to my friends on the presidential campaign trail: Bashing Hillary is only going to make the Republican party look mean-spirited and snarky. It’s no road to the White House.
I would suggest laying off Hillary and instead showing us what you got in the way of economic-growth policies that will foster 4 to 5 percent growth and maybe another 12 million jobs. The GOP needs a positive growth message, along with a strong national-security message, because the party needs a positive rebranding and a positive vision. But Hillary-bashing will drown that out.
Snarking your way to the presidency is not likely to happen. And if you go that route, slamming Hillary at every turn, you’re going to lose female voters, minority voters, and young voters — constituencies that the GOP desperately needs to win. It might even help Hillary.
As far as the Clintons’ alleged cash-raising misdeeds — what the New York Post has dubbed “quid pro dough” — it looks like the whole rest of the world is jumping on the case. It’s being covered by no less than the New York Times and Washington Post, a bunch of liberal magazines, and of course the conservative Wall Street Journal. You’ve got Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Jo Becker working the story daily. She’s doing her own research and not relying solely on Peter Schweizer, the author of the forthcoming Clinton Cash book that set this latest Clinton scandal in motion.
I think Schweizer is a very good investigative reporter. We’ll have to see if he has connected all the dots when his book hits shelves on May 5. But when you have the liberal media and its top reporters digging deep, there’s really no need for the GOP presidential candidates to pile on.
If the charges against Hillary and Bill are true, if the evidence is there, and if laws have been broken, why not let the Clintons hang themselves? They won’t need any help.
And the country already knows that Hillary Clinton lacks good judgment. Whether it’s the secret e-mail servers, or the Colombian trade agreement, or the Russian uranium deal, polls say Americans are losing confidence in her ability. Bill and Hillary have long been branded with ethical miscues and moral lapses.
So don’t go there, GOP. Instead, walk the more certain path to the White House in 2016: Offer brass tacks and specifics on reinvigorating economic growth.
Watching the GOP presidential candidates at last week’s New Hampshire Republican Leadership Summit, there was frankly very little discussion of growth. While several candidates have tax-reform plans, both good and bad, there were no specifics in the Granite State. Ditto for rolling back regulations, replacing Obamacare, or immigration reform. I also don’t recall a discussion of free trade, even though there’s a big trade bill coming up in the House and Senate. And I heard no mention of a stable and sound dollar.
I did hear this idea of not wanting to go back to yesterday, contrasting the past with the future. As Newsmax founder Christopher Ruddy put it, it’s a clever rhetorical device, but it does not present real solutions. In fact, there are quite a few pretty good ideas from the past.
For example, Ronald Reagan slashed marginal tax rates and promoted a sound dollar. Democrat Jimmy Carter, believe it or not, started a deregulation movement that Reagan continued on his first day in office by decontrolling oil prices. John F. Kennedy cut tax rates in the 1960s and launched a huge economic boom. And if you go way back to 1776, there’s Adam Smith, the man who launched free-market economics with his book The Wealth of Nations. That was a long time ago, but that shouldn’t mean we neglect his principles.
What the Republican party needs is a clear and strong vision for getting the American economy out of the doldrums. If you want to nail Hillary, slam her issues and policies. Looks like she’s going Obama Third Term: redistribution, not growth.
Go positive, GOP. Go for positive economic- and foreign-policy solutions. That’s a winner.
Published in Economics
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In what way is this different from the Romney and McCain strategy? “My opponent is a decent guy but he’s wrong on the issues, and I can create jobs and stuff.”
How is that a winning strategy? Seems more like a “lose with dignity” strategy. There ain’t much dignity to begin with in a Presidential campaign, so I say swing hard. You don’t have to make up wild accusations against a candidate like Hillary. The truth is on our side. Use it.
Somewhere between ineffectively dogpiling Hillary and ineffectively dogpiling the Tea Party, you would think there could open up some sort of effective resistance.
Crazy talk, I know.
The kid-gloves approach certainly worked for the past two presidential elections.
MLF, I agree in general, but in this case I think that Hillary hasn’t a chance in heck anyway. The left is going to do her in. *They always were*.
Warren is the squaw to watch for a run at the Big White Teepee. Then, I agree, they need to go at her like Custer surrounded the… oh, wait.
You know, the only way the analogy could get more complete is if Custer had gone mad in the carnage and begun bayoneting his own troops.
Snarqueen.
Larry, I agree. There will be a tipping point at which all the mockery about her age, gender and pantsuits will start to anger people who probably don’t like her and really don’t want to vote for her but will start to feel like enough is enough.
You can already start to see the tiny rips in the seam that is holding her campaign together, let her own party tear her down. They will eventually eat their own. But let me add this…Boehner needs to shut up. Enough of the “Clinton’s are nice people” comments, unless he finally wants to come out of the RINO closet and move in with the Clinton’s.
Each candidate needs to focus on their positions and how they will govern this nation. An occasional jab is warranted at any of the other candidates, that’s how politics rolls but in this day of political correctness, thin-skinned voters and social media…it doesn’t take long for the tide to turn the wrong way.
I agree that it is better for Republicans to remain silent… when the liberal news media do their jobs and publicize Democrat scandals. So long as it is being said widely and loudly, better to leave liberals to it.
But Clinton has more than a few serious scandals in her recent history. There’s no reason Republicans can’t pursue both criticisms and positive proposals. They can go positive and negative simultaneously… like normal human beings.
I’m not going to vote for “growth” when it’s just going to mean the growth of more governmental and regulatory abuse of the people, more corporate welfare, more crony capitalism, and more money for the leftwing hate machine. I agree that Republicans need a positive message, and I suggest that we convey that message by waging class warfare on the ruling hegemony that is sucking up all the nation’s growth and destroying the middle class.
It’s true, the GOP cannot win if it is seen as nothing more than a band of snarky, irreverent teenagers. That said, can we really win without going negative at all? In my view, we should aim to do to Hillary in 2016 what Obama did to Romney in 2012: portray her as an out-of-touch elite who only cares about the liberal upper middle class and feels nothing but contempt for everyone else.
I agree. Don’t get in the way while your opponent is busy self-destructing. Don’t make yourself, or your snark, the issue. Hillary is giving Americans something to vote against, let’s give them something to vote for. That would be a winning combination.
The GOP candidates could talk about marginal tax rates and trade bills every hour of every day from now until election day and they will convince nobody who is not already convinced.
The media will press only so far on Clinton, when she’s the candidate, they will circle the wagons and fight like Leonidas at Thermopylae to protect her.
Why not go with a turn-out-the-base strategy? Specifically, middle and working class whites? The left has given them nothing but verbal abuse and hate for the past eight years. White men, especially, have been held up as the scapegoats for everything that is wrong with America. Not so long ago the left was accusing us of using “code words” to signal empathy for racist Americans. What the left is doing today, however, goes far beyond “signaling empathy.”
If the Democrats can send people to fetch the parents of children who entered this country illegally but were amnestied by Obama’s executive orders, I fail to see why we should shy away from pointing out the simple fact that the Democrat’s current leadership hates white people who are not upper middle class.
I don’t see the purpose or use of bringing race into it.
The left brought race into this, not us.
When I see conservatives obsess over it, it makes me think the left maybe has a legitimate point.
Who is it doing the obsessing, again? Why is it okay for wealthy, spoiled liberals to loudly proclaim their hatred of white men while enacting discriminatory policies, but not for white men to complain about it?
This is getting ridiculous. I’ve seriously considered emigrating to Europe just to be free of this petty ethnic crap. Why should I live in a society that not only hates people like me, but won’t allow us to talk about it? Frankly, if Europe’s economy hadn’t crashed I would have emigrated there five years ago. I’d rather be an outsider in a society that doesn’t play sick mind games with people’s ethnic backgrounds than an insider in one that does.
The Huffington Post has finally weighed in on the latest Clinton scandal. Even they don’t like what they’re seeing.
But as fun as it is, people need to leave off the cankles jokes.
Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is busy moving Reid’s legislation. But no snark.
Republicans should worry about Democrats wanting to dump Hillary. If Hillary remains the Democrat candidate, winning the nomination will be the hard part.
Goddess of Discord has a very good point. I imagine cankles jokes would put most women off side but I think Hillary’s health and fitness should be questioned at the right time. You can’t have a president who suffers temporary amnesia under pressure. And what was going on in that period when Hillary seemed to be cultivating a resemblance to Benjamin Franklin?
Done carefully, Hillary could be used as a wedge between Americans who are women and “Vagino-Americans” of the type that supported Bill despite the fact he is an abuser of women. Surely Hillary forfeited victim status when she hired private detectives to intimidate other women.
I think President Hillary would be the first president proven to be a perjurer before their election. Who wants that “first?”
I cringe when I see Obama on TV signing some piece of “landmark” legislation into law because I notice that he’s left handed, like me. I would not like all left-handers to be judged by that one. Surely there are women out there who would not like to be represented by Hillary.
Until the Democrats are committed, Republicans should leave it to the MSM to pursue the influence peddling scandal. As soon as a Republican candidate launches into it, the story will be about how the dastardly Republicans are exploiting it.
Chelsea delenda est.
Snark is just a form of speech that is in vogue now Its popular with the young people. I agree that there is no need to get personal (i.e. old, pant suits, cankles). There is plenty of ammo just from her actions and statements. Can she really push a war on women angle in the current age while being the most prominent rape apologist in recent history? By the standards of the UVA case, she should be cast out for not believing the rape allegations against her hubby and for shaming and attacking the victims. Her daughter is married to an evil hedge fund manager. Get money out of politics? How? By soaking it all of it for herself. Transparency? Ha! No comment even needed there. The GOP candidate should promise to be as transparent as the Obama administration and promise to use Hillary’s efficient e-mail system for all White House communications.
Bashing Hillary is merely an easy way to say something ‘conservative’ without having to actually be conservative.
I agree with those who say this is not the time to attack her, and I’m actually worried that these latest allegations are coming out too soon. Some relatively unknown Democrat could be a much more difficult opponent than Hillary.
Here at Ricochet, I tire of all the posts about Obama and Hillary. It’s like the preacher who keeps talking about the devil. We need to be pushing our own side. They aren’t fighting.
But the only thing keeping the GOP together – and I think this is part of the basic problem – is fear and antipathy toward Democrats. Sooner or later we are going to have it out, and it won’t be pretty.
The establishment Republicans have been using this tactic since Bob Dole was running in 1996.
Although I agree with the point that the candidates themselves need not attack Hillary at this point (that changes in the general election, if she’s the nominee), I see no problem with other people on the right doggedly pursuing this story, particularly those in Congress who have the subpoena power. This story is outrageous, and it should be the among the first things people think when they hear the name “Hillary.” It’s not “mean-spirited” to point out that the last time Hillary was charged with executive duties in the federal government, she and Bill used it as an opportunity to enrich themselves. Once the public or press moves onto the question of whether the facts support a bribery prosecution, it seems that the question of Hillary’s fitness for office answers itself.