To: Robby Mook
From: Interested Parties
Re: March Matters
Date: February 11, 2016
In response to your February 9 memo following Hillary ’s loss in the New Hampshire primary, the following points are offered for consideration:
Hillary is losing voters she needs to win the White House.
The spin: Iowa and New Hampshire are not representative of the coalition Clinton will mobilize to win the nomination and prevail in November.
The reality: Sanders won every income group in New Hampshire except for families making over $200,000 a year. This spin also deflects attention from consideration of Iowa and New Hampshire as must-wins for Clinton in the general election. Her under-performance in the Iowa caucus and the blow out in New Hampshire primary now put that outcome in doubt. Clinton must find a new way to answer the fears and frustrations of young and middle class voters beyond a simplistic message that she will "fight for them." These voters want a president who will fight against the special interests they see as driving income inequality, squeezing the middle class, and threatening their long-term economic security. Right now, Clinton seems only to be fighting against her political enemies on the right.
Hillary is not viewed as honest and trustworthy.
The spin: Course corrections focused on additional staff, improved tactics and targeted messaging (such as to African American women whose children are victims of gun violence) are all that's needed for Clinton to recover from her setbacks in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The reality: Sanders won 91 percent of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters for whom honesty and trustworthiness were the major consideration in their selection for president. Clinton must squarely address questions about her character posed by the FBI email investigation as well as about speaking fees and Super-Pac contributions she and her campaign have received from Wall Street and the health care industry. Her supporters and campaign can cry sexism and Clinton rules and double standards all they want, but Clinton must explain with more candor her decisions to use a private email server while serving as the county's top diplomat and to enrich herself by accepting speaking fees from banks and industry groups many voters feel are insufficiently regulated by the federal government. Her apologies and explanations so far have been insincere or convoluted or both. Voters need a way to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt, to understand and accept why she did what she did, rather than be accused of treating her unfairly for raising legitimate questions about her judgment. This is especially true given coming allegations by Republicans and the media about “quid-quo-pro” transactions between the State Department under her leadership and the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which both Clintons will need to answer from a place of strength, not a defensive crouch.
Hillary’s attacks on Sanders backfired.
The spin: Attacking Sanders will prove a winning strategy in the long run – the more voters know about his record, the more likely they will be switch their support to Clinton.
The reality: Dismissing Sanders as an unrealistic dreamer, foreign policy neophyte and just plain hypocrite only resurfaces memories of Clinton’s craven, borderline racist attacks against Obama in 2008. This is cutting into her support from Blacks and Hispanics, alienating younger voters, and contributing to perceptions that she is just another politician who will say and do anything to get elected. When a majority of voters have a problem with your character, saying your opponent is as bad or worse than you are is not a winning strategy. The results of 2008 are proof of that. Clinton must have the humility to acknowledge that she can’t just re-run her previous campaign. She must show voters that she learned something from her loss eight years ago.
Hillary’s “pivot to the middle” in a general election will be compromised unless character issues are put to rest.
Despite similar negative perceptions of his character, Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 because a so-called silent majority of white, middle-class centrist voters wanted a firm hand to regain control of a country they saw as spinning out of control due to the Vietnam quagmire, the threat of nuclear war, the JFK, MLK, and RFK assassinations, race riots, the sexual revolution, the women’s liberation movement and other cultural and social changes.
In the general election, Clinton will likely try to capitalize on voter fears and tensions around immigration, racial discord, gay rights, terrorism and income inequality with a similar get-tough, no-nonsense, centrist message that maximizes her resume -- the need for strong, tested, and experienced leadership to restore opportunity at home and order abroad.
Yet many voters will rightly refuse to re-learn the Nixon lesson from Clinton: experience, toughness and a gold-plated resume matter far less in the White House than honesty, trustworthiness and a bold, authentic vision for peace and economic security.
