by Gaius Publius
Down With Tyranny
March 14th, 2016
I'm just presenting this, and genuinely for your information. I'd be shocked if the Clinton team weren't preparing to take on Donald Trump should Clinton win the nomination. New York Times writers Amy Chozik and Patrick Healy (we've discussed some of his work here) have sussed out details on that plan — or have had been the recipients of a campaign-orchestrated "leak" describing it:
This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen advisers, strategists and close allies of the Clintons, including several who have spoken directly with Mr. Clinton. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss strategy publicly.
In addition, Ben Smith at Buzzfeed has gathered a characterization of their anti-Trump plans by Clinton insider Paul Begala, and added a characterization of his own that's a little more, shall we say, graphic. Here's the information Chozik and Healy have received. Note that the piece was written just prior to Super Tuesday; my emphasis throughout.
Inside the Clinton Team’s Plan to Defeat Donald Trump
In the days after Donald J. Trump vanquished his Republican rivals in South Carolina and Nevada, prominent Democrats supporting Hillary Clinton arranged a series of meetings and conference calls to tackle a question many never thought they would ask: How do we defeat Mr. Trump in a general election?
Several Democrats argued that Mrs. Clinton, should she be her party’s nominee, would easily beat Mr. Trump. They were confident that his incendiary remarks about immigrants, women and Muslims would make him unacceptable to many Americans. They had faith that the growing electoral power of black, Hispanic and female voters would deliver a Clinton landslide if he were the Republican nominee.
But others, including former President Bill Clinton, dismissed those conclusions as denial. They said that Mr. Trump clearly had a keen sense of the electorate’s mood and that only a concerted campaign portraying him as dangerous and bigoted would win what both Clintons believe will be a close November election.
If that's their assessment, that a Trump–Clinton contest in November will be close, they are likely correct, and a great many people, including myself, agree. There seem to be two parts of the plan, according to the Times. The first part involves the who and the messaging:
That strategy is beginning to take shape, with groups that support Mrs. Clinton preparing to script and test ads that would portray Mr. Trump as a misogynist and an enemy to the working class whose brash temper would put the nation and the world in grave danger. The plan is for those themes to be amplified later by two prominent surrogates: To fight Mr. Trump’s ability to sway the news cycle, Mr. Clinton would not hold back on the stump, and President Obama has told allies he would gleefully portray Mr. Trump as incapable of handling the duties of the Oval Office.
The second part involves the style of the campaign:
An All-Out Assault
While Mrs. Clinton radiates positive energy on the trail, Democratic groups are beginning to coalesce around a strategy to deliver sustained and brutal attacks on Mr. Trump.
The plan has three major thrusts: Portray Mr. Trump as a heartless businessman who has worked against the interests of the working-class voters he now appeals to; broadcast the degrading comments he has made against women in order to sway suburban women, who have been reluctant to support Mrs. Clinton; and highlight his brash, explosive temper to show he is unsuited to be commander in chief.
American Bridge, a pro-Clinton “super PAC,” has formed a “due diligence unit” of tax and business experts who are poring over Securities and Exchange Commission documents and court records related to Mr. Trump’s business career. A staff member for an affiliated group, Correct the Record, which coordinates with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, has collected footage of comments that have not hurt Mr. Trump’s standing among Republican primary voters, but that could be stitched together in what the group’s founder, David Brock, described as a montage of hateful speech that would appall a general electorate.
All very reasonable sounding; very professional. Here's another look at what "an all-out assault" might mean.
"The Only Strategy For Hillary Clinton Is To Scorch The Earth"
Here's another characterization of that "all-out assault" and what it might look like. It comes from Ben Smith at Buzzfeed, who gets his information from, among others, Paul Begala, a Clinton insider (again, my emphasis):
The Only Strategy For Hillary Clinton Is To Scorch The Earth
If Hillary Clinton manages to beat Bernie Sanders, the early primaries have already revealed that there’s only one strategy for the general election against a Republican, be it Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, or Ted Cruz: Scorch the earth.
There was a scenario, which looks more like a fantasy, in which Clinton was a movement. Women in their twenties, thirties, and forties would rally to her the way black Americans rallied to Obama; she would run on her own mantle of change.
In reality, nobody is that excited about Hillary Clinton, and young voters, women and men — the foot soldiers of any Democratic Party movement — aren’t coming around. She lost a resounding 82% of voters under 30 in Nevada. Her campaign now rests on the hope that voters of color like her well enough, if nowhere near as much as they like Obama. And that means that when she faces a Republican, she will have to destroy him — something the people who will be doing the destroying acknowledged when I asked them earlier this month. “The [expected campaign] slogan is ‘Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid,’” said Paul Begala, who is an adviser to the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA….
Note that this was also written just prior to Super Tuesday, and that Clinton's wish for "voters of color" to support her in large numbers came true in the South. That level of support is proving less true in places like Michigan, however, where Sanders has made inroads into many non-white communities.
"Scorch the earth"? Really?
My main takeaway, though, is also Smith's main point. He notes that in a campaign where "nobody is that excited" about the candidate, and yet where the opposition is truly horrible, the only way to win is to ... scorch the earth.
If that's the case, that Clinton is the nominee and the campaign is a firestorm of mutual destruction, can you imagine what it will be like to live in this country and watch that?
Ben Smith says "don’t expect 2016 to be a fond political memory." Quite the understatement. Again, offered for your information.
(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you'd like to help out, go here. If you'd like to "phone-bank for Bernie," go here. You can volunteer in other ways by going here. And thanks!) GP
posted by Gaius Publius @ 10:00 AM
# # #
Over at Naked Capitalism, Lambert has published a very interesting, extensive analysis of Gaius Publius’ post. It’s definitely worth a read (in the meantime, here’s a small excerpt)…
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Naked Capitalism Posted on March 21, 2016
…What Victory Looks Like to the Democratic Establishment
Here is my “theory of the case” for the Democrats and the Clinton campaign. It’s totally without evidence since, luckily for us all, I have no access whatever. I do think, however, that it’s not inconsistent with Democratic (and Clintonian) behavior or motives (insofar as we understand them). I’m putting this out here since this theory informs my writing here and elsewhere, and so I’m at grave risk of confirmation bias. So I hope that you, readers, will correct me!
(1) The Democrats (and the Clintons) don’t want to give Sanders a thing. They don’t want him personally to be part of the campaign, and they are willing to write off his supporters, in classic Democrat “they have no place to go” fashion. I would bet they’d love to prevent Sanders from being nominated from the floor (and Clinton allowed herself to be in 2008), and I don’t think they’ll want him near the platform or on the trail (unless they can lure him into a small plane. Kidding!) This is partly because the Democratic Establishment and the Sanders campaign really do not have the same goals (Clinton lied about that); neoliberalism and socialism are antithetical, even a milk-and-water democratic socialism that amounts to bringing American public policy up to first world standards on health care, higher education, and wages. More importantly, the Sanders small donor-driven funding model disrupts the Democratic Establishment’s Citizens United-style funding model: It’s clearly no longer necessary to suck up to major corporations and squillionaires if you have the right message. In other words, the Sanders model could put the Clinton’s (and the Democratic Establishment) out of the influence-peddling business. This must terrify them, which is why they never mention it. As a corollary:
(2) The Democrats (and the Clintons) would rather appeal to “moderate Republicans” than Sanders voters. This is sensible realpolitik if the number of moderate Republicans who would vote for Clinton is larger than the number of Sanders supporters who would sit this one out or vote Green. Of course, the “moderate Republicans” isn’t one of those nasty working class types; why, many of them are just as credentialled as we are! (Note that the neocons are already making noises that they’ll vote for Clinton — from Trotsky to Bush to Clinton; what a journey! — and one sees and hears anecdotal evidence from ordinary Republicans of the same. (I don’t know how this would work out at the precinct level, because I can’t see any from my armchair, but I bet the Democrats would capture a lot more suburbs with this strategy, and also open up a new vein of campaign contributions.
(3) Victory for the Democrat Establishment means the left is screwed (again) and the Republicans are split (for the first time since 1964), which, when you think about it, is a DLC-style wet dream. (I don’t know if this would translate into a 1964-style landslide or not. Somehow, I doubt it. First, a campaign as vicious as this one will be would tend to depress turnout; Goldwater, after all, never had a real counter to LBJ’s daisy ad or anything else. Second, and related, I don’t see how a candidate with Clinton’s trustworthiness numbers earns a landslide, even against a crazypants opponent. (You peruse the menu at the “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” café. In Column A you have a bowl of steaming crap. In Column B you have a steaming bowl that you can’t trust not to be crap. You have no voice to change the menu. Do you exit, or do you hold your nose and make a choice? Will the restaurant be crowded?)
War on Three Fronts
The three fronts I see in the papers are Merrick Garland, the Clinton Campaign proper, and Anti-Trump front organizations. (Note that none of the sources I’m about to quote categorize matters this way; I don’t have any access, so all I can do is go with what I see.)…
# # #
Yet, some reading this still wonder why Bernie Sanders’ message(s) has resonated so widely throughout the country this year?
# # #
(Gaius Publius has provided written authorization to the diarist to reproduce their posts in their entirety for the benefit of the Daily Kos community.)
# # #