A
New York Times story that
marveled at Hillary 2.0 Thursday also offered this
revealing insight into the Republican operative bubble.
“Secretary Clinton has always run the campaign that she has politically calculated is the most advantageous for her at the time,” said Tim Miller, a spokesman for Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and a likely Republican candidate. “She’s making a tactical choice that her best chance at winning is to protect her left flank from a challenge and run a divisive general election campaign.”
This entire quote is so off-the-mark, it's hilarious. First of all, who could imagine a candidate running a campaign that's most conducive to getting elected? Naturally, doing anything less would be nothing short of stupid. Perhaps it doesn't make any sense to Miller because Republicans have spent the past couple national election cycles alienating the very voters they need to get elected: single women, minorities, working-class Americans. So taking broadly popular positions might be anathema to GOP operatives at this point.
Which leads us to the accusation that by catering to her "left flank," Hillary Clinton is somehow running a "divisive" campaign. I mean, that's just an exercise in wishful thinking. In fact, there's never been a better time to be a Democrat because progressive positions have much more popular support than conservative positions do. Tick down the list: marriage equality (as much as 59 percent support nationally); a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (majority support in every state); support for Obama's executive actions on immigration (nearly 60 percent support nationwide); focusing on reducing income inequality (83 percent of Americans think it's problematic, only 31 percent think the nation's wealth distribution is fair).
Please tell me which of these positions is "divisive," even—and especially—in a general election.
From the same NYT article:
New opinion polls this week suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s approach was working, especially among Democrats. Americans now view her more favorably than they did earlier this year, despite weeks of critical reports about her use of personal email and about donations to the Clinton Foundation, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. Four out of five Democrats say she is honest and trustworthy, and that she shares the values most Americans try to live by.
Proving once again that Republicans aren't reading the same polls everyone else is. They have special polling, specifically designed to reinforce all their truly questionable ideas. They like it that way ... and so do we.