Posted on 05/12/2016 7:38:46 AM PDT by AuntB
Here’s how Hillary Clinton plans to beat Donald Trump: She will replay the very successful 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater. That is, she will scare the bejeezus out of Americans by describing Trump as a “loose cannon,” someone who cannot be trusted with America’s nuclear arsenal. At the same time, she will convince Republicans, alarmed at the prospect of a Goldwater-scale defeat, that backing her is the sensible choice. Her surrogates in the media are already spreading this narrative, which may prove as empty as Clinton’s record as secretary of state.
Goldwater was the conservative presidential candidate who went down in flames in 1964, winning only six states, because Democrats convinced voters he might drop an atom bomb on China. The clincher for opponent Lyndon Johnson was the “Daisy” television ad, showing a young girl plucking the petals off a daisy as a male voice counts down from 10 to 1. The ad closes with a gigantic nuclear explosion filling the screen. You can easily imagine a similar ad surfacing this year, with a split screen showing Trump bellowing insults or promising to take on China while a nuke demolishes the Forbidden City.
The news media, ever faithful, has picked up the hint. Face the Nation, CNN, MSNBC and others have recently featured segments and op-eds about Goldwater, noting how his candidacy devastated the GOP. They frequently forget to mention that Hillary Clinton — yes, Hillary Clinton — worked for Barry Goldwater’s campaign. Clinton was a “proud” conservative in her youth, before she became a liberal and then a “pragmatic progressive.” Even as Trump has ranged widely over the political plains, so has Clinton.
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Hillary’s claim, of course, is that unlike Trump she will be a reliable, steady hand on the wheel. She touts her foreign policy chops and experience gathered while first lady and more importantly as secretary of state. Yet, the more we know about the functioning of the Obama White House, the more it becomes clear that she had very little authority or even influence in foreign affairs.
The disturbing piece published last weekend in The New York Times Magazine about the power and influence of would-be novelist then Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, concluding that Rhodes has been “the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself,” confirms her marginal role.
In the specific events which led to the Iran deal, for instance, Clinton said in a speech to the Brookings Institute, “I sent one of my closest aides [Jake Sullivan] as part of a small team to begin talks with the Iranians in secret,” hinting that she was behind the overtures. However, as author David Samuels tells the story, the effort was actually orchestrated by Obama, working with Rhodes, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Clinton aide Jake Sullivan. Later on, of course, John Kerry became the torch bearer.
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Samuels’ conclusion dovetails with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ account in his book, Duty: Memoires of a Secretary of War: “The White House staff — including Chiefs of Staff Rahm Emanuel and then Bill Daley as well as such core political advisers as Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs — would have a role in national security decision making that I had not previously experienced…”
That may be why Gates, despite having some positive things to say about Hillary, has not endorsed her. Or maybe it was because Clinton offended Gates by admitting that she had opposed the successful surge in Iraq for purely political reasons. In either case, his neutrality is not flattering.
Voters should wonder: Why did Hillary play such a minor role? Was Obama’s hiring of his former opponent an example of “keeping your friends close and enemies closer?” Did Obama, like Bernie Sanders, question her judgement? We may never know, but those questions are fair game for Trump. As is: What did Hillary actually accomplish as secretary of state?
Critics on the right have ridiculed Clinton for having been unable on more than one occasion to cite any significant accomplishments while in office. Not only has Hillary whiffed on the question, so have State Department officials and also Democratic supporters of the former first lady. Don’t think Trump won’t pounce on the lapses.
Or make an issue of her temper and volatility, which have been widely reported. Trump is not the only one capable of lashing out.
Related: As Hillary Plays the Woman Card, More Men Are Being Dealt Out
Meanwhile, recent polling challenges the conclusion that Donald Trump’s nomination will ensure a landslide win for Hillary. The liberal media has been especially gleeful about the schism in the GOP, and has incessantly broadcast the most unflattering surveys of voter preferences. But, Quinnipiac just released a poll showing Trump in a dead heat with Clinton in crucial swing states Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio (where he is actually ahead.)
Given the incessant pounding that the press has given Trump, and the disarray in GOP ranks, this is a shocker. Indications of possible success might bring Republicans on board a Trump candidacy. If he begins to look like a possible winner, GOP elites will be scrambling to get a prime seat at the table. Everybody loves a winner; the Donald says so, often.
Simple...folks, the current Democrat party still does not see or understand that Hillary Clinton is political poison & suicide for herself & the entire Democrat Party!!! They never wii see it, either, until the evening of November 8, 2016 when Clinton will be politically destroyed by Donald J. Trump, and, a good portion of the failed Democrat Establishment Party will go down politically with her!!! End of story!!!
>>> I don’t think Hillary’s smart enough to do that.
Oh, I think Hillary is smart enough to know that. But she just doesn’t care.
She’s counting on the mass media and her Dem machine to cover for her completely. And it might still work. Her ambition (life long obsession) is just too great, it is all about her and now is her time (Obama stole it from her 2008).
I am so sick of the non-GOPe candidate X as Goldwater meme. Goldwater, Bob Water, Tom Water, whoever Water was losing that election in 1964. Who the hell was going to beat the ghost of a martyred President!?! Who was going to beat that ghost and one of the dirtiest bastards in American political history?
If anything, it is Trump as Johnson in this one. This guy is going to go for the jugular each and every time it is exposed.
Bernie would have been an easier kill though.
Apparently standing by state rights helped do him in.
The point probably is the fear mongering against Goldwater was completely baseless. He was a small c isolationist leaning person. If anything he probably would have told the world to take a flying you know what, and just leave us alone. And now lets get down to fiscal policy.
That IS the Goldwater story. He was hated, much as was Reagan later, by the East Coast Establishment. I am sure that did a lot to keep voters at home.
Yes Johnson was a despicable POS, as a person and as a leader. He did give a shite about what the people thought. And he left a mess for Nixon to clean up.
Trump will flip that around one here and question of who can be trusted with nukes will hurt Hillary, not help her. Count on it.
He won Texas, so Texans were obviously hoodwinked into thinking he was one of them.
The campaign will not succeed.
LBJ would not have lost to George Washington in 1964.
A hugely popular Kennedy had just been assassinated and LBJ hadn’t been in office long enough to become unpopular. The Vietnam war was barely starting to escalate and the country was still caught up in Kennedy’s glamor.
Today, you have an aging ruling class felon trying to succeed a failed and unpopular president of her own party.
The facts on the ground are completely different between 1964 and today.
With current technology we'd hit their nice little rock plus or minus a few yards at worst.
“The facts on the ground are completely different between 1964 and today.”
The problem is very few people care or bother to learn the ‘facts’.
I don’t think it will work for the reason that the electorate of today is not like it was then, IMHO.
Liz Peek is another Wall Street establishment type. She is a nobody whose opinions are worth the same as the rest of the msm flunkys and are predictably negative on Trump.
“I don’t think it will work for the reason that the electorate of today is not like it was then, IMHO.”
Today they are a lot more ignorant and bought off with social welfare goodies.
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