Depends on what you want illuminated. She wants to talk about her plans. She doesn’t want to talk about her ethics. She doesn’t want to talk about her flip-flops either. As the article I cited says, she wants to control her message. But as a Presidential candidate, she doesn’t actually have the right do so and have the media go along with it. There are things the media would like to discuss with her and the more she avoids discussing what they want to discuss, the more they’ll discuss how she doesn’t want to answer tough questions.
That’s one problem Trump doesn’t have. Trump is toasting her on honesty, which just should not be happening:
What you describe pretty much applies to every politician ever. Everyone wants to talk about their plans, and no one wants to talk about their negatives. Everyone wants to control their message. This is Halperin-esque nothing-speak/brainless punditry.
She’s avoiding press conferences because she calculates that she can afford to. And I call bullshit that press conferences actually press her more on “ethics” and “flip-flops” than interviews do – she’s gotten plenty of such questions in her many interviews. You’re just mixing the media’s talking points with Priebus’s.
That’s one poll – there was another one that had them both at 31 for honesty. It’s certainly a negative for Hillary, but I see no reason to believe that it’s not baked in. A huge portion of Hillary supporters (including this one) don’t believe she’s particularly honest – such “revelations” move this support not one iota.
It’s true that this is what the average politician does. Trump is not average, and it’s one of the few areas where he’s gained an advantage on Clinton and is pulling away. If this election is about honesty and changing Washington, Trump will win in a landslide. If he wasn’t such a pig…
John McCain was also different. McCain was always happy to talk to the media. His team did control access a little more after the convention(more to protect Palin than McCain himself), but he had earned his reputation for openness.
Clinton has taken press avoidance to a new level though. 270 days without a press conference and none likely to be done until she takes office(and probably not even for a long time then)? That does not happen.
The media doesn’t have talking points, and is far more credible than Robby Mook.
She needs more than just her current supporters to win. She’s at 42.5%. The race is still close enough that it could be decided by third party voters and pure undecideds breaking. Both candidates need to convince people. Running out the clock, assuming she sticks to that strategy could well be the #1 reason cited for her loss in the post-election threads. The name “Dukakis” has even come up in press analysis since she’s going to stop responding to attacks(gee, that always works well) Say what you will about Trump, but he’s trying to persuade people to vote for him, and he has a large pool of Johnson supporters, angry Bernie supprters currently for Stein, and pure undecideds to woo.
“Changing Washington”, perhaps (nuclear apocalypse would also “change Washington”), but “honesty”? I don’t think so.
I’m sure the media is pissed off. And people that already don’t like her will cite this as a reason. I just don’t think it matter to most.
Bullshit on both counts (not that Mook is particularly credible), though the media’s talking points might not be so formal. Josh Marshall is far more credible than Mook. Mark Halperin is not. CNN, MSNBC, and Politico are (mostly) not. Fox News and Drudge are certainly not.
Sorry, but I’ll stick with Nate Silver’s analysis – his track record is excellent, and yours is horrible. Hillary is ahead by a lot right now. Not enough to make me feel comfortable (nor enough to make her campaign feel comfortable – hence the enormous fundraising haul from last month), but she’s significantly ahead of where Obama was at this time in '08 or '12.
See, this is the kind of hypocritical BS I was talking about. Trump is the one who bans reporters from his rallies if he doesn’t like what they write, goes on jeremiads about how terrible they are, both collectively and individually, darkly threatens to change the libel laws so he can use his high-priced lawyers to silence them. So, for you to raise him up as the great counterexample to Hillary, the tough guy who can take the heat? Pfffffffffffffffffft. :rolleyes:
She is preparing for the debates. Trump is going to get creamed. That will more than make up for any tightening now. There is a solid strategy in letting Trump be Trump while she raises money, without a lot of downside.
But someone else can say “it could well be the #1 reason cited for Trump’s loss in the post-election threads.”
I can easily imagine, in the wake of a Trump loss, people saying, “man, he just kept holding press conferences where he’d say whatever damn fool thing came into his head, and – what, by September he was at 35% favorable and 63% unfavorable as they kept getting a better look at him? Hillary Clinton was at 41% favorable and 56% unfavorable, and that’s bad – but she realized she just needed to not get any worse. So she was smart, and played it safe; he loudly drew attention to his inadequacies, and she didn’t interrupt her opponent while he was making mistakes.”
Sure, it’s nice to see Trump make a fool of himself but I also think Hillary is being just a little too cautious. I’d like to see her start taking more questions from the press if not hold a formal press conference. This fake email scandal drags her a bit and she needs to counterpunch a little. I still think the debates are going to be where she can inflict mortal damage to Trump and I don’t think he can get away with channeling Don Rickles like he thinks he can.
This is hilarious. I think we discussed one of their performances in the past. In case you haven’t seen them before, or don’t recall, here’s a link to one of their performances.
Obama led John McCain almost the entire way from June to the day of the election.
As it happens, today is the anniversary of the second day of the 2008 RNC, and McCain got a bump from that, but it was temporary. There was never any point in the campaign when Nate Silver, Sam Wang or other serious analysts did not think Obama had a clear lead.
This is hilarious. I think we discussed one of their performances in the past. In case you haven’t seen them before, or don’t recall, here’s a link to one of their performances.
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Trump should pay for the therapy these kids will require as well as the nausea their routine causes.
What are the signs you see of that actually happening? Are they in the polls, which for some reason you aren’t proclaiming to be skewed this time? Or is it what it appears to be once again, just whistling past the graveyard?
The complaints about that are all from the Washington press corps, the bunch of Heathers who think of themselves as the permanent power elite while Presidents come and go. Bill Clinton understood that and went around them, very effectively, and Hillary understandably seems to have the same view.
Not really, there’s nothing more to come out, and nothing much *has *come out.
As satisfying as that would be, there is no magic incantation she can recite that will make the bullshit stop. All she can do is avoid legitimizing any of it, and that’s what she’s been doing.
She just has to stay disciplined and on message, ruefully chuckling and shaking her head at him while proceeding to whatever detailed policy position is the subject of the question. That’s true even if Trump plays his Serious, Thoughtful (but Superficial) character instead of his Blustering Buffoon character.
He loves the poorly educated! OTOH he does have the best words.
Strongly agree with all of this, except that I’d say if he plays the STbS character, she should directly challenge him for details of his plans, and needle him by insinuating if not outright stating that he basically doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, sort of like Sarah Palin.
