I don’t live in a swing state, so maybe she’s doing it through advertising elsewhere. The spots I see are powerful, focusing on using his own words against him. But, too many people are willing to accept he’s an asshole. She needs to start hitting him directly on his supposed strengths:
"Donald Trump wants you to believe he’s a brilliant businessman. But here’s the reality - He’s bankrupted or driven to failure (X number) of companies. What success he’s had was dependent on his father bailing him out over and over. He’s been sued 1,300 times for not paying his bills… screwing over countless small business owner who have families to feed. Not a single product he sells is made in America. He operated a fraudulent “university” that scammed thousands more Americans. He’s been fined for racial discrimination… (you could actually make a dozen different commercials on this topic alone.)
She can hit him on his honesty - Where to begin?
Foreign policy: His abject ignorance about everything going on in the world, siding with his man-crush Putin against our allies, multiple CIA directors (including Republican) who say he’s the biggest threat to our security since the Cold War.
This can all be done without taking the low road, without exaggerating in the slightest bit his history, comments and ignorance.
Any fact she might relate is already entirely available to anyone who bothered to look it up. Her best tactic is a simple statement of fact that points out that Trump is lying, but not actually saying “You’re lying”. Trump is so thin-skinned, he will responds as though insulted anyway.
His mouth is her best friend. Don’t get in the way. If he runs over his time (very likely) don’t try to shut him up. Offer him five minutes of your time. Be generous. If he doesn’t have enough rope, give him some of yours.
It puts her in his shadow. She needs to be in the spotlight, not him.
This. She needs to look “Presidential” next to him, not like a fellow mud wrestler.
I’ve said elsewhere that in the debates I don’t think she should even address Trump directly. She should only interact directly with the moderator and let Trump sputter, blather, and spew as much as he wants to. Then she can say, “Mr. Mod, in response to Mr. Trump, let me say…”
For whatever reason, Trump seems almost impervious to attacks and attack ads, and the only reason I can surmise is that so many people are just blindly having an election year hissy fit, howling at the moon mad at the system, that they just don’t seem to have the same effect that they might have in years’ past.
I agree with Quartz that a better strategy needs to be simply making Clinton look better, and I don’t know if ads alone can really do the trick. She’s running a very conventional campaign in an extremely unconventional election year. People are used to seeing the made-for-TV Hillary Clinton, and they frankly don’t like it. Hopefully she can change perceptions in her debate tomorrow and beyond.
Sure, voters can find that on their own, but very few are - at least the undecideds. I don’t think many realize the depth of his business failures or general ignorance. Trump’s success is predicated on attacking others, accurately or not. I don’t see how the same wouldn’t work for Hilary, especially if her attacks are more honest. She SHOULD put him in the spotlight by tying him to his failures. George W. Bush won by attacking both Gore and Kerry on their strengths. It’s the Karl Rove playbook.
Her ads can certainly draw attention to his failures, but I think if she spends too much time personally attacking him, talking about him, and not talking about HER own vision, she looks like the second banana.
Trump has had the spotlight for a year and has turned it into the most insane nomination in political history. The only time he drops in the polls is when he’s in the spotlight for some self-made debacle. Hilary needs encourage that. When Trump manages to lie low for awhile voters take it to mean he’s grown-up and presidential. If Hilary attacks it makes it more likely Trump will lash out and remind everyone he has the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old. If being in the spotlight causes a drop in poll numbers, Hilary needs to put him there, for all the wrong reasons. We can’t count on Hilary being able to run out the clock anymore.
The ad with kids watching Trump speeches? The new ad with girls looking at themselves while Trump makes sexist statements? Trump University? All the men and women ripped off by his business practices? Every book he writes ends at chapter 11? Deplorables? A man with a long history of racism and conspiracy theories should not be allowed to run our military?
That’s just off the top of my head.
Seriously, are we living on different planets if you really think Hillary hasn’t been attacking Trump in every way?
I feel like I’m not understanding part of the question. Like the new ad: its Trump saying a bunch of sexist things while teenage girls look in mirrors and stuff. It’s showing what an awful person he is by saying those things, and putting it in the context of how sexism harms children who aren’t even the targets of the remark.
I find it an incredibly compelling attack on his character. Are you saying it doesn’t count as an attack?
The notion that Trump is immune from attack is just Democratic bed-wetting. They’ll be saying that all the way to victory in November without realizing that Trump is losing because the attacks are working.
One interesting idea I’ve seen, but not sure if I agree, is that the American public is no longer receptive to the Ye Olde Tyme politician’s cadence in big speeches. Trump speaks like he’s having a conversation with you. Obama is a master at this, even his canned speeches sound off the cuff and improvised. Bush sounded pretty stupid sometimes, but it gave him this effect too compared to the robotic Gore and Kerry. Hillary may as well be saying we’re going to be twirling towards freedom.
Neither candidate is immune from attack, it’s just that at this point all attacks do is create more Gary Johnson voters. I’m not sure getting voters more fed up than they are now gains either candidate many additional voters. Actually, it seems like NOT being in the news causes people inclined to support one or the other candidates to drift back to them.
