# Is it well past time for Hilary to attack? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 25, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-well-past-time-for-hilary-to-attack/766855 "2016-09-25T18:37:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Victor\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7ea924/32.png) [@Victor\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Victor_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-well-past-time-for-hilary-to-attack/766855/21 "2016-09-26T03:11:22Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Wait - Hillary hasn’t been attacking Trump? WTF? > > 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? You’ll notice in my original post that I acknowledged the spots she’s running using Trump’s own words against him. I haven’t seen any advertising with any of the messaging you mention. Are there any or are you just talking about talking points from her surrogates and stump speeches? They’re certainly powerful messages, but they need a lot more reach than the press coverage of her speeches. Like I mentioned above, maybe there’s heavy media in swing states with messages more pointed than the national spots featuring only Trump quotes. It’s stunning to me how many people just aren’t aware of the scope of his business failures and fraudulent behavior. Not the paint with too wide a brush, but Trump voters, and apparently a lot of undecideds, don’t read a lot and Fox News isn’t spending too much time digging into his qualifications. I hope she’s ramping up a more aggressive media plan, I just haven’t seen it much where I live. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-well-past-time-for-hilary-to-attack/766855/22 "2016-09-26T12:57:33Z")
> [@Victor\_Charlie](#): > > "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.) On what he’s achieved: [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-sacrifice/OS82LzE2OlNhY3JpZmljZQ](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-sacrifice/OS82LzE2OlNhY3JpZmljZQ) On outsourcing: [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-hat/OC8yNy8xNjpIYXQ](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-hat/OC8yNy8xNjpIYXQ) and [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-shirts/OC8yNC8xNjpTaGlydHM](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-shirts/OC8yNC8xNjpTaGlydHM) On racism: [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-everything/OC8yNi8xNjpFdmVyeXRoaW5n](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-everything/OC8yNi8xNjpFdmVyeXRoaW5n) > [@](#): > > She can hit him on his honesty - Where to begin? [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-low-opinion/OS8xMy8xNjpMb3cgT3Bpbmlvbg](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-low-opinion/OS8xMy8xNjpMb3cgT3Bpbmlvbg) and [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-absolutely/OC8xOC8xNjpBYnNvbHV0ZWx5](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-absolutely/OC8xOC8xNjpBYnNvbHV0ZWx5) > [@](#): > > 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. On foreign policy: [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-unfit/OC81LzE2OlVuZml0](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-unfit/OC81LzE2OlVuZml0) Sort of on-point in using Republicans against Trump: [https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-agree/OS8xMC8xNjpBZ3JlZQ](https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-agree/OS8xMC8xNjpBZ3JlZQ) I think what you’re observing isn’t the problem of Clinton not attacking Trump on various issues. I think what you’re keying in on is that we are totally media-saturated: while an attack ad 25 years ago may only play once on TV, but it was so inflammatory that the nightly news plays it again for weeks, creating huge resonance in people’s minds (either about the person who’d put such an ad together, or the candidate who is the subject). Now, political ads come out on the drop of a dime. Every few days there’s a new ad that is on TV in some places but not others, and there’s probably a dozen kinds of web ads for every one on TV. Barely any of this gets the free media (the press attention about a paid campaign ad) that it did a generation ago. Even getting your attention to an ad is more difficult, because nobody watches live TV anymore, and who wants to go to a candidate’s website to watch ads for someone who are already inclined to support? Now, I’m not saying advertising is pointless, I’m saying that it is totally understandable that penetration of these messages is not what it was even in the last couple elections. But the idea that the Clinton campaign isn’t constantly on the attack against Trump, on literally every one of the points that you raised, isn’t accurate. It’s more like a “you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make him drink” problem – they can make all the ads that $1.5 billion can afford, but you can’t force people to pay attention. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-well-past-time-for-hilary-to-attack/766855/23 "2016-09-27T00:37:34Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > 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 don’t think it’s that, I think it’s that Trump’s campaign has been so full of missteps that the public is basically inoculated to it by this point. People have just accepted that that’s the way he is and it’s given him a buffer from criticism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-well-past-time-for-hilary-to-attack/766855.md?page=1)