Because the best bet to change things is to kowtow to White Fragility…
FFS, I’m not suggesting that we normalize Trump’s bigotry in America, but that’s not up to me and that’s not up to you.
What I’m saying is that Hillary would be wiser to spend time explaining to voters what she intends to do. I’m sorry if this hasn’t sunk in yet, but Hillary Clinton is not in a position to say that Donald Trump is a bad person. As I said, let her surrogates do that – they can probably do that as much as they want. But Hillary Clinton herself is quite unpopular. She is not in a position to play holy warrior – I’m sorry you don’t want to accept that but thems the facts. All Hillary has to do is to just contrast herself as the gal with a brain and that makes some sense. The more time she spends on culture war issues, the more that works to her (and our) disadvantage.
But suit yourself – let her keep the culture war going and see what happens. You won’t like the results.
Not what I said at all.
Look, I get that you think that Hillary Clinton has the moral high ground. But guess what, most people in this country don’t post on SDMB. Do you want to be ‘right’ or do you want to win the election?
Strangely, this is the part of your post that we disagree on. I don’t think Hillary is on shaky ground with this. I find a lot of the “hold your nose and vote for her” people are kind of delusional about exactly how she’s seen by a majority of this country, to be honest. Maybe not a huge majority, but certainly more of one than the people who are only reluctantly supporting her think is there.
But maybe my desire to be informed by fact rather than a quarter-century of innuendo and relentless political character assassination by a morally bankrupt political party is the wrong tack on this…
Pointing out Trump’s positions is what is going to sink him. My elderly (78,80) 24/7 Fox News watching parents absolutely refuse to vote for Trump because he is clearly NOT a Christian, and they don’t like the nastiness coming out of his mouth. There’s no way in hell they’re voting for Hillary, so they’re both staying home this year, for the first time in their lives I believe.
You aren’t winning those people over to Hillary. The best you can do is show them who Trump really is and let them decide if he is someone they can vote for.
I can do both. I can make a fact-based case for Hillary Clinton and we can help her win the election.
ETA: And do a fact-based campaign about Trump too, of course.
Nonsense. Trump isn’t “giving it back”. He accused Clinton of being a racist first. Which proves he’s an idiot for raising an issue that was certain to blow up in his face.
Even if you believe Trump and Clinton are equally evil, there’s no question that Clinton is at least competently evil. If Clinton is Dr. Doom then Trump is Dr. Drakken.
You don’t necessarily even have to call him a racist, but I don’t have a problem with doing it, because he is.
You could just run a montage of him making negative comments about women, minorities, the handicapped, and ask if this is the person they want representing America. Unfortunately, we’ve already seen that at least 1/3 of White Americans will say “YES!” 
Wait…he’s got Shego on his side? I’m switching my support!
We haven’t had clear racist candidates for president for a while, since George Wallace, at least. If you were running against David Duke, would you think that showing how he is a racist would be out of bounds? Clinton did not just name call - she gave specific cites of racist and alt right people with similar positions to Trump, and as I said her ads just run Trump clips.
I think most voters who are the target audience for this exchange will be able to figure out whose charge is stronger.
You’re an informed voter and you’re intellectual. Average voters, the ones who might well decide this election, may or may not be like you.
I don’t for a moment believe they are equally evil. I’m not a Bernie Bro. I have been a Hillary voter through and through. I also have actual experience working on political campaigns and know how voters – real ones, not the ones who get giddy when someone from Gallup calls them up on a random day, actually vote.
And as I said, it’s not like Hillary can’t talk about Donald’s race problem. What I’m saying is, she might do well to let other people talk about it more. I’m right about this and nobody here’s going to convince me otherwise because I actually have worked on campaigns and know how real voters think. I don’t read some wonky-assed blog for my “facts”
But by all fucking means, keep playing the race card and see how popular the already wildly unpopular Hillary Clinton becomes in places like Ohio and Northern Florida.
You’re not getting it.
I’m not saying it’s out of bounds. I’m saying it’s not a particularly wise strategy for a candidate who herself has a lot of fucking negatives – or do you really need her to demonstrate that yet again!!! I think that’s what you’re forgetting here. Hillary Clinton has a lot of baggage. Like more than United Airlines on Christmas Eve.
It’s pretty simple. Donald Trump is a majorly flawed candidate. Hillary Clinton is also a flawed candidate, but at least she seems to be getting the reputation that she is the slightly smarter and slightly more capable candidate. She doesn’t need to get involved in these wedge issues like race – Trump can be a racist prick and the media and her surrogates will point that out.
Tell me, when Donald Trump’s poll numbers tumbled in late July and early August, was it because of anything that Hillary Clinton said? No!!! It was because Donald Trump was his usually a-hole self and attacked a Gold Star family – and the media and surrogates took care of the rest.
Do you get my point, or not?!
Yes, let the media and Hillary’s surrogates point out Donald’s negatives. Hillary herself? Bad idea. Hillary needs to be the anti-Trump: boring, plodding, smart, knowledgeable, intellectual, calm, reasonable.
Saying “OMG! Trump’s a RACIST!” is not going to get a lot of mileage. Sorry but I am 100 percent right on this and you are not.
That’s right - the way to win elections in America today is to be exclusively a policy wonk. :rolleyes: That is stupid. Clinton has plenty of positions out there, and no one with any brains doubts her qualifications, but if she gave speeches only about policy, how many nanoseconds of air time do you think she’d get?
While Clinton is unpopular, she is more popular than Trump, and clearly the way to win is to keep it that way. The email server is a legitimate thing. The Clinton Foundation is how government and Washington works, and is total bullshit. But neither come close to discriminating against black renters in the 1970s, discriminating in his casinos later than that, plus all the crap he’s said during the campaign. That she did a bad thing and he did a bad thing does not mean they are morally equivalent. And that is something pointing out again and again, especially if Herr Goebbels keeps his job.
The poll numbers since the conventions seem to indicate that Clinton’s strategy of keeping the focus on Trump is working.
Sure the poll numbers show that Trump has tanked, but today’s Reuters poll puts Trump back within 5 percentage points, which is something I pointed out and got ridiculed for a few days ago when I said that the race was tightening (look who’s right now, mothafuckkkas). The race is tightening whether you want to admit it or not, and the race is not being decided by people like you. It’s being decided by white, know-nothing mother fuckers in the suburbs. I know you don’t want to believe that your country’s democracy is being determined by people who watch TMZ and WWE, but guess what, bro…it totally fucking is.
If it is a flawed strategy for Hillary, would it also be flawed for a candidate running against David Duke? I didn’t think you thought it out of bounds (what the hell are the bounds this year anyhow?)
The news cycle moves fast. Trumps screw-ups after the convention hurt him then. It is the job of the Democrats to keep the news cycle focused on them and new things, and not let it start getting focused on email servers. Trump is helping, of course, but you can’t depend on that.
This is also setting a nice precedent for next January. The strategy keeps the heat off “moderate” Republicans at the national level. She can give her positions without attacking standard Republican ones, since who know what Trump’s positions are anyway. This might help with Congress. But it also shows that the far right group who will never cooperate might be clutching their balls when they mix with her. That’s what I want to see to stop the blockage.
Unless you are not voting in this election or getting involved, yes, it is up to us.
Your concern is noted, but as I mentioned it is a concern that demands an opponent to be silent when many of her supporters are being insulted and threatened. Not the right thing to do in this case.
And then how is she not trying to become the leader of the USA?
Becoming a follower is not the way.
Again you seem to ignore the polls. Sure she has unpopular levels, but it is really silly though to ignore the reasons why Trump is more unpopular.
Among them are his cosiness with bigotry and racism and the acceptance of his supporters being more so.
The facts is that I have pointed many times in the past to what the polls do say about how trump is much worse and that he is losing thanks to that unholiness.
As mentioned before, I like what we are seeing. Even if you want to deny what is going on.
She was only up by 3 in the four way Reuters poll from last Thursday, cite and up by 7 in a two way race, so I don’t see how you are getting the lead cut in half. I think I’ll wait to see more before I panic. Trump also has not had any real disasters for a few days - the immigration mess is too subtle to swing lots of voters, and he will have to settle on a policy before we know if his base is truly going to have a problem.
And by the way, if I thought everyone was as smart as the average Doper, I’d go with the policy speech method. They aren’t. Unfortunately, we need more emotional techniques. Why cede that strategy to Trump?
Now this is some news! Reminded me that I don’t recall reading anything about minnow munchers specifically, just in the context of Latinos. Those numbers are brutal!
Anyway, does he still have the Amish and the Baptists? We can probably just go ahead and write off the Unitarians. Haven’t actually seen any polls on them, but willing to take a wild gamble…