Kellyanne Conway Admits That Trump’s Domestic Policy Agenda Is Circa 1980s and Early-to-Mid-2000s.
That Is, the Very Opposite of a “Change Agenda.” Clinton Should Quote Her On That.
“His last tweet last night was how excited he was, how proud of him he was. They talked last night. I talked to Mr. Trump during the debate several times,” [Kellyanne] Conway said of Trump’s response to Pence’s debate performance. “I think the one thing to remember is that, as Ronald Reagan always said, personnel is policy. And Donald Trump has promised as president to surround himself with the best people. You saw last night who the best people are.”
— Clinton’s camp insists Kaine walloped Pence on substance, Louis Nelson, Politico, today
So, isn’t it time that Clinton apprise the public of what this particular personnel choice indicates about what would be Trump’s … policy?
When I read yesterday morning (I can’t remember where) that the Clinton campaign had told the reporter that Kaine would be focusing on the Clinton campaign’s slogan “Stronger Together,” I said to myself: Here we go again. God.
I, of course, had hoped, and until I read that article actually thought, that Kaine would, like, focus on the differences between the two campaign’s, y’know, fiscal and regulatory policy proposals. But, silly me, it was after all the Clinton campaign whose debate plans we were talking about. So of course the plan was to focus on the “Stronger Together” theme of Trump’s xenophobic, racist, misogynist, anti-“fat”, nuttiness. Since these are things that have received so little attention that the public surely had forgotten them and needed reminding.
Eh. I feel like a broken record on this. The Clinton campaign is really, really, really clueless.
And I’m by no means the only one who desperately wants Clinton to just dump her campaign consultants and strategists. Or, if the problem is Clinton herself, then … I don’t know …allow herself to be hypnotized and indoctrinated by Jeff Weaver.
Last night while feeling not The Bern but just plain burned—really saddened—and skimming the internet for something that would make me feel a little bit better, I came upon something that did. Sort of. Slate’s Ben Mathis-Lilley’s instant-debate-analysis post was titled “We Are Begging the Hillary Clinton Campaign: Stop It With These Terrible, Terrible One-Liners.” He wrote:*
Early in the Sept. 26 presidential debate, Hillary Clinton rolled out what seemed to be a rehearsed line about Donald Trump’s economic plan, calling it “Trumped-up trickle down economics.” She delivered the phrase with the pleased demeanor of someone who believes they are laying down a devastating burn, then repeated it later. Fact-check: It wasn’t a devastating burn. It was a zero out of 10 on the burn scale.
Tuesday night at the vice presidential debate, Tim Kaine also tried some zingers, and they were also bad. You can see them above. The first:
“Mike Pence: But there’s a reason why people question the trustworthiness of Hillary Clinton and that’s because they’re paying attention. The reality is when she was secretary of state, senator, she had the Clinton Foundation accepting contributions from foreign governments—
“Tim Kaine: You are Donald Trump’s apprentice!”
Woooooooooooof. The second:
“Kaine: On the economy, there’s a fundamental choice for the American electorate. Do you want a you’re hired president in Hillary Clinton or a you’re fired president in Donald Trump? I don’t think that’s such a hard choice.”
Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine need to Pokémon Go Fire Whoever Thinks It’s a Good Idea to Use Time Preparing for Debates by Coming Up With These Lines, Which Are Terrible.
Why didn’t he just respond to the substantive allegation regarding the Foundation—as he did, quite well, I thought, later in the debate, but with insufficient precision given the time limitation?
And why the HELL didn’t he tell the public what Trump’s actual fiscal/economic plan is, to the extent that time allowed? Sorta like, why the HELL didn’t he make clear that Trump’s WILDLY LARGE INCREASE IN MILITARY EXPENDITURES, COUPLED WITH YUUUGE DECREASES IN TAX REVENUE, is not exactly a formula for jobs growth. And why did he not tell the public at the outset, and with specifics, that TRUMP’S TAX PLAN WILL INCREASE TAXES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS TO PAY FOR THAT MILITARY BUILDUP, while dramatically cutting the income taxes and other taxes of the wealthy?
And why didn’t he tell the public that killing financial-industry reform—the increased oversight and regulation—wouldn’t be, y’know, an economic boon?
His entire debate preparation apparently involved the xenophobia, racism, misogyny, fat-ism, and sheer meanness of Trump.
But Pence had memorized a few imbecilic lines, too—most, um, memorably, that the Clinton campaign is a campaign based on insults. Of Trump, and of some of his supporters. A tack that, I’ll guess, most viewers at first were puzzled by and then after Pence repeated for the 16th time, finally got, and found strikingly laughable. This, I assume—and hope—will become a focus of a Clinton ad. Along with that “You keep dragging out that Mexican’s” line—or whatever the precise words were.
But, what a missed opportunity last night was to educate the public about Trump’s actual fiscal and regulatory proposals, which Clinton—and Sanders, and Warren, please—need to say, again and again, Pence hardily approves of because it’s the Republican mantra, and has been for 35 years.
Which Kaine failed to say, even in response to Pence’s “Trump’s the change candidate.” Really? That’s change? In the direction the public has in mind when it urges change?
Yes, Kellyanne Conway thinks the one thing to remember is that, as Ronald Reagan always said, personnel is policy. And that Donald Trump has promised as president to surround himself with the best people. You that you saw last night who the best people are. An extremely rightwing, standard-issue Conservative Movement, very Republican Establishment, 12-year former member of that absolutely awesome Congress.
Circa 2001-2012.
The public might like to know this, Hillary Clinton. Tell them.
____
*Excerpt format-corrected, 10/5 at 3:28 p.m.
I missed the news that Beverly Mann was elected twice to the Presidency, twice to the US Senate from New York. Since the Clinton’s actually have, I kind of think they might know what they are doing.
Seriously, take a deep breath. Hillary is four points up, she hired all the best Obama campaign folks, she has raised enough money to win the election.
Clueless, really. Tim Kaine’s job was to emphasize the message to minorities and women. He did this very well. He had his talking points and he covered them all.
I get that you don’t like Hillary but let up on all the carping. Why don’t you write about Hillary’s estate tax plan, maybe some AB readers might be interested in that.
Yup. Clinton is running an excellent campaign–for a now-passed political era, the era in which the Clintons knew what they were doing.
Clinton’s up by four points! Against Donald Trump! Definitely a sign that she and her husband know what they’re doing–since, after all, they knew what they were doing as recently as 2006.
Seems there is some news you missed. Actual news.
As many have observed, VP debates don’t seem to mean much when people are actually voting. Many of us who are political junkies didn’t watch much of it. Pence pretending he wasn’t asked questions or that the basis for the question (Trump quotes) was untrue was enough to convince me that the event wasn’t serious. Pretty hard to believe that people haven’t made up their minds by now. The ones that haven’t probably don’t respond to appeals to critical thinking anyway.
She was down by about eight points in Ohio just before last week’s debate. Late last week, she was still down by about five points. In a poll released today taken from Saturday to yesterday, she leads by two. That’s a yuge swing in such a short time.
Three of the four days of that poll were taken after the news broke about Trump’s 1995 tax return. On Monday Clinton gave a very well-received speech to a packed hall in Toledo–1,100 came to see it–entirely on economic issues and, of course, on the new report about Trump’s tax return.
I think she has a good chance to win Ohio, even though Trump appeared to have sown it up until the last week.
And millennials wavering between Johnson or Stein, and Clinton, or are deciding whether to vote at all, really would care about the Trump fiscal and regulatory agenda if they actually knew the specifics. They don’t, or didn’t until all the sudden discussion about his tax plan in the wake of the story about his tax return. They’re just now finding out.
But they really, truly, genuinely know about Trump’s comments about this one and that one, and this group and that group. Last night could have nailed down Ohio for Clinton. Instead it just reinforced what everyone already knew.
Bev:
Before you quote polls, look at Huffington Post Election Polls.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-ohio-president-trump-vs-clinton
She was never down by 8 points or even 5 points in Ohio or PA for that matter.
Yup. I had Ohio confused with Iowa. She was never down by eight in Ohio; she was in Iowa. But, yes, she was down by five in Iowa.
3% in Iowa. http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-iowa-president-trump-vs-clinton
I definitely saw a poll showing Trump ahead in Iowa by eight. And the Clinton campaign gave Iowa up as lost a few weeks ago. I don’t think that’s changed.
Clinton is running the crooked DNC campaign.
Only change is fewer news conferences and pants suits.
More drone strikes and nation build Russia, is a bit of a change.
More cutting edge campaigning by team Clinton , hiring a child actor to pose question to her at a town hall. Which the internet took an entire day to figure out .
Bev, do those millennials read? It’s not like the information is hidden away in obscure publications.
Beverly Mann: “She was down by about eight points in Ohio just before last week’s debate. Late last week, she was still down by about five points.”
You know, when you make careless, easily refuted statements like this it really destroys your credibility. The biggest lead Trump had in Ohio was a single 5-point poll by Fox News, just one of many polls, some which had Clinton in a small lead. The 538 poll aggregate for the pre-debate race was a 2 point Trump lead. These careless exaggerations really don’t help your case.
You are right that the polls on Ohio never showed Clinton behind by eight points. I had confused Ohio with Iowa. But the NYT Upshot blog had Trump with a very good chance to win Ohio, and I’d read in more than one article that the Clinton campaign was pretty close to giving up on Ohio and had to be persuaded not to.
Anyway … I just posted a long post that discusses her Toledo speech and I recommend that she make the same points about antitrust law and forced-arbitration law in the debate Sunday that she made in that speech (and that I’d hoped Kaine would make on Tuesday night).
I said in my post that these–especially antitrust but also the forced-arbitration-clause issue–really impact what is so critical in the election, as does campaign-finance reform: massive numbers of voters want major change in the balance of power between the yuge corporate institutions and individuals and small businesses.
“Jeff Weaver”.
Yeah, that’s what the Clinton campaign needs. the man who couldn’t figure out that some primaries were closed until it was too late. The man who quoted an economist’s work(sic) on Sanders’ policies that made those policies unimportant compared to criticism of that economist’s study(sic). The man that managed to drive people away from Sanders’ organization founded to elect progressive pols.
Yeah, they need that.
“1100 people”.
You rant about old style campaigns while praising old style campaigns. Sorry, but these rallies are old, old news and mean almost nothing in terms of getting elected.
Rallies are old style? Passe? Worthless? So all those people in the Toledo area who saw clips of Clinton’s economics speech there, to a packed-house crowd of 1,100, some who were Bernie supporters, was just meaningless?
You’re confusing state-by-state-campaign laws, and economic expertise, with fundamental message. I’m referring to the message. And that’s even beside the fact that Weaver had no way to know that an econ prof. at U-Mass had gotten things really wrong, and when he learned that that might be the case–roughly 36 hrs. after first using it–he withdrew it.
It’s also beside the fact that six months before the NY primaries–which was the absurd cut-off for registering as a party member and thus being able to vote in the primary–the Sanders campaign was, of necessity, focused entirely on Iowa and NH.
Weaver made some mistakes, but mostly the Bernie campaign was awesome. But, seriously, why in a post about message strategy would you think I was talking about campaign laws and a particular economist’s expertise, or the like, rather than, y’know, message strategy?
The Clinton campaign has lots of people who deal with those things. But it apparently has no one who understands this particular election cycle. Weaver does.
Oh, and about that 1,100 resignations thing: There were two reasons for it. One, that Weaver has the organization accepting anonymous donations. the other, that Weaver apparently is sort of hard to work with, or for.
Those don’t seem like they’re relevant to whether or not he would be a whole lot better at message strategizing than the strategists she has now.
Here we go again more political correctness with stuck inside the box logic. It really becomes very disappointing that so many have such shallow knowledge and values as to what really important (as in personal character, trust, integrity) has happened, is happening and what it will take to turn this country around. So I’ll give you a clue. With Florida about to take a huge hit from the hurricane do you think the tone deaf dems (as most are) will be able to steal the election there? Perhaps not this time. Or perhaps HRC will rush in as they did in Haiti to give more phony support to victims to fund the Clinton Foundation? It’s really hard to teach a box of rocks to become more proactive thinkers.
Ryan,
What are you talking about? Have you been watching too much Fox News? I saw Megyn Kelly last night declaring that the hurricane in Florida was going to be a terrible hit to the Clinton campaign, which basically amounted to that since she is not an incumbent like Obama was in in 2012, she cannot take advantage of a hurricane the way he did with Sandy.
Oh, she might have the Clinton Foundation provide some money, a foundation she puts a million dollars a year into and that spends 89% of its money on actual charitable activities? That would be terrible, certainly far worse than the Trump Foundation putting no money in, which gets no money from him but spends most of what it spends on things for him like lifesize portraits.
Rosser you must think the American people are stupid like HRC does be glad to see you come out of the box a bit.. So spare me your dribble about HRC trying to look like Mother Teresa. Only 10% of The Clinton Foundation goes to and actual charity and I would assume that most of the money from there came from pay to play donors. What I would like to hear more discussion on are three things.1. The collapse of democracy in America. 2.The moral bankruptcy of the liberal elite in Washington and the MSNM. 3. The economic crippling effects unchecked predatory globalism especially with China.
Ryan,
Barkley is correct and you are wrong.
Does it not bother you at all to just recycle lies?
Bev,
Sanders was a great candidate. His campaign was brutally horrible in many ways.
BTW,
Weaver had more than six months to figure out the “closed or open primary thing”.
Maybe it is just me, but I’m thinking the first thing a primary campaign should do is figure out who their voters are and are they eligible to vote for them.
Yes, Weaver had six months to figure out that NY closes its primaries six months before the NY primary and four-and-a-half months before the caucus/primary season begins. Silly him; that possibility didn’t occur to him. Odd, since he’d had so much experience in presidential politics.
Still not sure what that has to do with message strategy, though.
It has to do with campaign strategy. And the lack of experience was a huge problem. Course, if either Weaver or Sanders had an inkling of political experience, Sanders would have accepted the Dem nomination for the senate in 2006, and would have been the Pres candidate this year.
You are confusing the Sanders campaign with Sanders policies; and then confusing Sanders policies with Clinton’s campaign. However, somehow you give Sanders campaign a great rating and Clinton’s campaign is a disaster according to your last 25 posts. Spare me the “underdog, outsider thing”. That was a huge advantage for both Sanders and Trump.
Nothing easier than sitting on the sidelines criticizing the team. Gets a lot harder when you actually have to play.
Here’s the problem with that. Well, the biggest problem; there are others. The main reason that Clinton isn’t far ahead of Trump is that she’s campaigned as though it’s–oh, I don’t know; 2000, maybe? She just plain doesn’t understand the key undercurrents of this election cycle, or she doesn’t care about those undercurrents and just thinks she can win because her opponent is Donald Trump.
From the very outset of her campaign right down to this very minute, she’s campaigned as a candidate for president in 2000. Nothing–nothing–can pry her from that belief, mainly, I suspect, because that’s the belief of her husband and of her “seasoned” campaign strategists.
But since it’s no longer 2000, any candidate with the least ability of ability to read the dominant feel of THIS YEAR’S electorate would truly have had this thing wrapped up a while ago. Sanders. Warren. Sherrod Brown.
Weaver has a strong enough personality that he might actually be able to elbow her “seasoned” strategists out of the way and open her eyes. Might. It also might be an impossibility. This is a really old dog, and maybe just can’t learn new tricks. No matter what, and no matter who’s trying to teach her.
Heads up EMichael for the many clueless who go about spouting immunity for HRC’s moral corruption, lack of character and no leadership integrity…Go see today’s PaulCraigRoberts.org so you can get the drop on HRC’s “zero foot print policy”. The story there about Mr.Marc Turi being scapegoated by HRC and the Justice Dept. (what an appalling coincidence ) will reveal all when the next shoe drops from Assange’s Wiki Leaks. This story is just the latest round of corruption from HRC.that never seems to end… Hope you enjoy it…As for Sanders I said before that he was stupid to run as a dumoctat. If he had run independent he would no doubt still be strongly running in the race…
Bev,
Gotta love the idea that you think Clinton is running like it is 2000 instead of 2016 in the same post where you wonder why Clinton is not far ahead of Trump where the main reason is that it is 2016, not 2000.
In case you missed it, US politics is more polarized than it has been since before the Civil War.
There are going to be these kind of elections on a national level until demographics make conservatives act like human beings.