Hillary Clinton appears to be getting more and more frustrated with how her coronation as “the one” is taking longer than she wants it to. We know all about her outburst at a Greenpeace protester, but Associated Press reports there’s a bunch of angst inside the Clinton camp right now (emphasis mine).
Clinton has spent weeks largely ignoring Sanders and trying to focus on Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Now, after several primary losses and with a tough fight in New York on the horizon, Clinton is showing flashes of frustration with the Vermont senator — irritation that could undermine her efforts to unite the party around her candidacy.
According to Democrats close to Hillary and former President Bill Clinton, both are frustrated by Sanders’ ability to cast himself as above politics-as-usual even while firing off what they consider to be misleading attacks. The Clintons are even more annoyed that Sanders’ approach seems to be rallying — and keeping — young voters by his side.
While Hillary Clinton’s team contends her lock on the nomination as “nearly insurmountable,” the campaign frequently grumbles that Sanders hasn’t faced the same level of scrutiny as the former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady. Her aides complain about Sanders’ rhetoric, claiming he’s broken his pledge to avoid character attacks by going after her paid speeches and ties to Wall Street, and they point to scenes of Sanders supporters booing Clinton’s name at his rallies.
For aides to actually complain about booing at rallies shows how out of touch with reality Clinton’s camp is. Has she not been paying attention to political rallies since the start of the country when opponents get booed all the time? Or how her own supporters started booing the name of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner during a Chicago rally? It’s pretty obvious her camp was looking for Democratic voters to hand her the scepter and declare her the new “Lightbringer” to fix/continue the mess/legacy of President Barack Obama. Sanders’ ability to toss a wrench into the program is making her frustrated.
But it also shows her unlikability on the national stage. Whether it’s acting like a robot or just seeming out of touch with reality (see her State Department emails on how to operate the fax machine or asking a surrogate to ask another surrogate to go get her iced tea) Clinton isn’t coming off like a human, but an elitist. It’s no wonder why Bernie Sanders is giving her a run for her money because he comes off as a human being (even if he’s just as out of touch with his comments on free health care and schooling, when those models don’t really exist).
What this shows is the Democratic race is as competitive as the GOP one. Yes, most everyone expects Clinton to end up beating Sanders but it’s no guarantee. This is why it never made sense to me for the Republican Party to roll out their Anti-Clinton campaign so early. It seemed short-sighted and just plain stupid to start campaigning against Clinton before Democrats had even begun voting. The Republicans did this in 2008 and were completely unprepared for Obama. If Sanders somehow beats Clinton, will the GOP be ready to battle him? Will they actually be ready to explain to millennials and populists why Sanders’ message isn’t sustainable and the socialist paradise he cites doesn’t even exist in the countries he points to as role models? Here’s the thing: angry voters aren’t going to always vote logically. They’ll vote for the candidate who seems to be grasping that anger. Maybe it’s not a bad thing there appears to be a realignment of political parties on the horizon. It really just depends on how the possible realignment might happen. If it’s free markets and truly small government versus a police state and Daddy/Mommy government, I’m all for it. If it’s just more of the same…forget it.
But things aren’t as easy for the Clinton camp as it seems, possible indictment notwithstanding. It’s just too bad all the focus is on the GOP circus and not on the circus going on inside the Democratic Party. Maybe that shows how unprepared everyone was for Sanders and the angst of Democratic voters. It’s true, he’s got a long way to go before he’s able to actually beat Clinton, but the frustration is obviously building inside Team Hillary’s camp. It’ll just be interesting to see if the frustration ends up taking her down and what her supporters are going to do.
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