Hillary Clinton, not on ballot, is star of GOP midterm attacks --
Critics suggest the Republican strategy reeks of desperation, if not sexism
That sub-head is fully true as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. The Clintons are hash because of what they did to the Democratic party, making it Repubican-lite, which Obama continued despite promises of HOPE and CHANGE. They, the three and not merely Ms. Clinton alone, are worthy of attack and scorn, mainly by progressives a/k/a Berniecrats, more than Republicans.
Also, there is name recognition. Heap the scorn on Tom Perez and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and many who vote anyway would not know who you discuss and would need to read a few paragraphs to learn. Say Clinton. Bingo. Saying Podesta brothers fails in most minds to ring the "pure evil" bell you get by saying "Koch." That should not be. Equivalents need recognition as such.
Yet Ms. Clinton is a fine and dandy symbol of all that went kaput with the Democratic party resulting in Trump as President. The high point for its crassness was the convention balloon drop for the Clintons and the VP pair, whatever their name was. That online as a video with "Stronger Together" sung aggressively as background says it all. Dumb as dirt and an insult where the Clinton constituency started with and ended with Goldman Sachs.
Not my Democratic party.
BERNIE WOULD HAVE WON.
That is what every progressive candidate should be starting any discourse with; then saying what Bernie ran on as an agenda and that the same goal set will be that candidate's aim.
As the AP article has a focus on Republicans wanting to "run again against Clinton" every sound non-Blue Dog Democrat should "run with the Bern." That said, back to the AP/Mercury article, a quote or two:
With control of Congress up for grabs this fall, the GOP’s most powerful players are preparing to spend big on plans to feature Clinton as a central villain in attack ads against vulnerable Democrats nationwide. The strategy, which already has popped up in races in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Dakota, illustrates the resilience and political potency of Republican voters’ antipathy for Clinton. As difficult as it’s been for Democrats to move past the Clinton era, it may be even harder for Republicans.
“STOP HILLARY. STOP PELOSI. STOP LAMB,” read pamphlets circulated during the special election in Pennsylvania earlier this year.
That’s just a taste of what’s to come as the November elections grow closer, say those who control the GOP’s strategy in the first midterm elections of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“I promise you that you’ll continue to see it — Hillary Clinton starring in our paid media. She’s a very powerful motivator,” said Corry Bliss, who leads the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super political action committee ready to spend tens of millions of dollars to shape House races this fall. “It’s about what she represents. What she represents, just like what Nancy Pelosi represents, is out-of-touch far-left liberal positions.”
Well, last sentence exposes the big lie. Nancy Pelosi, like Obama and the Clintons, is Republican-lite, the antithesis of progress and progressivism. Pelosi is a Rockefeller Republican when the party of the Rockefellers is going hell bent to throw tea in the ocean, purposeless in being so oriented, except pissed off at how bad the nation has been abused by politicians of both parties since World War II.
That pisses me off too, but I do not go off the cliff as a Tea Party Patriot. That's stupidity, and I instead see what Bernie set as a platform and cannot find a simple thing wrong with it. Were I a plutocrat with a Koch attitude, different story, but I am not wealthy off the backs of the rest of the nation and am without that inhumane view. Back to the article's midsection:
Critics suggest the strategy reeks of desperation, if not sexism. But with no Democrat to attack in the White House for the first time in nearly a decade, Republicans are betting big that the ghost of Clinton will serve them well in 2018. Saddled with Trump’s poor approval ratings, they may have little choice.
It’s helpful, some Republicans say, that Clinton refuses to disappear from national politics altogether.
Less than a year ago, she launched a political organization designed to encourage anti-Trump “resistance” groups. She made two public appearances this week alone. During recent remarks in India, she took a shot at Trump’s slogan and his appeal across middle America: “His whole campaign, ‘Make America Great Again,’ was looking backwards,” Clinton said.
[...] “She’s called you ‘deplorable.’ Now, she’s called you ‘backwards,'” said one ad that targeted Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
“If Bill Nelson had his way, Hillary Clinton would be president,” the ad continued. “Florida won’t forget.”
[...] Internal polling and focus groups conducted by Republican campaigns find that Clinton remains one of the most unpopular high-profile Democrats in the nation, second only to Pelosi, the House minority leader. Just 36 percent of Americans viewed Clinton favorably in a December Gallup poll, an all-time low mark that bucked a trend in which unsuccessful presidential candidates typically gain in popularity over time.
“We’re going to make them own her,” Republican National Committee spokesman Rick Gorka said.
Well she and Obama own Tom Perez, and that is shameful; the DNC and DCCC do own the Clinton legacy and national viewpoint that money talks all else walks; Hello and hail Wall Street. Yet the inner party Republicans are no different, that is the joke.
And Clinton using the term "deplorables?" She got it right and it galls the deplorables that they are called what they are. Her error was ignoring and being among the "deplorables" of her own party.
Run one of those focus groups among Berniecrats who watched Haim Saban have his way over Ellison at DNC, and you find the same distaste present and pungent.
BOTTOM LINE ON THE REPUBLICANS DECIDING TO RUN AGAINST CLINTON: Run against evil and incompetence is not a bad strategy to hide being a Republican and hence running to promote greater evil and comparable incompetence, White House on down.
May the Blue Wave be a progressive one. That being a wish and far from an expectation. Warmed over Obama is more a likelihood. Students still screwed big time over college debt. No single payer. No living minimum wage. Labor insecurity being the law of the land. Wall Street over Main Street. Big war spending, dumb war ongoing. Gitmo still open. Afghanistan poppies fueling Big Pharma dope pushing, still and ongoing, because it pays.