Hillary Clinton’s “RUN OUT THE CLOCK” Strategy Is Failing Miserably
Hillary Clinton is facing questions about her campaign strategy as Donald Trump laps her on the trail and tightening polls show an increasingly competitive presidential race.
The Democratic nominee nearly vanished from the campaign trail in August to attend high-end private fundraisers and to prepare for the first presidential debate on Sept. 26.
At times it has appeared that Clinton believes she can run out the clock against Trump, who fell in the polls after a disastrous stretch following the Democratic convention.
But while Clinton remains the heavy favorite, Trump has rebounded in some national and battleground polls taken in late August.
In that time, controversy has exploded over Clinton Foundation ties to the State Department. A steady drip of developments surrounding Clinton’s use of a private email server also persists, punctuated by Friday’s release by the FBI of documents pertaining to its investigation into her email set-up.
Those controversies have dragged Clinton’s already-dismal approval rating to new lows and have kept her from slamming the door shut on Trump.
“It used to look like Clinton should just spend the fall at the International Space Station watching Trump implode, but it raises the question of whether you can disappear from the campaign trail without it having some effect,” said Marquette University pollster Charles Franklin, whose Wisconsin survey found Clinton’s favorability declining across every metric.
Clinton has gone days between events in some cases and hasn’t given a press conference in more than 270 days, a fact that Republicans have been eager to highlight.
The press has badgered Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine and other top surrogates, Vice President Biden among them, about Clinton’s whereabouts and why she has kept such a low profile with the election only two months away.
“I don’t think anyone can tell her story as well as she can, so she needs to be out there telling it,” said Democrat Nina Turner, a former top spokesperson for Bernie Sanders. “You have to face the voters if you want them to vote for you. You have to be out there talking to them and engaging with them and having real conversations and dialogue.”
As Clinton has been off the grid, Trump has been ubiquitous and is increasingly engaging in high-stakes gambits meant to get him back into the race.
Over a wild 36-hour stretch this week, Trump held a rally in deep-blue Washington, jetted to Mexico for a meeting with president Enrique Pena Nieto, hop-scotched to Arizona for a speech on immigration with the families of citizens who were slain by illegal immigrants, and then buzzed through Ohio for two campaign events.
Clinton only emerged this week to address the American Legion’s national convention in a speech about “American exceptionalism” that received perfunctory coverage by the press and passed with little notice.
Meanwhile, a Washington Post/ABC News survey released this week found Clinton’s image hitting its lowest point in her 25 years of public life.
Clinton’s popularity has also plunged in surveys of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – Rust Belt states that represent Trump’s best path to the White House.
H/T – TheHill
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“Running out the clock” like this will lead to Hillary’s downfall. No Presidential candidate should EVER go into hiding leading up to the last few critical months. I hope that Mr. Trump brings this up during the debates, as she needs to be called out for this and other issues where she obviously lacks transparency as well. Simply piling all of her events on political surrogates like Biden, Bill, and Tim Kaine doesn’t cut it.