Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate against her formidable foe, Donald Trump (no matter what he says), but that doesn’t mean she’s taking it easy. Not at all. With a little over a month to go before the general election, Clinton headed straight back onto the campaign trail where she held a rally in Raleigh, N.C. She addressed a common criticism of many of her critics — particularly those Bernie Sanders holdouts who still resist their party’s opponent — that it’s difficult for a member of the 1 percent to understand the concerns of the American people.
Of course, Trump deals with the same difficulty, yet he’s managed to convince many blue collar workers with his promises to lower taxes. Clinton can’t hold that promise out to voters, but she can chip away at concerns that her wealth places her outside of the accessible realm for ultra-progressive voters. So, she’s adopting a new strategy to tempt any on-the-fence members of her party that may be considering a Trump vote. Clinton’s comparing her privilege to Trump’s and pointing out that he was born into his small, million dollar loan from his dad, who helped him launch a business empire. Whereas she and Bill Clinton “came from nothing and lived the American dream.”
During the Raleigh rally, Clinton told her audience, “Bill and I have been blessed. We didn’t come from millionaire families. My husband’s father died before he was born.” She also tore into Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, which some have speculated might be because he doesn’t want to disclose the full extent of his wealth. But Clinton pointed out, “Bill and I have released all of our tax returns, going back 40 years.” Indeed, Clinton has done so, and her returns revealed how the couple sits in the highest bracket. Whereas (during the Monday debate) Trump didn’t deny not paying federal taxes — and in fact, he said he was “smart” to avoid doing so because they’d be “squandered.” (Remember, this is still the same guy who hoped for the housing bubble to collapse so he could scoop up some cheap real estate.)
Clinton took full advantage of this lapse in judgment on Trump’s part (to admit, as a major party nominee that he’s not into paying taxes), and she criticized him for not paying “a penny to support our troops.” This — along with her team’s new strategy to emphasize how she wasn’t born wealthy but fought her way to the top — is a smart move. One of Trump’s campaign promises is to build up our military to such a degree that no country would dare to mess with the United States. But if he’s not even paying federal taxes, how can he make this claim with a serious face? Team Clinton is starting to zero in on Trump’s hypocrisies, and we haven’t seen all of Hillary’s cards yet.
(Via Politico)
