Hillary Clinton has engaged in a new strategy of casting doubt on Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy and experience as her campaign filmed a tightly scripted speech to students at Simpson College on Thursday, where she tried to "shake some sense into Iowans"
"Senator Sanders doesn't talk much about foreign policy, but when he does it raises concerns," Clinton said. "Sometimes it can sound like he really hasn't thought it through."
Clinton's campaign had multiple cameras here and plan to turn part of the speech into an ad, according to aides.
Clinton initiated this strategy of criticizing Bernie’s Iran foreign policy earlier in the week.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign released a letter this week in which 10 foreign policy experts criticized her opponent Bernie Sanders’ call for closer engagement with Iran and said Sanders had “not thought through these crucial national security issues that can have profound consequences for our security.”
Sanders’ proposal to normalize relations with Iran is totally infeasible, right? No one in their right mind would try to work diplomacy with Iran. Or would they...
As Obama’s first-term secretary of state, Clinton agreed with the strategy to initiate secret diplomacy that ultimately led to the nuclear deal. She supports the broad international deal reached last year to rein in Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions in international sanctions relief.
So I guess it’s O.K. if you do it in secret.
If her goal was to reduce the cynicism felt toward her by the youth vote, she may have failed once again in an even bigger way than just her pot-meet-kettle hypocrisy.
The missive from the Clinton campaign was covered widely in the press, but what wasn’t disclosed in the coverage is that fully half of the former State Department officials and ambassadors who signed the letter, and who are now backing Clinton, are now enmeshed in the military contracting establishment, which has benefited tremendously from escalating violence around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
So Clinton is criticizing Sanders for following through on diplomacy which she herself began, supported by a letter signed by people who could financially gain from a continued cold war. And it’s those stubborn Iowans’ fault they just don’t see the wisdom of said strategy:
Sen. Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs responded to the notion that Iowans needed some sense shaken into them while campaigning in New Hampshire, “This is a strange way to appeal to Iowans, who already have lots of common sense.”
Briggs was correct. The statement was a very strange way to appeal to voters. One would suspect that questioning the common sense of potential caucusgoers is not the best way to woo them into supporting the former Sec. of State. The Clinton campaign has never really been able to figure out Iowa. Instead of an insult, it is best to view the aide’s comments through a lens of frustration (emphasis added).
Later on Thursday, she spent less than five minutes speaking to about 1,000 people gathered to see her in Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa.
Hillary Clinton left her audience cold in Iowa City on Thursday night, after she spoke for less than five minutes to a crowd of more than a thousand people, some of whom had lined up for more than an hour to see her.
The article generated a 400+ comment diary here.
She took the stage at about 8.15pm, forty-five minutes behind schedule. It has been noted that she had to meet with the IC Press-Citizen editorial board until past 7 p.m. (caution, loads entire comments section) although the event was scheduled to last until 10pm.
“I was like: ‘Is this done already?’” said Maggie Dressel, 21. “It did seem pretty short.”
Nicole Hall, also 21, and a senior at the university, echoed Dressel’s comments. “It was shorter than I expected,” Hall said. “I’m not sure she said enough to convince me to vote for her.”
She did have a full schedule, speaking in two Texas cities and then in Iowa on Wednesday, and three Iowa events plus a newspaper on Thursday. That’s a lot of travel, and some have speculated that she may have just been tired. I’d like to know how she travels from city to city, whether she takes a plane for in-state travel, because otherwise that’s a lot of limo time. But this schedule was no surprise, it was created well in advance.
So maybe she was tired.
Or maybe she’s just tired of trying to win over the student vote.
According to The Daily Iowan, Sanders supporters were at the Iowa City event “in droves.”
Dozens of University of Iowa students who say they will caucus for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders crashed Hillary Clinton’s rally with pop star Demi Lovato on Jan. 21.
Representing each class level at Iowa’s flagship university, more than three dozen students told The Daily Iowan they are locked in with Sanders, the outspoken democratic-socialist and U.S. senator from Vermont.
Despite being published by the #1 school for nonfiction writing in the country, it’s possible that sinceThe Daily Iowan is a student paper it could be subject to less than professional editorialization and hyperbole, so I’m not willing to say whether the “droves” of students who are feeling the Bern were the tip of the iceberg, or the full extent of the crashers, but it’s safe to say they were making themselves known, either through their attire or some impolite vocalizations.
It seems that Hillary has evoked some strong feelings among the students there.
For Hailey Murray, an 18-year-old UI freshman from Sioux Falls, S.D., Clinton represents an establishment candidate of yesteryear.
“I don’t think anything she says is going to sway my vote,” Murray said.
When she thinks of Clinton, a two-time presidential hopeful, Murray said three topics come to mind: “liar, feminism, and secret emails.”
When asked three phrases typically comes to his mind when he thinks about Clinton, [UI student Jackson] Skiles replied: “Benghazi, hypocrite, try hard.”
Ah yes, the word association game. I was just talking about that the other day.
The undergrads at America’s colleges and universities don’t remember the first Clinton presidency. Bill’s budget surplus, if they are aware of it, is just a number on a screen to them. They’ll never know how hard Hillary fought to get healthcare in the early 90’s. That’s why older voters are more inclined to vote for Hillary because they remember the good things she did. I’m sad to say that the Republican strategy of repeating something often enough has paid off.