Hillary’s “I’ll look into it” evasion regarding the release of transcripts to her Goldman Sachs speeches has morphed into “I’ll do it if everyone does it.” But there are a couple problems with that.
The first problem is that Bernie Sanders doesn’t have any similar speeches, because as a sitting member of Congress he isn’t allowed to take any paid speaking gigs. Whatever speaking gigs he has done, for minimal stipends, there exists audio and/or video and/or transcripts available. Also, too, he gave the stipends away to charity.
Obviously, she believes that unilaterally releasing the transcripts of her paid speaking gigs would put her at a disadvantage in the general election. But this is not the general election. She may act like it, but she hasn’t won the Democratic nomination yet. It’s the Democratic voters who care about the transcripts, and only her transcripts. Some Democratic voters have their doubts that in a Clinton administration there will be a quid pro quo from the millions she has received from investment banks. None of us on the left doubts that this is the case with the Republicans. No one will ever force the Republicans to release any similar transcripts; none of their voters care even one iota about it. Not now, and not in the general. And if Hillary does succeed in winning the nomination, it will become a non-issue because, again, it’s only the Democratic voters who care and there will be no need to dig for weaknesses with the eventual Democratic nominee.
So the much bigger problem with her ultimatum is that it relies upon Republican cooperation, meanwhile the issue of transcripts is only pertinent insofar as the Democratic primary goes. By making GOP cooperation the lynchpin of the process, Hillary absolving herself of the power to make these transcripts public. But more importantly, she is also dictating to the Democratic voters that this information is not to be considered when selecting the Democratic nominee. She’s telling the Democratic voters that they don’t deserve to know this information.