I am a Bernie supporter, as I have made clear multiple times in recent months. I still support Sanders and want to see him continue on with the campaign, and to even take it all the way to the convention, if possible. But I’m also enough of a realist to know that the electoral math is strongly against him. Nate Silver, for example, has forecasts which show Hillary winning pretty decisively in PA, CA, and MD. So, things are not looking very good for the Sanders campaign.
That said,Hillary Clinton and her supporters are — assuming that she gets the Democratic nomination, which is looking very likely — in for a very rude, and I mean that literally, awakening as we get into general election season. Not only does Hillary (like Trump, her likely opponent if current predictions hold) have very high unfavorable ratings, as is shown in this CBS/NY Times graph, but her reputation for dishonest spin and for playing the victim role (whereby every attempt by a political opponent to draw contrasts to her is labeled a “personal attack” ) are so well established, by now, that it will be hard for her to use these effectively.
Again, assuming that the race is one of Hillary vs. Trump, as seems likely, Trump is a smart enough intuitive campaigner that he will have a field day. He’ll have a field day with Hillary’s negatives and her reputation for dishonesty and has already started to do this. In addition, his attacks will be truly sexist. And in responding to this, Hillary and her supporters have pretty much used up a lot of their ammunition against the imaginary sexism of the Sanders campaign; while neither Sanders nor his campaign is actually sexist, Trump’s certainly is (and also racist and authoritarian). Unfortunately, though, Hillary is in a very weak position for calling this out, having squandered her credibility with a lot of very tiresome rhetoric about being victimized by armies of “Bernie bros.”
Trump will also make that argument that Sanders has made, which is that Hillary is the candidate of corporate lobbyists, bankers and wealthy donors. And the optics of being seen as a corporatist candidate, a candidate of and for the political insiders in this year of political insurgents, is perhaps not the best place in the world to be. He’ll likely also pick up on the demand to see her speech transcripts. And Hillary will likely either ignore this or attempt to change the topic or claim victimization or all three. But none of these strategies will make this topic go away. If anything, her reputation for being a corporate candidate will likely be cemented. Trump will also have the additional ammunition of being able to show wedding photos with Bill and Hillary as guests and will be able to reiterate his message that the wealthy (including himself can easily buy politicians (like the Clintons). There is the old well known fairy tale called “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and it goes like this
There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, "Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!"
The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.
"Don't cry 'wolf', shepherd boy," said the villagers, "when there's no wolf!" They went grumbling back down the hill.
Later, the boy sang out again, "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!" To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.
When the villagers saw no wolf they sternly said, "Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don't cry 'wolf' when there is NO wolf!"
But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.
Later, he saw a REAL wolf prowling about his flock. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, "Wolf! Wolf!"
But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn't come.
At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn't returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy. They found him weeping.
"There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, "Wolf!" Why didn't you come?"
An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.
"We'll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning," he said, putting his arm around the youth, "Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"
The lesson for those in political life should be rather obvious; be truthful, and guard your reputation. A reputation for dishonesty will follow you wherever you may go. It would be very hard to pivot from dishonesty to honesty when battling someone who doesn’t seem to know or to care when he lies.
One other point, which I made in one of my comments here and which I want to add to the diary is this. Hillary has probably exhausted the sympathy and patience of a lot of liberals who used to routinely defend her and her husband against the steady attacks by the right; the left defended the Clintons and the Clintons thanked the left by mocking and/or ignoring the left. So if she is counting on the left defending her from the “vast right wing conspiracy,” she may discover that the left is too busy working at building up the progressive movement to waste time rallying to a cause which they don’t really believe in and where they go unappreciated.