It's slim pickings out there for Republicans, folks. They've got to find something to run on and although smearing Nancy Pelosi already accounts for nearly a third of the GOP’s ad content this year, they need back up. Cue a battery of Hillary Clinton trial balloons. Republicans, try as they might, just can't quit Hillary. NBC writes:
The GOP has gone negative on Clinton for more than 25 years — and they don't think her absence from the ballot is reason enough to stop now.
So far, at least three Republican candidates or groups have released ads over the past week slamming Clinton, in what amounts to an early midterms election-year beta test of her continued utility in firing up the conservative base. [...]
Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist and ad-maker, said the GOP's strategic bet is that shifting the focus back to Clinton "lets Republicans and Donald Trump pretend like the 2016 campaign is still going on."
Sure, why not? Trump and the GOP have been at the helm for over a year now, but all they have to run on are Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Isn't America supposed to be great now? We thought the "American carnage" stopped “right here and right now”—ya know, at Trump’s inauguration. But no. Hillary, half a world away, is all they got:
A new spot for Rep. Evan Jenkins, one of the Republicans challenging Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia, opens with recent comments Clinton made at a conference halfway around the world. President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, she said last month in Mumbai, India, was all about looking "backwards," while she won big cities and other places that are "optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward."
This is pathetic. Republicans are running ads against a big, scary, woman who had the temerity to run for president—because demonizing a woman is still a bigger motivator for GOP voters than touting the supposed accomplishments of the man they actually voted into office.
Meanwhile, last we checked, Clinton was a private citizen living in Chappaqua, NY.