Hillary Clinton Has Learned How to Fight Republicans And Here’s the Ad to Prove It

Hillary Clinton

It’s been a long fight but Hillary Clinton has figured out how to fight Republicans and she has a new ad that proves it. She’s going to fight Republicans by making sure Americans know what they are saying.

Hillary for America released a new video on Thursday in which they made their strategy pretty clear: They’re just going to play Republicans speaking and let the American people judge.

Watch here:

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“Unlike Hillary Clinton, who has real plans to help Americans with the issues that keep them up at night, Republicans just want to “repeal, repeal, repeal” the hard-fought progress we’ve made. They’re out of touch and out of date,” it reads under the YouTube version of the ad.

In case you miss the point, though, much of the footage in reverse.

They open with Sen. Marco Rubio saying, “This election is about the future.”

Then we have a montage of Republicans all saying we need to repeal “every rule” that Obama has accomplished: Repeal, repeal, repeal. The b-roll is images in reverse: President Obama is shown in reverse, an economic chart of progress under Obama is shown going backward, a medical professional in reverse.

It ends with a shot of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from her announcement rally on Roosevelt Island saying, “Americans have come too far to see our progress ripped away.”

We call this raising the emotional stakes for the viewer/voter. Want the Bush economy back? Want to give up access to affordable healthcare? These are scary thoughts for a lot of people. It’s not just a causal relationship of a Democrat running on the success of the current President either, as Clinton was actually in the Obama administration for four years.

And in case anyone has forgotten, the last time we had such great job numbers was under her husband, President Bill Clinton. In between, under Republican George W. Bush, we had a recession so awful it has been called the Second Depression.

One of my pet peeves about Republican debates is that they always pivot to attacking Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama when they can’t answer a question, which is sadly pretty often. So you might be wondering, isn’t that what Clinton is doing in this ad?

Yes, Clinton is hitting Republicans for their “policy” of being against everything Obama has done in this ad. But 20-30 second ads are not the place for a policy discussion, so that’s not comparing apples to apples. As we have seen in the Democratic debates and the excellent Rachel Maddow interviews of the Democratic candidates, Clinton not only can handle an in-depth policy discussion, but she excels at it.

Clinton will be running a campaign on protecting President Obama’s legacy and going further. One of the ways she wants to go further is revitalizing coal communities across America. According to a statement issued today from her campaign, “Now, Clinton is announcing plans to commit $30 billion to protect the benefits coal miners have earned and to boost investments in economic diversification and job creation to make coal communities an engine for U.S. economic growth.”

“As President, I will make sure our country honors our commitments to coal miners and their families, who gave their careers, their health, and in some cases their lives to powering America’s economy,” said Hillary Clinton. “And I will invest for the future, by increasing federal investment to revitalize coal communities and partnering with the private sector to promote locally-driven business development and job creation.”

That is one of many actual policies Clinton is campaigning on. Not a negative finger pointing wag like the Republicans have been doing for the last 7 years, but an actual plan.

Where Clinton was weak in the past, actually, was not policy – but rather sound bite fights. Like most Democrats, Clinton can get lost in facts and policy weeds that are so far past the average voter they are ineffective and sometimes even a turnoff. Whereas Republicans have long excelled at the simplistic jingoism that seems to appeal to American voters. To that end, this is an excellent strategy. This shows what is at stake for the voters. It’s got a punch but it’s not mean. It’s actually pretty accurate to boot.

The image of Obama going backward says everything, just like the visuals in a good ad should.



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