Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:03 pm
Political pundits often say that one of the reasons Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton is that he was already able to take down 16 rival GOP candidates during the primary campaign, many of them sitting senators and governors.
In the presumptive Democratic nominee’s latest interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Clinton quickly dismantled that argument and explained why she will be the one to defeat the spray-tanned billionaire.
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HOLT: One by one [Trump] picked off all the Republican challengers. What did you learn from his primary race as you go forward and face in him one-on-one?
CLINTON: Well, I think that there are several lessons from his primary race. Number one, a lot of his primary opponents never took him on over issues, because they were somewhat close to what he was saying. And when it came to the personal attacks, because they didn’t have any strong issue position to contrast with him they really couldn’t come back on the personal side either.
HOLT: Is this going to be the nastiest campaign ever? Will you respond, insult to insult?
CLINTON: No. Absolutely not. He can run a campaign of insults. I’m running a campaign of issues that are going to produce results for the American people. I’m going to talk about why he’s unqualified to be president based on his own words and his deeds. And I’m going to continue to make the case he is temperamentally unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.
The reason Trump’s GOP primary opponents couldn’t make a real fight of it is because Trump was publicly saying what the Republican Party has felt for a long time. There was no real contrast between the candidates other than their styles.
Clinton, on the other hand, doesn’t just have a different style than Trump. She has opposing policy positions, too. And in a general election, voters are a lot less receptive to campaign’s running on bluster and bigotry. They want a steady hand and responsible solutions.
That is why Donald Trump’s campaign is already starting to falter, and Hillary Clinton’s is just getting started.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
