aNewDomain 
— Hillary Clinton, they say, may or may not be the most qualified person ever to have run for the presidency. I happen to believe she isn’t, but never mind that. Because we’re just seven days away from an election that, for once, really may prove to be the most important of our lives.
And Clinton isn’t helping things.
What boggles the mind of those of us who are paying attention is just how weak a candidate Hillary is. She is, however, now in a neck-and-neck battle with a foul-mouthed former reality TV star. She’s a former Secretary of State, New York senator and First Lady.
Objectively speaking, Hillary ought to be wiping the floor with Trump.
I mean, the man is a maniac.
Just three weeks ago, he was heard bragging on tape about how he just grabs women by the genitals whenever he wants. At this writing, 13 women have come forward to say that’s what he did to them. He faces racketeering charges and child rape charges in two separate lawsuits right after the election.
That stuff should be helping Clinton to dominate him. But she isn’t.
Scroll below the fold to read the full child rape complaint and affidavits against Trump and convicted sex offender and billionaire, Jeffrey Epstein, who are accused of holding down and raping a 13-year-old girl at a Manhattan party. Ed.
You would think she could beat this guy. What I want to know is, why isn’t this race 65 percent to 35 percent in her favor?
Remember the primaries
Polls notwithstanding, Hillary’s supporters – that is, the editorial board of The New York Times and that CNN talking head who slipped her debate questions so she could cheat against Bernie in a debate – vehemently argued that Clinton’s awesome resume made her the better choice to to take on Donald Trump in the fall.
Yet here we are with national tracking polls in a dead heat or within the statistical margin of error, with Ohio firmly in the Trump column, Florida probably leaning the same way, and the whole thing probably coming down to a slim margin in Pennsylvania.
And those polls don’t take into account all the hooplah surrounding the FBI’s investigation into aide’s husband’s email. Well, let me correct that. At this writing, there is one — and it shows Trump ahead.)
“Hillary could win or Hillary could lose, but this much is certain: All those Very Serious Democrats owe Bernie Sanders an apology.”
To be fair, Trump isn’t totally stupid. Or maybe it’s luck. But Trump has leveraged the power of free earned media and free social media, finding it much more effective than television advertising. For his left-behind base, he packages crassness as authenticity.
And you’ve got to hand it to him. He might not have the finger you want on the nuclear launch button, but he’s shown himself a master of crisis management if given a little time. Remember when he nuked the open-mic “pu$$% grabbing” video before the second debate, inviting Bill Clinton’s female accusers to attend the debate hours beforehand.
Still, those tricks ought not to be nearly enough to give Hillary a run for her money.
With the benefit of hindsight – and, in the case of writers like yours truly, foresight – Hillary Clinton’s under-performance was foreseeable well before she announced her run for president.
Here’s where I get to say I told you so. In these pages, back in May 2015, I wrote: “Hillary is out of touch … she hasn’t been behind the wheel of an automobile for nearly 20 years, she is a multi-multi-millionaire who nevertheless considered herself ‘dead broke’ and she still believes that she and her husband are not among ‘the truly well off.’ ”
“For a Democrat under heavy fire from her party’s progressive base — with Elizabeth Warren, Bill di Blasio and Bernie Sanders leading the charge — this stuff could be politically fatal.”
And right now, it really could.
Instead, we’re screwed.
Even if she wins next Tuesday, a second Clinton Administration will begin with zero mandate — other than to be Not Trump.
And if it turns out those emails — you know, the ones FBI James Comey risked violated federal law to crow about on Friday — have anything to do with her sending something even a little sensitive through her private email server, that’s it: Republicans will be frothing at the mouth to begin impeachment proceedings — and within her first year.
In the last 12 hours, the social nets have been burning up with allegations made by US intelligence agents that Trump owns a private email server that’s linked directly to a Putin-controlled Russian bank — and that Putin is blackmailing him in return for special favors. We’ll see what comes of that.
But, because of Hillary’s stumbling throughout the campaign, Trump’s base has strengthened into a horde of undying fans who share and seem to buy pretty much any half truth or lie alt-right fake news sites say. So far, those sites are incorrectly claiming that Hillary Clinton is the one inventing such stories, ignoring the fact that these reports are attributed to US spies and former spies. So that’s what Trump supporters are telling themselves and each other on social media.
With just a week to go, seems like it’s too late to convince them of anything, much less the truth.
It doesn’t look good for Clinton. She could lose, an outcome that could well put our American democracy in grave peril. There are just too many constitutional protections that Trump talks about doing away with.
Heckuva job, Hillary.
Listen. When the political equivalent of the National Transportation Safety Board does a post mortem on the train wreck that is Hillary’s campaign — and that’s the case whether she wins or loses — Hillory Clinton will wake up to find that alienation from the electorate is but one of many unforced errors.
So while we wait for that post mortem, I ran up one of my own for you. Actually, it’s more like a pre-mortem autopsy report.
Pre-Mortem Autopsy Report: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Main Cause of Death: Failure to unify the Democratic Party. ClintonWorld snubbed Bernie Sanders and his supporters. This ain’t the 1990s, when Bill Clinton courted the corporate right because he knew he could take the liberal-progressive base for granted. Courting Republicans even before the convention was a major screw-up. Failing to seriously consider Bernie for veep, or even a cabinet appointment, doubled down on that mistake. Clinton operatives wouldn’t even let former Sanders workers volunteer for her campaign. Now the lefties are so pissed that not even Bernie himself can get them back. They’d be stupid to stay home, but will they know any
Major Contributing Factor: Failure to articulate an affirmative policy agenda. You know what Donald Trump would do during his first 100 days: build the wall, mass deportations, ban Muslims, probably suspend the Constitution for some as yet undetermined pretext. What would Hillary Clinton’s first 100 days look like? I don’t know. And I’m a political junkie. No one else knows either. Here is what she has said, and she hasn’t said it very often: “I pledge that in my first 100 days as president, we will make the biggest investment in new good-paying jobs since World War II.” What kind of investment? How much? Where? How?
According to The Hill: “Hillary has indicated that her first 100 days would include nominating women for half of her Cabinet positions, investing in renewable energy, setting stricter rules for health insurers and drug makers, and pushing for greater protections for voting rights.” Zzzzzzz. Americans want their president to do two things: boost the economy and keep them safe. Trump owns the national security debate. But she still hasn’t told us how she’ll put us back to work, get us a raise, or fix the retirement system to account for the big switch from 40-hour-a-week wage labor to self-employment.
Bottom line: Hillary’s entire campaign boils down to: I’m Not Trump.
Additional Contributing Factors:
A crazy penchant for secrecy and cover-ups that gave us EmailGate.
Unbridled lust for corporate and dictator cash funneled via influence peddling through the Clinton Foundation, up until the last second before she formally declared she was running. Why didn’t she give it a rest after 2008?
Incrementalism. It’s impossible to get excited about someone who thinks $12 an hour would mark a major increase in the federal minimum wage – after states and municipalities have already gone to $15. Remember, this is a change year.
She still won’t apologize for voting to invade Iraq. Sure, she says she got it wrong. “But Clinton has never explicitly said what, exactly, she did wrong,” Scott Beauchamp wrote in The Atlantic. “From Clinton herself, there has been a demand for nuance in discussing her vote, a clarification of her intentions, and plenty of blame heaped on the Bush administration. But without a clear explanation of what her mistake was and how she plans to avoid repeating it, what does an apology actually mean?”
RIP HRC. And, if we’re unlucky, RIP USA.
For aNewDomain commentary, I’m Ted Rall.
Below, read the full complaint alleging that Trump, with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, held down and raped a 13-year-old girl at a Manhattan party, then threatened her life if she talked about it. Affidavits included. Scroll below the document to read the full complaint alleging racketeering, which Trump will face this month for his alleged activities at Trump University.
Child Rape Case Against Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein by Gina Smith on Scribd
Here is the full complaint that Trump is scheduled to face for racketeering and fraud, which he allegedly perpetrated while heading up the beleaguered Trump University.
Cohen, et al. v. Donald Trump racketeering, full complaint by Gina Smith on Scribd
-30-
