Republicans for Hillary: reshaping American politics
“What has Hillary Clinton been doing while Donald Trump has been careening from one controversy to the next?” The Democratic nominee has been travelling around America, said Byron York in the Washington Examiner, giving safe, dull – and effective – speeches. Whereas Trump’s unscripted addresses often ramble on for an hour or more, Clinton’s “poll and focus grouptested” speeches last precisely 20 minutes and concentrate on the two issues that voters claim to care most about: the economy and national security. Clinton is not a gifted campaigner, but she does know how to stay on message, and she never gives up. “One can go a long way in life by putting one foot in front of the other.” And in Clinton’s case, it looks like this dogged approach will take her all the way to the White House.
She certainly has a fair wind behind her, said Eric Sasson in the New Republic. In recent weeks, several senior Republican politicians have denounced Trump and declared that they will vote for Clinton instead, for the sake of the country. The Clinton camp has reportedly set up a special “defection watch” unit to identify wavering Republicans. The election is shaping up to be a “landslide” for Clinton, said Tim Murphy on Mother Jones. To give an idea of just how “unusual” the situation is, Clinton is even courting Mormon voters in Utah, traditionally the most reliable Republican voters in the country. Some elections “redefine political parties”, said Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review. What we’re seeing today is a reverse of what happened in the 1970s when centrist Democrats, fed up with their party’s perceived weakness on crime and national security, defected to the Republican administrations of Richard Nixon and, the following decade, of Ronald Reagan. These so-called “neoconservatives” subsequently became part of the GOP establishment. Now, some are returning to the Democrat fold. “We could call them ‘neoliberals’.” Almost every conservative I know – including those saying they’ll vote for her – still think Clinton is “awful”, said Jonah Goldberg in the same magazine. They just think Trump is worse. As the conservative satirist P.J. O’rourke put it: “She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”
The GOP defectors are making a big sacrifice, said Jill Lawrence in USA Today. Clinton is “going to pursue policies they know they’ll hate”, and she’ll be in a position to create a “liberal Supreme Court majority that could outlast her for decades”. Some Republicans are seeking concessions in exchange for switching sides. But with the polls as they are, Clinton doesn’t need to offer any. The Left will be quick to accuse her of selling out if she does, said Michael Tomasky on The Daily Beast. Rumours that she’s seeking the endorsement of Henry Kissinger – a man many liberals regard as a war criminal – have already caused anger.
After all the “Republican obstructionism” they’ve had to endure, many Democrats can’t wait to stick it to the GOP, said Frank Bruni in The New York Times. But if Clinton does romp home in November, I hope she will take a magnanimous, “big tent” approach and choose to work with the Republicans in areas of common interest, such as tax reform, immigration reform and education reform. We’ve seen where “sharply drawn lines” and unthinking partisanship lead: “legislative paralysis, debased discourse” and “public disgust”. Clinton’s “summer of love” with her former Republican tormentors is not just a “stunning narrative twist”; it’s also an opportunity to refashion America’s dysfunctional politics. “Of all politicians, she could be the one with the best chance to move us a few crucial inches beyond this wretched sclerosis. Who would have ever predicted that?”