Speech aims to win back blue-collar voters
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton branded her self-styled populist rival a fraud whose plans will do nothing to boost the fortunes of struggling workers in her economic address Thursday.
The Democratic presidential nominee’s speech in Warren, Mich., came days after Republican nominee Donald Trump had visited Detroit to offer his own economic proposals.
The two speeches highlight the fight for swing voters in the Rust Belt states crucial to winning in November. Appearing in a county known for working-class Democrats who voted Republican, Ms. Clinton tried to win back some of the blue-collar voters who have formed the base of her rival’s support, saying that she offers a steadier road map for economic prosperity.
While Ms. Clinton’s speech served as a rebuttal to Mr. Trump’s Monday address, she didn’t offer any new, major ideas to improve the country’s economy.
Ms. Clinton vowed to launch the biggest infrastructure spending program since World War II, expand the Affordable Care Act, make public college debt-free and penalize large companies that move their operations abroad.
She also made a forceful vow to block any future deals that are not in the interest of American workers, but also offered a qualified defense of globalization.
Ms. Clinton persisted in citing a former John McCain adviser — Moody’s Analytics economist Mark Zandi — when she said that Mr. Trump’s ideas would result in “a loss of 3.4 million jobs” and her plan would “create more than 10 million new jobs” without mentioning that Mr. Zandi is a donor to her campaign.
And Mr. Zandi actually estimated job gains of 7.2 million in the next presidential term if there are no policy changes. He estimated her plans would add 3.2 million jobs to that baseline.
And her planned $275 billion in new infrastructure spending would not be the biggest project since World War II, allowing for inflation. That honor probably goes to the project to build the interstate highway system by the Eisenhower administration.
Meanwhile, her ongoing email dispute undermined the potency of Ms. Clinton’s speech. The fresh batch of emails pried from the State Department revealed what were seen as seedy dealings by Ms. Clinton’s team at the agency.
Ms. Clinton's campaign rejected Republican claims of improper influence while she was secretary of state, alleging that GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence was trying to redirect attention from his own ticket’s strife.