Some Guy ............. ?! ... !!!!! :
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-clinton-pivot-begins-1461799244" The Clinton Pivot Begins
You’re about to meet the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton. "
By
Daniel Henninger
" Want to know which way America’s political winds are blowing? When Bill Clinton speaks, listen.
Talking in Spokane last month about the U.S. economy, the former president mentioned “the awful legacy of the last eight years.” In Indianapolis Tuesday, Mr. Clinton let the same cat out of the bag:
“The problem is, 80% of the American people are still living on what they were living on the day before the [2008 financial] crash. And about half the American people, after you adjust for inflation, are living on what they were living on the last day I was president 15 years ago. So that’s what’s the matter.”
Hours later, Hillary Clinton delivered her victory speech in Philadelphia after winning four of five primaries against Bernie Sanders. With that speech, the great Clinton pivot has begun. By the time she’s done repositioning herself for the fall campaign run, most likely against Donald Trump, Hillary’s pivots will make Stephen Curry look like a little old lady.
Note well this phrase toward the end: “So my friends, if you are a Democrat, an Independent or a thoughtful Republican . . . .”
That doesn’t quite sound like the Obama coalition of millennials, minorities and college-educated white women circa 2012. It sounds more like the centrist Clinton coalition, circa 1996. Democrats, independents and thoughtful Republicans—call it neo-triangulation for Trumpian times.
Let’s be clear. The success of the Trump candidacy is based on one, and only one, reality: two terms of weak, anxiety-producing economic growth under Barack Obama.
If growth and full-time jobs had revived in Mr. Obama’s second term, the twin towers of the Trump campaign—anti-trade sentiment and the Mexican wall—would be second-level issues, if that.
Apple CEO Tim Cook also noted the cat was out of the bag this week, explaining the iconic brand’s first quarterly revenue drop since 2003. Apple, he said, was operating “in the face of strong macroeconomic headwinds.” That’s for sure, and Hillary Clinton doesn’t fight headwinds.
Thus, the victory speech’s first pivot—it was really more a head fake to the right—came early, when she said, “I want to thank the 42nd president of the United States, my husband.” The 42nd president looked pleased.
Pivot No. 2 came right after. Mrs. Clinton said she’d been traveling the country talking to people and learning about their struggles.
“Listen to the quiet determination of the working parents I met last week in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. They are doing everything they can to provide opportunities to their children in an economy where there still aren’t enough good-paying jobs.”
Still? Watching this, one thought: Is the presumed extender of Barack Obama’s third term explicitly separating herself from the economy under his watch for 7 1/2 years?
Next came the story of a nurse in New Haven, Conn., diagnosed with breast cancer and facing foreclosure, who told her, “We’re not asking for a handout.” Come again? For months, Mrs. Clinton has done little other than outbid Bernie Sanders for new federal handouts. Suddenly, she’s moved cross court to invoke old-fashioned self-reliance.
Then came a description of a very dark economic landscape: “And she is speaking for so many people across our country who feel beaten down, left out and left behind. People who have worked hard and done their part, but just can’t seem to get ahead, and find it tough even to get by.” Welcome to “Hunger Games.”
With the Obama economic legacy falling over, she then stepped back to drain the 3-pointer: “And as a great Democratic president once said, ‘There is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what’s right with America.’ ” The faithful cameras panned over to identify that great American president, Bill Clinton.
There was a grace note about the progressive tradition “from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama.” But the Clinton campaign is bending to the obvious: Pressed by Donald Trump, she has to free herself from the undertow of the Obama economy.
Can she get away with the redo of a redo?
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have proven American voters are so dazed and confused about what’s been going on that it’s possible to run as pretty much anything. And that’s the sort of thing Bill Clinton would notice.
So if it’s the economy again, stupid, why not reposition Hillary as the mutation of two successful Democratic presidents—Franklin Roosevelt, to admit the hard times are real, and Bill Clinton’s economic policies (he cut the capital gains tax to 20% and a boom followed) to signal independents and “thoughtful Republicans” that a sane version of the ascendant populism may be possible.
In 2008 during the Ohio Democratic primary, which Hillary won, I watched her in one day win over three auditoriums of mostly white, cheering blue-collar women. Now she has to win back their husbands and boyfriends.
The Clinton pivot into the Trump base has begun. It won’t stand for anything principled or recognizable, but this year that doesn’t seem to be the point. "
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