How Clinton Shadowboxed Trump at the Democratic Debate
That's our gal --always thinking ahead....
How Clinton Shadowboxed Trump at the Democratic Debate
http://time.com/4253626/democratic-debate-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-miami/
Jay Newton-Small / Miami @JNSmall
12:50 AM ET
Hillary Clinton may have been facing Bernie Sanders at Wednesday’s debate, but in reality she was shadowboxing Donald Trump.
The Republican frontrunner, who was the only GOP candidate who had supporters rallying in front of the Democratic debate, was the 800-pound gorilla in the room. He was named outright more than a dozen times, and referenced in the answers that didn’t refer to him directly.
In responding to questions about billionaire businessman, Clinton gave hints of what her general election strategy might look like. She mocked Trump’s “beautiful tall wall” and derided his divisiveness. She drew clear differences in their trade and climate strategies. And Clinton portrayed herself as earnest and wonky and positive, running “an inclusive campaign,” versus the real estate mogul she said profits from promoting divisiveness.
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Clinton’s top message was one of inclusiveness. She noted that she was the first person in the field to call Trump out for his outrageous language and pledged she would continue to do so. “When he was engaging in rhetoric that I found deeply offensive. I said basta,” she said. (Basta is Spanish for enough.) “Others are also joining in making clear that his rhetoric, his demagoguery, his trafficking in prejudice and paranoia has no place in our political system. Especially from somebody running for president who couldn’t decide whether or not to disavow the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke.”
And she drew the sharpest contrast yet with Trump by directly pledging to not deport children or their families. “You don’t make America great by getting rid of everything that made America great,” Clinton said. “ It’s un-American. What [Trump] has promoted isn’t at all in keeping with American values.”
Perhaps most significantly, Clinton made her case for a very nuanced trade policy. ..........................
“She has laid down the foundation for the argument she’ll make in the fall, which is that she voted against [the Central American Free Trade Act] because it didn’t meet her standard, she said that once she had the chance to finally look at and review the final text of the [Trans Pacific Partnership] that it didn’t meet the standard,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair, told reporters in the spin room afterwards. “But it’s not enough just to be just be against things. You have to be for the policies that are actually going to work for the American people, to create jobs and to enforce existing trade agreements and I think that’s a place where her experience, due respect to both Sen. Sanders and Mr. Trump, is one of being able to be tough, stand up and go toe-to-toe with the Chinese, and that’s the one that the American people need in the Oval Office.”...................
