Her Madameship continues to underwhelm.
Hillary Clinton gave a big economics speech here on Monday and the snap reaction among Wall Street investors, economists and ardent financial reformers who thrill to the soak-the-rich rhetoric of Bernie Sanders was a collective: “Meh. What’s next?”
Clinton laid out the soft contours of a “growth and fairness economy” in a speech designed to appeal to struggling middle-class workers with promises of higher pay and more generous federal policies.
But she left out many hard specifics on tougher tax policy toward the rich and corporate America. And she offered limited pledges to crack down on big Wall Street banks while hitting her strongest notes promising to toss rogue bankers in prison while ripping recent worker productivity comments from Jeb Bush.
Naturally, the cornerstone of the playbook for Mrs. Bill’s team is to have her avoid specifics. When pressed for details she finds it impossible to not come off as an imperious shrew.
The details aren’t her friend here either. She loves to tout her husband’s economic record, which was almost entirely the product of timing, as the dotcom boom happened on his watch. One of the few specifics she’s been pimping is an attack on the sharing economy, which many Americans would say is a considerably positive product of that boom. Scary grandma is talking about helping working Americans while ripping Uber, a company that provides jobs and a helpful, often more cost-effective service to those Americans.
The Missus is also taking some swings at Wall Street, which I pointed out recently is somewhere on the other side of disingenuous when you look at this history of her biggest donors.
This is a candidate who needs to keep a nonexistent narrative about a strong, self-made woman alive. As there aren’t any historical components to that story, you won’t find her handlers letting her get too deep in the weeds about anything, because she can’t speak at length on most of what she’s using as talking points.
Now, if the subject of riding coattails ever comes up…
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