http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=DFE9EA2E-346F-49F0-BFA8-F499737DB3D0 When Hillary Clinton attacks
By: Maggie Haberman
November 2, 2014 06:59 AM EST
Hillary Clinton’s immersion into campaign politics this fall has come with a surprising twist: She’s talking carefully but wielding a big stick.
In more than a dozen appearances for Democrats in races around the country, Clinton has not just been talking up her candidate with anodyne stump speeches. She’s been going after the Republican, in pointed ways.
She never mentions the opponent by name, avoiding looking like she’s taking gratuitous shots. But Clinton has tailored her stump speeches to incorporate each Democrat’s specific message against his or her rival, a use of her megaphone that risks making her look more partisan but that’s earning her goodwill and chits.
The most overt example came last week when Clinton campaigned for Bruce Braley in Iowa. She didn’t just pump up the Senate hopeful’s resume in her stump speech – she took a harsh jab at his rival, Republican Joni Ernst, for not sitting down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board.
“They have to be willing to answer the tough questions, which Bruce has been willing to do and his opponent has not,” she said in Iowa. “It really seems like it should be disqualifying in Iowa of all states to avoid answering questions.”
It was a message that Braley’s campaign had been trying for days to get traction on, stoking question about whether Ernst can be trusted and whether she will talk to people who aren’t her supporters.
Clinton “forcefully highlighted Ernst’s big problem,” said Braley strategist Jeff Link, doing something that was “very important for Braley in the final days of this campaign.”
A few days earlier, Clinton campaigned for Mike Michaud, the Democratic candidate for governor in Maine. At a gymnasium rally in Scarborough, she asked people not to waste their votes in a campaign in which an independent candidate, Eliot Cutler, is siphoning support.
“You’ve got three people running. right?” Clinton said to the crowd. “Whoever gets the most votes wins — you’ve just gotta make sure Mike [gets] the most votes.”
She repeatedly implored attendees to get everyone they knew to the polls, adding, “This is no time to be throwing away a vote.”
It’s the message that message came as Democrats had been trying to minimize Cutler’s impact on the race. Maine is one of the few states President Barack Obama has traveled to in an election year in which candidates in tight races have avoided him.
In Louisiana on Saturday, she hit Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s main opponent, Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, over the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac — a topic that still resonates loudly in the state.
“From what I’ve heard, Mary’s opponent didn’t really lift a finger after Isaac,” Clinton said without naming Cassidy but bolstering a Landrieu message.
And when she traveled a bit north of her Chappaqua home to appear with former Clinton White House staffer Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, she rapped his opponent, Nan Hayworth, as someone who will “turn the clock back” on women’s health.
Maloney’s “opponent,” she said, is someone who “has publicly stated she would defund Planned Parenthood,” Clinton said. She “supports the Hobby Lobby decision.”
Clinton made clear out of the gate when she started campaigning for candidates this fall that she was going to make the contrasts. At a “Women for Wolf” rally for Democrat Tom Wolf in Philadelphia, she invoked incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s support for a vaginal ultrasound bill in cases of abortion and his comparison of gay marriage to incest.
Democrats say it’s allowed their candidates to break through some of the noise surrounding races in which the airwaves are cluttered with outside groups’ attack ads.
“Her events have not only generated enthusiasm for our candidates and motivated our people to get out the vote, but she has made the case to undecided voters about what’s at stake and why these Republican candidates are so wrong on issues they care about,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Matt Canter.
Clinton has done her most extensive fall campaign work trying to bolster Senate Democrats, many of whom were her colleagues when she served as a senator from New York. She’s gotten engaged in most of the highly competitive races, making two trips for three events to Kentucky, where she has stumped for Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.
Clinton delivered her shots at incumbent Rep. Mitch McConnell surgically. But she made her toughest comparison against him on the issue of Obamacare, which he has said he wants to repeal outright.
“Either you think [Kentucky’s existing health care exchange is good] for hard-working families, for children or you want to pull out health care reform root and branch,” Clinton said.
“If you’re going to break through, you have to do more than just platitudes,” said Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf of why Clinton can deliver a message with strong impact. “It’s not like she’s making cheap shots – there are very legitimate distinctions to be made here.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Josh Schwerin agreed.
“There are few people in either party who can deliver a persuasive and motivating message to both base and swing voters,” he said. “Hillary Clinton is one of those people.”
