http://mashable.com/2016/03/14/hillary-clinton-knows-she-has-a-problem-with-blue-collar-voters/#IXxKKKJtqsqPCOLUMBUS, Ohio — Hillary Clinton has a problem with blue-collar voters. And she knows it.
The question is how — and whether — she can solve it.
After a surprise primary loss in manufacturing-heavy Michigan last week, Clinton has been hammering on bread-and-butter economic issues in Ohio and across the Midwest this week, hoping to shore up her support with the white working-class voters who are abandoning her for Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the populist right.
Clinton crushed Barack Obama with white blue-collar voters in the 2008 primaries, powering her to big wins in Ohio and other big Rust Belt states that kept her campaign alive deep into the primary season.
But she's currently struggling mightily in the region of the country where economic anxiety runs the deepest and hatred of free trade deals resonates the strongest. And that's a huge problem for her as she looks to knock out Sanders and prepare for a general election against Trump.
"She has to no choice but to keep trying to fix this because she recognizes that in order to win both the primary here in Ohio as well as the general election, particularly if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, she has to start speaking very explicitly about trade," former Ohio Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro (D), a Clinton backer, told Mashable. "We’re savvy voters and we know when people are pandering. And I think that’s the risk she runs. But I don’t think that she has a choice."
Clinton addressed the issue on Sunday night at a banquet hosted by Ohio Democratic Party, taking direct aim at concerns over her past support for some free trade agreements including the North American Free Trade Agreement, one that's particularly hated in the industrial Midwest. Sanders has been pounding her on trade, and Trump has made a big break with his party to attack trade agreements, part of what's fueling his campaign.
"I know there’s been a lot of discussion in the last week or so about trade. And I’d like to take the opportunity tonight to set the record straight," she said. "To every worker in Ohio and every worker across America let me say this: If I am fortunate enough to be your president I will stand with you and I will have your back and I will stop dead in its tracks any trade deal that hurts America and American workers."
Clinton highlighted her vote against the Central American Free Trade Agreement while she was in the Senate, and while she admitted she'd waited long before opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a trade deal currently up for debate that she'd originally championed as Secretary of State — she pointed out that she came out against it as soon as the details of the deal were public.
"We need a president who is not just opposed to trade, we need a president who knows how to compete against the rest of the world and win, win for America and win for American workers," she argued.
And Clinton acknowledged the populist fury that is tearing through both parties.
"If you’re doing the same job your parents did but for less money and fewer benefits... it is no wonder many Americans are concerned, frustrated, even angry," she said. "That’s why the test of this election has to be whether we can actually create good-paying jobs here in America."
Clinton's campaign said she wanted to "set the record straight" on trade after weeks of attacks from Sanders, while arguing she'd be better at actually handling complex trade policy than either Sanders or Trump.
"The government has an important role in how you can shape not just trade deals but competition globally. She's better prepared to do that. That's an important point for voters here and also for the general [election]," Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri told Mashable.
That argument matters a lot this week — and down the line against Trump. Clinton has been polling ahead of Sanders in Ohio as well as in other states with large working-class populations that vote Tuesday: Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina. But both Clinton and Sanders allies expect a nail-biter in Ohio and results that might be closer than public polling indicates in both Illinois and Missouri.
It's almost a certainty that Clinton will eventually grind out a primary win against Sanders, but the better he does Tuesday the more painful it will be for her to eventually win.
And whether she can get the message right on economic populism will be even more important in the general election. Ohio is always a crucial swing state, and Democrats fear that Trump's populist trade policies could help him compete in Democratic-leaning states from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Wisconsin.
Clinton is trying. But just an hour after her Columbus speech during a CNN town hall across town, she declared that "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" while explaining what she wanted to do to help boost other types of jobs in the region.
That comment made sense in context but could be used to deadly effect in attack ads in coal-heavy states like Ohio.
And Republicans have been gleefully circulating a 2005 video in which Clinton declares in India that "there’s no way to legislate against reality, so I think the outsourcing will continue," comments that undercut her current argument that she can help fight to bring back manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
Democrats and their allies are very cognizant of the risk, and are already preparing for a counter-attack.
The AFL-CIO launched a major effort to bring down Trump this week, beginning with
"There is no denying that Trump has tapped into the very real and understandable frustrations of working people," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka warned in an op-ed published Monday. "So when Trump says we’re losing, his message is heard. And when he yells or lashes out, he finds a sympathetic audience who wishes more politicians would express the frustration they feel every day. But here is the catch: Trump’s policies would make life exponentially worse for those who count on a paycheck."
Democrats believe Trump has some major weaknesses on blue-collar issues, and argue that most workers will come home to Hillary in the general election.
"He’s going to draw some votes of people who are really upset and have a reason to be because in fact the workers of this country have been betrayed by their leadership in far too many cases," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a strong Clinton backer who introduced her in Columbus and Youngstown, told Mashable. "But on every other issue around workers... They’re not going to go to Trump. Trump is for right to work. Trump outsources a lot of his clothing line. Trump talks tough on trade now, he also acts like he was against the Iraq War when there is no evidence he was against it
But it remains to be seen whether Clinton and her allies will be able to pound that argument home effectively enough.
"I think it’s going to be incredibly difficult," said Cafaro. "Donald Trump speaks the language of a lot of these blue-collar men, in particular: Very blunt, very plainspoken, very no-nonsense. And with Hillary Clinton, if she’s anything, she’s scripted. Even if she means it - and she does - her delivery and the fact that she’s delivering this message so late makes it incredibly difficult for her to connect."
