WASHINGTON POST
So what would a Trump-Clinton matchup look like this fall? As our colleague Dan Balz notes, it is hard to imagine Trump changing his combative, unpredictable style
He plastered his opponents with nicknames – “Lyin’ Ted,” and “Little Marco” – that have helped define them.
“He always counterattacks ferociously. He also finds a way to define his opponent in a way that shrinks and limits them. These aren’t just barroom brawl tactics. They are to define semantically his opponents in ways they can’t get out of, Hillary being the next great experiment,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich told Balz.
But in Clinton, Trump is up against a known quantity. She has high negatives, and Team Trump insists that the potential is there to make them go up even more. But voters have had more than a quarter-century to make up their minds about her.
Will they believe his jibes about her stamina? Can he convince voters that she is, as he put it, “Incompetent Hillary”? Will “Crooked Hillary” sound like old news? Will his allusions to Bill Clinton’s past marital infidelities stick, coming from a man whose own life has been a staple of a New York tabloids going back to the 1980s?
Moreover, Clinton has built a massive political infrastructure to deal with the onslaught.
The celebrity billionaire, for the first time, may be at a disadvantage in that regard. “Donald Trump does not have one finance chairman in one state. It’s amazing,” Stuart Stevens told me. Stevens was a top strategist for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney and who is a persistent Trump critic. “He’s about to walk into a $1-billion buzzsaw.”
And he may take other Republicans there with him, as previewed by a new ad in the Arkansas Senate race, in which Democratic challenger Conner Eldridge seeks to tie GOP incumbent John Boozman to a series of inflammatory comments that Trump has made about women.
What Democrats say worries them most about Trump in the fall is his sheer unpredictability, and the degree to which he represents something larger that is going on in the electorate.
While polls suggest Clinton would win handily against Trump, she also must pick her shots carefully.
“Hillary set out a year ago to be a champion for everyday people and to help families finally start getting ahead again in this economy,” said Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager. “That’s what she’s going to keep talking about in the general election. . . . Trump, I’m sure, will try to bully and throw out insults. That’s not going to derail her.”
Mook said: “I think they can try to remake or remodel him in any way his consultants might choose. But we have to take him at his word that he’s going to do everything he said he would do.”
“Hillary set out a year ago to be a champion for everyday people and to help families finally start getting ahead again in this economy,” said Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager. “That’s what she’s going to keep talking about in the general election. . . . Trump, I’m sure, will try to bully and throw out insults. That’s not going to derail her.”
Mook said: “I think they can try to remake or remodel him in any way his consultants might choose. But we have to take him at his word that he’s going to do everything he said he would do.”
“Given the anti-status quo environment in the country, Democrats need to prepare for a close and competitive general election against Donald Trump, and it would be a mistake to underestimate Trump or presume he cannot win in November,” said Geoff Garin, a top strategist in Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign who now works with the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA.
David Axelrod, who was President Obama’s top political adviser, told the 202: “She has to be disdainful of him, without being disdainful of the people who support him.”
Noting that Trump’s success fooled many people, Gingrich offered this final thought about what comes next: “Since none of us knew what was coming,” he said, “why do we now think we can project a Trump general-election campaign — including, by the way, Trump?”
Noting that Trump’s success fooled many people, Gingrich offered this final thought about what comes next: “Since none of us knew what was coming,” he said, “why do we now think we can project a Trump general-election campaign — including, by the way, Trump?”