Political pundits on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign could benefit by taking a page from Republican rival Carly Fiorina’s campaign playbook.
The panel weighed in on a recent clip of Clinton speaking to supporters in Iowa, calling her performance “dismal” and describing her campaign style as outdated.
“She is reading notes every three words while she’s attacking Donald Trump,” host Joe Scarborough said, adding that Clinton “can’t draw these crowds right now.”
“When you watch that, my first reaction is: Am I watching Hillary Clinton or am I watching a ‘Saturday Night Live’ parody of Hillary Clinton?” said GOP strategist Steve Schmidt.
“The performance level is beyond abysmal,” Schmidt continued. “It’s horrendous, and it’s completely out of step with the mood of the country right now.”
“It almost just feels like [her] approach to the campaign is ’90s-esque, as if everybody’s waiting to hear from her,” added co-host Mika Brzezinski. “Everybody’s watching everybody.”
“I think Hillary [Clinton] is speaking like it’s still 1990,” said another female panelist. “She’s still talking about a vast right-wing conspiracy when it’s Obama’s State Department looking for her emails.”
According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll out Tuesday, the former secretary of state has lost nearly 30 percent of her support among Democratic women nationwide in just two months since July. Moreover, Clinton’s Democratic rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, took the lead (41-40 percent) for the first time in Iowa Monday in a survey of voters by Quinnipiac University.
While Clinton faces declining poll numbers and a push by campaign staffers to be more “spontaneous,” her female challenger, Fiorina, is slowly becoming the darling of the GOP. Fiorina has jumped to the No. 5 spot in the Washington Examiner‘slatest presidential power rankings.
“One person who’s really making waves and standing out is Carly Fiorina,” noted Brzezinski.
The panel then reacted to a new ad by Fiorina’s super PAC, CARLY for America, in reaction to Donald Trump’s recent comments about her looks. The ad features soundbites from the former business executive’s recent speech to the National Federation of Republican women in which she responded to Trump, saying: “This is the face of a 61-year-old woman. I am proud of every year and every wrinkle.”
“I got chills,” Scarborough said after the panel watched the ad.
“We’ve been saying for months, she’s proved us right at the first debate, she’s proved us right again here with this ad,” co-anchor Willie Geist added. “That’s how you turn a moment like that, without making a cheap attack back at Donald Trump, and turn it into something like that ad we see right there.”
Speaking about Clinton’s performance in comparison to Fiorina’s, Scarborough said earlier in the panel: “A lot of democrats are really bummed out.”
