President Obama’s former top political adviser, David Axelrod, took some shots at Hillary Clinton in a Slate interview from over the weekend. Clinton, Axelrod said, is on “double secret, super probation” after flip-flopping and declining to support Obama’s trade bill that she previously championed.
“The operative word is ‘genuine,'” Axelrod explained. “I mean, whatever she does, she has to do it genuinely. She’ on like double secret, super probation here when it comes to inauthenticity. And I don’t think that the position she took on the Trans-Pacific Partnership the other day has helped in that regard because she’s got dozens and dozens and dozens of comments on the record in support of this agreement and this process. And I’m sure she’s going to get some barbed questions and comments on that in this debate.
“She has to be very careful about not looking like she is not reading from a script.
“As for the grandmother thing, I actually — I’m a new grandparent, so I’m partial to these references — but it’s become a bit hackneyed.
“So I just think the biggest thing they have to do is filter everything they do through that authenticity lens. Because if she comes off as inauthentic, it’s going to just compound what seems to be the core problem facing her right now.”
