There will come a time when the survivor of the circular firing squad that is commonly known as the Republican primary debates will square off against Hillary Clinton. That survivor will have to grin and bear seeing multiple videos of his Republican opponents attacking him for one thing or another. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton will struggle to establish her new grandmotherly image as a caring person who, having arrived from her last stay at the White House in desperate financial condition, empathizes both with the struggling middle class and the Wall Street bankers who feed her campaign kitty, as well as with the oil oligarchs who, seeking nothing in return, pour tens of millions into the Clintons’ charity. The Republican candidate would do well to take a page from the Clinton playbook — never let anything embarrass you.
The campaign will put both parties in an awkward position — they agree that the recovery has benefitted the (in)famous 1%, and more or less left the middle class behind. But they are not certain what to do about it. Clinton has the easier task. She can rail against the glass ceilings that have kept the incomes of women lower than they would otherwise be, a complaint left over from her unsuccessful 2008 campaign before women emerged as CEOs of several Fortune 500 companies and she emerged as a candidate for the nation’s highest office. And she can soothe the disaffected left-wing core of the Democratic party by calling for more direct income redistribution.
