In the old “Hogan\’s Heroes” sitcom, Sgt. Schultz continually used the line “I saw nothing!”
The Hillary Clinton campaign is using the same strategy, by changing one letter. It\’s line is “I say nothing!”.
Jake Tapper got a taste of that yesterday, on his CNN show, “The Lead”, when he tried to get a straight answer out of Clinton spokesperson Karen Finney about her position on trade agreement we have heard so much about – with so few specifics – over the past year.
I pulled this transcript from P. J. Gladnick\’s blog at newsbusters.org. The bold print is mine:
JAKE TAPPER: First I want to ask you about this breaking news in Washington D.C. today and about Secretary Clinton\’s position on the President\’s trade bill. In a 2012 speech in Australia, Clinton who was a big proponent of the Pacific Partnership bill said quote, “It sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free transparent fair trade. The kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.” It sounds to me like she is a big supporter of it but as a candidate she said nothing about it.
KAREN FINNEY: Well, but what you just read, that was from 2012 and we are now in 2015 and this deal has gone back and forth between the House and the Senate and then it sounds like we are going back and forth again another couple of times so that is part of why as you played earlier on your show, Hillary has made it very clear that she has her two kind of standards. Any trade deal has to meet those two tests and she has voted for trade agreements that she thought were good and she has voted against those that she thought were bad.
TAPPER: Okay so she opposes this one?
FINNEY: Well, no, that is why she has said that though that she really believes what\’s really important from a policy perspective, not the political conversation, she really believes that the final language is really what is important. Because we can talk about currency manipulation but how do we get there? How do we accomplish that?
TAPPER: But Karen I am talking about policy because Democrats in the House and Senate have now voted on this. This is an issue that every single Democrat who has announced that they are running for the presidency has taken a position on except for the one who helped push it and did she even help write it? I believe she helped write it.
FINNEY: I can\’t speak to that because I wasn\’t at the State Department. But again I just go back to the bigger picture and that is what she has really been focused on. And I hear what you are saying and I know that there are people who, you know, they have things that they want her to say about this but she and, you know, you played her own words. This is how she has laid out her position on this issue in terms of does it protect American workers, does it keep America safe, what is the final language? I mean again you have seen the ping-pong back and forth…
TAPPER: But Obama says it does. Pelosi says it doesn\’t. I don\’t think. I\’m not asking her about her personal life…
FINNEY: Do you really think we are at final language at this point? I don\’t think we\’re done at this point given the game.
TAPPER: Karen, isn\’t this exactly what people hate about politicians? That they won\’t take a position because as soon as they take a position they are so fearful what the response is going to be from voters? Like she was part of this administration. This administration supports this trade bill. Okay, what I don\’t understand is why you just won\’t say we oppose it now in its current form. We oppose it. We don\’t support it anymore.
FINNEY: You know what Jake, I hear you. And again my point is I think when she has talked to voters what they have wanted to talk to her about is the economy and jobs and college affordability so…
TAPPER: This IS about the economy and jobs! This is the little switcheroo people do sometimes. Like as if I am asking about her hair or her clothes. I\’m not. I\’m asking about a trade deal.
FINNEY: I didn\’t say that you were saying that. My point is she has made it very clear where she is broadly on ths deal. I don\’t think we are at the final language…
TAPPER: So generally speaking she supports it?
FINNEY: Generally speaking any trade deal has to meet her two tests and that is where she is at.
TAPPER: I can see I am getting nowhere…
Keep \’em ignorant, Hillary. Yeah, that\’s the ticket. After all, if they love you, it won\’t be a problem at all, they\’ll still love you anyway.
I talk a lot in this blog about low information voters – i.e. people who know little or nothing about the people they support…other than their party designation and their skin color. That is sad.
But I\’ll tell you another class of voter that is just as sad: people who do read, do have at least some knowledge of what is going on (usually just headlines and quick TV news bites)…but have a conclusion in mind, and tailor whatever information they have to that conclusion.
These are the people who might know there are problems with a candidate, reasons that would logically cause them to rethink their support….but who work at figuring out ways to rationalize those problems away, because they don\’t want to acknowledge they might have been supporting the wrong person. The people who watch an exchange like the one above, and try to put it out of their minds.
They don\’t want to be the one who departs from the second-naturedly accepted orthodoxy at a party or over a dinner table….the one who is jumped on by the others, and maybe talked about afterwards as “one of those”. Life is easier when everyone agrees, isn\’t it? Just stay in line and nod along with each other. Then things are fine.
Hillary Clinton has an army of voters like this. I wonder if she\’ll be able to hold them through November of next year….assuming she\’s even the candidate.
