Clinton campaign aims for style, substance points amid scrutiny

Martha T. Moore | USA TODAY

In the weeks since she formally, finally announced her campaign for the presidency in April, Hillary Clinton has sought to score points for style and substance.

Style, to convince Democratic voters that she won't run like an incumbent who views the primaries as a mere formality — a complaint about her 2008 presidential campaign. Substance, to signal her liberal bona fides to Democrats who long for the bank-bashing Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get into the presidential nominating contest.

So Clinton took a road trip halfway across the U.S. from New York to Iowa in a van nicknamed Scooby Doo and stopped to grab a bite at a Chipotle in Ohio. She met with small groups of voters for "roundtable discussions" in which she nodded and listened — much as she did when she began running for the Senate in 2000, breaking ground as the first first lady to run for office.

Early reviews say Clinton has achieved what she set out to do when she launched her campaign on April 12. However, as she looks ahead to the next phase of her presidential bid and tries to continue to avoid the missteps that cost her in 2008, she will be challenged to put forward a clear rationale for her candidacy while dueling with scrutiny from press she has largely kept at bay.

Clinton "cleared a couple of important hurdles,'' says Democratic consultant Ben LaBolt, press secretary for President Obama's 2012 campaign. "The first is, showing that she's relatable and down to earth.''

So far, Clinton's campaign staff seems to be functioning smoothly, without the internal turmoil that marked her 2008 effort, says Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Report. "Her campaign may make new mistakes but certainly seems like they won't be making the same mistakes as last time. The arrogance seems to be gone.''

APPEALS TO THE LEFT

On the issues, she's staking out ground that should appeal to liberal primary voters. She has said she favors citizenship for illegal immigrants, supports same-sex marriage, and suggested a constitutional amendment to reform campaign finance. When she said in an April speech in New York that economic success should be measured "by how many families get ahead and stay ahead,'' she added a jab at Wall Street, calling family income a "far better measure (of prosperity) than the size of the bonuses handed out in downtown office buildings.''

Her call for "an end to mass incarceration'' in a speech on criminal justice reform April 29 was an implicit acknowledgment of flaws in President Bill Clinton's 1994 crime initiative, which funded thousands of police officers during a tough-on-crime era that sent prison populations soaring.

Her campaign says Clinton's policy statements so far haven't been aimed at the party's left wing in particular. Immigration, criminal justice reform and same-sex marriage have "a common theme of justice, fairness, equity, social justice. The thematic that runs through them is consistent to her and her life's work,'' spokesman Jesse Ferguson says.

Her willingness to articulate positions on important issues to Democrats hasn't cost her in polls of New Hampshire voters, says Neil Levesque of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm's College. "Sometimes incumbents or people who have big leads tend to equivocate because they don't want to lose anybody,'' he says. "She didn't do that.''

However, Clinton still faces pressure from the Democratic left wing over President Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade proposal, which many in her party oppose .

Clinton backed the NAFTA deal negotiated during Bill Clinton's administration and supported the Pacific pact while secretary of State. Now she says she wants to wait until a final agreement on TPP is reached before taking a position. .

Like Jeb Bush's efforts to differentiate himself from President George W. Bush, Clinton's policy statements, while early in the campaign, are a way to distinguish herself from her husband, LaBolt says. "She showed in the crime speech that they're not the same candidate."

However, the scattershot policy pronouncements have yet to reveal what her campaign is all about, says Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa. What's needed, he says, is a clear rationale for her candidacy. "She still, I think, has not solved that problem. Other than the fact that she desperately wants to be president … what would Hillaryism mean to the country?'' he says.

Too soon, LaBolt says, given that the first primaries are still seven months away. "Voters don't really engage until a lot closer until Election Day and you don't want to go out and talk about your signature initiatives until you're sure voters are tuned in.''

THE NEXT PHASE

Her campaign insists that the slow rollout in the opening weeks was all about letting Clinton learn what voters want and need. But it also provides an opportunity for a handful of primary-state residents to get near a woman who has been demonized, as well as idolized, for decades.

"If she can continue to have those conversations (with voters), then that process is valuable both ways,'' Ferguson says.



"A candidate who has not been in the mix in a while needs to find out what the big issues are and what people are dealing with,'' says Levesque. "I think that she played it right ... You really need to know how much a gallon of milk is before you get into New Hampshire and Iowa.''

Clinton's campaign has also designed her fundraising activity to appear low-key — though she will be the beneficiary of the super PAC Priorities USA. She has kept a busy schedule of fundraising at events where individual donations are capped at $2,700. The events are hosted by bundlers called "Hillstarters,'' supporters who promise to recruit 10 donations of $2,700 each — a relatively low bar in the world of political finance.



Clinton has agreed to participate in six primary debates. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is the only other announced Democratic candidate, but former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley has an announcement set for May 30. Lincoln Chafee, a former Rhode Island governor, and former Virginia senator Jim Webb are also considering runs.

Clinton needs more opponents, not fewer, to succeed, Goldford says. "She desperately needs some top-tier competition to keep her sharp.''

Clinton will complete her tour of the primary states with another trip to New Hampshire later this week, then a May 27 visit to South Carolina; she was in Iowa on Monday and Tuesday. Her campaign says it will be "a continuing process where she's going to be on the road, continuing to listen to voters,'' Ferguson says. "Then we are going to turn to a more concrete polished rollout phase of the campaign. We're still in the phase where the first priority is making sure she has those conversations.''

All of her initial campaign activity has taken place against a backdrop of continued controversy: over donations to the Clinton foundation from foreign donors, over her use of personal email while secretary of State and over the 2012 Benghazi attack on American diplomats, including a report from The New York Times this week about memos on Libya she received from Sidney Blumenthal, a friend who worked for the Clinton Foundation, while Clinton was at the State Department.

News organizations, as well as Republicans, have hammered Clinton for not giving interviews while campaigning. On Tuesday, she fielded questions from reporters for the first time in weeks.

Clinton should make that issue go away, Cook says, if only by holding off-the-record sessions as her top campaign staff did with journalists prior to her announcement. "Have them over to the house and make nice, just to get them off her back,'' he says.

But it will be larger campaign themes that determine Clinton's success, Cook says, rather than the running undercurrent of media snubbing or scandal stories.

"It will be about bigger things. If Clinton can project herself as fresh ideas and future oriented, generating energy and excitement, she will do very well,'' he says.

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