John -- a different approach to putting Bengazi Republicans on the defensive while siding with Americans

From:paulh@harstadresearch.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2015-10-19 22:10 Subject: John -- a different approach to putting Bengazi Republicans on the defensive while siding with Americans

I’m sure you guys are extremely thoroughly prepared for the Bengazi hearing. But I just want to offer up this one angle of offense that may or may notl have occurred to your team. One advantage of this is that it is about PEOPLE and not about Hillary Clinton. Another advantage is that it is a broader indictment of the Congressional Republicans than just the Bengazi committee. It shows their totally skewed and misplaced priorities. The question and challenge Hillary Clinton could pose would be: “Why is this committee spending over $4 million dollars and two years on a tragedy involving the death of 4 Americans while House Republicans have held few or no hearings on the: 480,000 death of Americans from cigarette smoking per year per CDC. This costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year. 33,169 deaths of Americans from firearms in 2013 per CDC. More people have died from firearms (including suicides, guns being by far the most fatal of all suicide means) in the U.S. since 1970 than American servicemen had died in all of our wars in the entire U.S. history. This says nothing about another 75,000 gun injuries. 4,679 work injury deaths of Americans in 2014 And these comparisons are relevant to the Republican assault on Planned Parenthood and budget cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. 41,555 Americans died from breast cancer in 2012 per CDC 18,478 Americans died from ovarian and cervical cancer in 2012 per CDC These are only annual figures. One could reasonably expand the time frame to 10 years, or dating back to the Bengazi attack in Sept 2011, or dating back to Republican’s control of the House in Nov 2010. Any of these would clearly run the number of deaths over 1 million — if not several million. If she wants to draw it out, she can further indict House Republicans for being motivated by campaign donations from the tobacco industry, the extreme gun lobbyists, etc. I believe this challenge could be potent enough to garner a headline — and have Hillary Clinton stand up for Americans rather than for herself while putting Republicans much further on the defensive. Let me know what you think. Best, Paul Paul Harstad HARSTAD STRATEGIC RESEARCH, INC 2820 N. Lakeridge Trail <x-apple-data-detectors://3> Boulder, CO 80302 <x-apple-data-detectors://3> Tel: 303-545-0200 <tel:303-545-0200> Cell: 303-249-1196 <tel:303-249-1196> Fax: 866-849-8018 <tel:866-849-8018> PaulH@HarstadResearch.com <mailto:PaulH@HarstadResearch.com> NOTICE: This communication (including attachments) is covered by the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, U.S.C. sections 2510-2521, is confidential, and may contain privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, or believe that you have received this communication in error, please do not print, copy, retransmit, disseminate, or otherwise use this communication or the information contained herein or attached hereto. Also, please notify sender that you have received this email in error, and delete the copy you received. Thank you.