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This is what Hillary Clinton must do to beat Donald Trump

A new, less cautious Hillary is emerging – but she must resist being dragged into the swamp by her opponent

Rupert Cornwell
Wednesday 08 June 2016 09:15 BST
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Hillary Clinton has secured the Democratic nomination, but her opponent Donald Trump will attempt to attack her with sleaze
Hillary Clinton has secured the Democratic nomination, but her opponent Donald Trump will attempt to attack her with sleaze

Eight years ago yesterday, addressing a crowd of tearful supporters, Hillary Clinton conceded victory to Barack Obama after the closest and most riveting battle for the Democratic presidential nomination in modern times. This June 7, of 2016, after a scarcely less compelling contest with Bernie Sanders, the prize is finally in her hands.

Now just one more election stands between her and a milestone in American history: after 228 years, the advent of the first woman president of the United States; after 44 male predecessors, the first woman to hold the most powerful office on earth.

After Tuesday's last major batch of primaries – including New Mexico, New Jersey and above all California – Ms Clinton, not Mr Sanders, will be facing Donald Trump on November 8. In between stand five months of what are likely to be the foulest politics imaginable.

Hillary Clinton - we've reached a milestone

Since he secured the Republican nomination a month ago, Mr Trump has made it crystal clear he is not going to change his bigoted and insult-laden ways. But Hillary Clinton is well placed to handle them. Her path to the nomination may have been a protracted struggle rather than the once expected coronation. But after 2008 and 2016 – not mention a full quarter century on the national political stage – there is no more battle-hardened American politician of either sex.

True, she has problems. Eight years ago, in Barack Obama’s cutting phrase, it was her “likeability.” Today, add trustworthiness to that, especially after the prevarication and dissembling over her use of an unapproved private email server when she was Secretary of State. Right now, were it not for Mr Trump, she would be the most unpopular major party nominee in memory.

Her style too is unexciting; she is not a patch on either her husband or the current president as a campaigner. On top of that, she seems to have been around for ever. People are simply bored of her. That was why a 74-year-old self-proclaimed socialist, whom practically no-one had heard of a year ago, won the hearts of so many young and idealistic Democratic voters in the primaries, women included.

For all these reasons, in an anti-establishment year Hillary Clinton has come across as the epitome of the establishment, the policy nerd and insider par excellence. That handicap will persist into her struggle against Mr Trump who, whatever you think of him, is the ultimate political outsider. To ensure victory, she must break free of this image. No one (save Mr Trump) can argue with her qualifications. What she needs is excitement.

Part of that will come, her advisers believe, now that the nomination is secure, as the magnitude of what she represents, as potentially the first-ever female president, sinks in. But there are already signs that a new less cautious Hillary, more exciting and less prone to hedge her bets, is emerging.

Her speech in San Diego last week, shredding what passes for Mr Trump’s foreign policy was a revelation. It was notable not so much for what she said (anyone can shred Mr Trump’s foreign policy) but the way she said it – witty and lacerating, sometimes emotional, more often devastatingly deadpan. Please, say her supporters, more of the same.

What she must avoid, everyone agrees, is being dragged into the swamp by her opponent, who has already raised the issue of Bill Clinton’s sexual transgressions, and old scandals like the 1993 suicide of Vince Foster, the White House lawyer and close friend of the Clintons from their Arkansas days.

But Ms Clinton can surely handle this. After all she handled the humiliation of Monica Lewinsky with a dignity that won admiration even from people who weren’t her natural supporters. Compared to Mr Trump’s tissuepaper-thin skin, hers is armour-plated.

Moreover she tends to be at her best in adversity. Mistakes like the email affair happen when everything is going swimmingly. Ditto the tin ear of accepting huge fees for speeches to Wall Street banks when she was planning a presidential run and when the financial industry had never been less popular. Her biggest problem this autumn could be if things appear too easy – and once again Ms Clinton tends to shoot herself in the foot.

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