Instances of presidential candidates trolling each other have amused many in the media of late. Think of Trump trolling Rubio by sending him bottled water. Or Trump’s Twitter supporters trolling just about everyone. Or Rand Paul’s PAC trolling Jeb Bush with ads accompanying a Google search of Bush’s name. Now it’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in yet another attempt to appeal to the young whippersnapper kids online, that has attempted to step up its troll game.
On last week’s Saturday Night Live, Hillary defied the odds (and her bedtime!) to appear in a cameo in a sketch with Kate McKinnon, who plays Hillary on SNL better than Hillary plays herself. Clinton appeared as a “server” with a “cloth” and dropped her best Trump impression. The mainstream media loved her appearance so much that they took the following days off from advocating repealing the Second Amendment to remind everyone of how great it was.
Earlier this week her campaign released an ad entitled “A Message from @KevinMcCarthy,” featuring a man from Iowa who shares the name of and keeps getting tweets about the no-longer-speaker-to-be and his gaffe relating to the House Benghazi Special Committee. This ad won’t convince a single New Hampshire voter to abandon his love affair with Bernie Sanders, but it sure was clever — and once again, the media loved it!
But Hillary’s master class in trolling came when she decided to send a copy of her book Tough Choices . . . er, sorry, that’s the title of Carly Fiorina’s book from 2006 . . . her book Hard Choices to her Republican rivals.
She even used the formal names for Bobby Jindal (Piyush) and Ted Cruz (Rafael) in letters touting her achievements as Secretary of State that accompanied the books. Pretty good troll for someone whose 2008 campaign devoted a great deal of resources trying to “otherize” a candidate named “Barack”. With their non-responses to the prank, it appeared that all GOP candidates (other than troll extraordinaire Rand Paul) were once again passing up several opportunities to troll Hillary right back.
Marco Rubio could have responded with an ad tied to his campaign theme of promoting mobile application technology by asking why she sent a hardcover book when no one under the age of 30 buys them anymore. Maybe Hillary has never heard of a Kindle or just chooses not to use one because she can’t e-mail Sid Blumenthal from it. Plus, there’s the whole dead-trees thing. #ActOnClimate!
Jeb Bush could have sent the book back to her campaign with a note asking her to “pls print in bigger print.”
But none of these proposals would have been as embarrassing as what Hillary herself did a day after her book stunt. Coming out against Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal was of course a political calculation which proves, among other things, that right now she’s more spooked by Bernie Sanders than she was by Barack Obama at any point in 2008. Hillary released a full statement and sat down for an interview on PBS News Hour.
“What I know about it as of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” Clinton said. “I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the agreement, but I’m worried.”
One big problem: On page 77 of her memoir — the same memoir she sent to her GOP rivals — she wrote this:
One of our most important tools for engaging with Vietnam was a proposed new trade agreement called Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would link markets throughout Asia and the America, and lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment and intellectual property. As President Obama explained, the gold of the TPP negotiating is to establish “a high standard, enforceable, meaningful trade agreement” that “is going to be incredibly powerful for American companies who, up until this point, have often been locked out of those markets.” It was also important for American workers, who would benefit from competing on a more level playing field. And it was a strategic initiative that would strengthen the position of the United States in Asia.
As noted by Jake Tapper on CNN, Clinton supported Obama’s TPP proposals on 45 separate occasions as Secretary of State. Susan Rice called it one of Clinton’s greatest accomplishments. The day before Hillary came out against TPP, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former Clinton aide, was on NPR praising her work on it as a great accomplishment.
Great move, Grandma.
What part of one of her greatest accomplishments (according to the Obama administration and her own aides) is she unsure of after working on it for four years?
So Hillary claims ignorance of TPP’s details on TV while citing in her book that she sent to GOP candidates that she was an intricate part in negotiating the entire deal. What part of one of her greatest accomplishments (according to the Obama administration and her own aides) is she unsure of after working on it for four years?
Now, you can almost picture Ted Cruz making a delicious ad in response to all this. He’d be sitting fireside in a cozy cotton cardigan, sipping on a pumpkin spice latté with Hillary’s book on his lap. After a brief narration about Hillary’s coming out against TPP, the camera would pan to Cruz as he turns to the page where Hillary writes she supports it, awkwardly clearing his throat.
Hillary now finds herself in a familiar position with voters. She appears characteristically untrustworthy, unprincipled, and unprepared on the eve of the first Democratic debate. Her rivals are sure to hit her on her nasty habit of flip-flopping to positions solely for the purpose of fulfilling her bloodlust for immortality. If she’s so unsure of the positions she’s held in the past, her Democratic rivals should be allowed to carry her book on stage with them and gently remind her what they are.
Now that would be a magnificent troll.