Subject: HRC, Obama and ISIS
From: Brent Budowsky <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:54:21 +0000

Walk back and escape from her statement that "finally we are where we need to be" against ISIS.   We are not where we need to be, we are far from it, most voters do not believe it, and when the next terror attack comes in America--- which it certainly will----she will be branded in hot iron with that statement.

Does she really want to co-own the Obama-Clinton ISIS strategy?

She will never state what I believe we need to do---at least 20,000 ground troops with 3,000 American and at least 10,000 from Sunni Muslim nations---
because she is consumed with keeping Obama's goodwill and afraid of liberal backlash.

But at the least she should not be branding and infecting herself with Obama's policy towards Syria and ISIS by offering such high and direct praise for it.  If she believes there will not be any more terror attacks between now and  November 2016 it is the right strategy.  If I am right, and there will be more terror attacks in America before the election, this strategy could be a death ray to her candidacy in a general election.

She can praise Obama without such extravagant overstatement and such direct endorsement of his policy by falsely stating we are where we need to be. She can praise him but every time she does she should immediately follow it  with positive reminders of the success of the Bill Clinton presidency.  Every time she mentions Obama positively, follow it by mentioning Bill Clinton a bit more positively.  And when possible mention JFK as well.  She does NOT want to run for Obama's third term on ISIS and Syria to continue the Obama-Clinton policy against ISIS.

She appears locked into a tactical approach which is a Democratic version of the Richard Nixon strategy in the 1960's and 1970's----move left before the primaries before the nomination and then move right before the general election after the nomination.  This approach no longer works in the current media and political era where brands, images and perceptions become locked in forever much earlier in the process than the old era where news moved slow and three television networks were the source of 90% of the news.

I suspect her negative trust ratings are locked in through election day.  If there is a Trump ISIS video the campaign release it.  If not, her untrustworthy numbers will remain further locked at high levels.  These trust problems are self-induced and keep occurring.  

The best single move to elect her would be a massive voter registration and organization drive.  Expand the electorate so more voters will vote so her low trust ratings generally will have less pro rated impact, and the number of higher trust voters will be newly registered.  Most of the consultants will oppose this because they do not get paid for registering voters to elect candidates, they get paid for other things such as television ads whether those ads are effective or not.

It is no coincidence that this year Trump runs no ads, while Jeb and Hillary run the most ads with little effect.  Voter registration by contrast creates real voters and changes---and improves---the playing field itself.  There is no ad on earth that will increase her trust ratings or the enthusiasm of her voters the way a mega-registration project will increase her support on election day.

As for ISIS, the mathematically worst place for her to be is co-owner of the Obama-Clinton policy.  Obama could destroy her candidacy the same way Democrats lost control of the House, the Senate, governorships and state legislatures during her presidency.

Things happen for a reason, and either change the reason or we will end up with the same outcome.  

Brent