by Royce Radcliffe

Created on: May 05, 2008   Last Updated: May 30, 2008

Hillary's appeal to the blue collar vote will by definition be financial. Her greatest strength in this hotly contested primary election is her knowledge of the economy. Her experience in the Senate mainly caps off the perception that she learned a lot as First Lady in those eight years. When she talks about her experience, she is really talking about her experience behind a great economy during her husband's presidency.

She was Bill's confidant for eight years as the economy saw a surplus every quarter. Considering the state we find ourselves in now the job he did then was masterful. And in the public eye at least some of that success has to rub off on her. Not that she is a puppet, but you would have to think he would comment if he saw a poor policy being enacted...

Against Obama her main edge is experience and perception of superiority in terms of manipulating and dealing with the economy. There is little to criticize with a man with such a small record to pick from but the advantage for her is that she can portray him as green when it comes to the economy... in my opinion she mentions the experience issue enough but does not do a good enough job of selling the fact that it is experience specifically in the economy that sets her apart. In these economically troubled times it would be advantageous to do so.

Against McCain she would have a different sort of advantage on this issue. He has been supporting Bush on msot issues on his extreme agenda for years. Many of these issues have gotten us into the mess we are in today. Not just Iraq. Apart from Iraq she can challenge McCain on a number of financial issues. But then there is Iraq itself.

Her voting to go to Iraq costs her the right to argue against the thing that has possibly done more than any other single element to hurl our economy into a recession. Her and McCain have this in common, and her lambasting the effort now reeks of hypocrisy to many of the same crowd that supported Bush at the time.

So of course when it comes to the republican vote it is going to be tough sledding for Hillary. And a lot of blue collar workers constitute that vote. I think due to an emotional reaction to her and her husband that she would get far fewer crossover votes from that particular blue collar camp than Obama would. The more hardcore republicans would certainly go so far as to put out adds associating her with socialism, attempting to negate her strengh within the eyes of the public.

It would stand a good chance of working, too.

Hillary will have to tout herself from a purely technical standpoint, almost like an accountant. Pull her husband close and acknowledge his tremendous influence. She has to distance herslef from her Iraq vote if possible and project a future where this economy is reverted back to how it was in the Clinton years. It is a longshot.

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