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Hello Hillary-supporting community! It’s great to be with you today. Lysis and I have swapped our days this week, because I’m going to be busy Thursday and he is a total mensch. Thanks, Lysis!
Now on to the positive Hillary news and opinion roundup!
Hillary campaigned in Kent, Ohio yesterday. (The Heavy has some fantastic photographs.)
Tom Troy at the Toledo Blade has some local coverage:
“Even the prospect of an actual nuclear war doesn’t seem to bother Donald Trump,” Mrs. Clinton said. “‘Go ahead and enjoy yourselves folks’ was his comment about a potential nuclear conflict in Asia. “To talk so cavalierly about mass annihilation is truly appalling,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Imagine him plunging us into a war because someone got under his very thin skin.”
She made quick work of the renewed FBI investigation into the emails she kept on a private server when she was secretary of state. She said the FBI is now looking at the emails of her associate, an apparent reference to campaign vice chairman, Huma Abedin. “I am sure they will reach the same conclusions when they looked at my emails for the last year - there is no case here and they said it is not even a close call,” Mrs. Clinton said to an enthusiastically cheering crowd that appeared to be mostly students.
Mrs. Clinton also criticized Mr. Trump’s suggestion that NATO is obsolete and what she called an apparent close relationship between Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pre-med student Kerri Blank is, at 17, not old enough to vote, but is “definitely supporting” Mrs. Clinton. “She stands for most of the stuff I stand for and doesn’t criticize people continuously like Donald Trump does,” Ms. Blank said. The email probe is “ridiculous.” Causes that she shares with Mrs. Clinton are abortion rights, equal pay for women, and equality for everyone,” Ms. Blank said
Among other surrogates campaigning for Clinton yesterday, Cher revved up the crowds at Michigan State University, as Beth LeBlanc reports for the Lansing State Journal:
The musician and actress told the crowd stories from her youth and of her encounters with Clinton, and her hopes for the country. She also urged young voters to hit the polls on Nov. 8. “As women we have gone through so much, so the idea of having a woman president … it's long in coming and it’s a great thing,” Cher said. “It’s not just a great idea because of Hillary, it’s a great idea because of our daughters being able to realize that there is a ceiling that’s been broken through and any one of them could be president.”
Carli Bushell, a 19-year-old sophomore at MSU, said she’s voting for Clinton on Nov. 8 because of Clinton’s views on criminal justice reform and abortion. Bushell, a criminal justice major, said the event Monday gave her a chance to be with others supporting the candidate. “She’s really funny and she kind of raised the atmosphere,” Bushell said. “The atmosphere was really light.”
Carol Swinehart of East Lansing said she was happy to be around young people as excited as she was about the Democratic candidate. “I love that vibe,” the 76-year-old woman said
There will be a number of campaign events today; one of the more notable will be Tim Kaine’s campaign stop in Arizona, where he will become the first major party VP candidate to deliver a speech entirely in Spanish:
Kaine, who interrupted his law school studies to do missionary work in Honduras, is fluent in Spanish and often breaks into the language on the campaign trail. But aides said his Phoenix remarks will be the first time a major-party presidential ticket candidate has delivered an entire speech in Spanish at an official campaign event.
He is also scheduled to appear at a rally Thursday in Tucson.
Kaine, a senator from Virginia, also made history in 2013 when he became the first sitting senator to deliver a speech on the chamber’s floor in Spanish. His topic was immigration reform.
Anita Bennett at the LA Daily News reports that the latest manufactured email “scandal” is not affecting Clinton’s support among African-American voters:
According to Benjamin Chavis, CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, most respondents said the email saga was “not a factor” in their choice for president. “Let me put it this way, African-Americans who were polled said that these latest revelations did not sway their vote one way or another,” Chavis said by telephone in an exclusive preview of the poll.
Of those contacted, 94 percent said they plan to participate in the Nov. 8 election, and most said they plan to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee.
“Those who responded to the poll overwhelmingly favor Hillary Clinton,” Chavis said. “There were only minimal responses for Donald Trump. From the responses, it’s pretty solidly Democratic. It’s interesting, not just for the top of the ticket, but down ticket also.”
Speaking of Clinton supporters, Matt Kwong at CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) writes about Alabamians For Hillary:
... the Blue Dots run an operation that's at once fatalistic and optimistic. They've all but abandoned Alabama as a lost cause while organizing car pools and bus trips into its all-important neighbouring swing state. "When we go across the line to Florida, that's where we can make a difference," says Clark, co-ordinator for the South Baldwin County Democrats.
Languishing in the parking lot just outside, the Barnetts' grey Hyundai Santa Fe boldly displays an "I Heart Hillary" sticker on the dashboard.Other Clinton supporters opted for a subtler way of imparting their party loyalty — decals of an unassuming blue circle in a field of red. From a car-length away, you'd have to squint to read the text beneath: "Another bright blue dot in a really red state."
Will Nevin, 31, a Clinton supporter and college instructor in Tuscaloosa, about five hours north, has spotted the stickers on the road. He's had his own encounters with intimidation. He recalls a time in 2008 when he had an Obama bumper sticker and another driver waved him down from behind. "I roll down my window, like do I have a flat tire or something? And he starts yelling at me about 'Obama's a traitor' or 'Obama's a secret Muslim.'"
And The Economist has a look at suburban white women supporting Clinton:
KAREN KATZ has campaigned for the Democrats at every general election since Robert F. Kennedy’s fateful bid for the presidency in 1968. Now aged 70, she had planned to sit out this year’s campaign. But she became alarmed by the number of women in her suburb of Philadelphia who said they were going to vote for Donald Trump. So in August, when Hillary Clinton’s campaign opened an office in Bucks county, one of four “collar counties” that surround Philadelphia, Ms Katz volunteered to work the phones three evenings a week. “It’s exhausting,” she says. “But I’ve got two daughters and I’m doing this for them.”
This has put Ms Katz at the centre of one of the election’s biggest battles. Mr Trump’s lead over Mrs Clinton with men, especially working-class white men, means she must win women by a big margin, which in turn means capturing college-educated white women, a group that tends to lean Republican. Suburban white women, who tend to be college-educated and thickly concentrated in battleground states, have therefore emerged as one of the most important groups of swing voters in this election.
... Around half said they would vote for Mrs Clinton. “How could I vote for anyone else?” asked Rosemarie, a retired teacher who runs the gift shop her parents opened in 1947, which sells imported Bristol blue glass from the eponymous city in England. “She is a person of great accomplishments who wants to use that for the good of others. It drives me crazy how she is attacked and I don’t understand where it comes from. There’s a big male component.”
The Associated Press has an important story that might get lost under the barrage of Trumpian trash and FBI shenanigans: “Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Quietly Put Together a Domestic Agenda”:
Hillary Clinton’s advisers are crafting a domestic policy agenda for the opening months of a potential presidency that is centered on three issues with some level of Republican support: an infrastructure package that emphasizes job creation, criminal justice reform, and immigration legislation—with the promise of quick executive action if a bill fails in Congress.
Clinton’s team has actively looked for ways to avoid the traps that have sunk President Barack Obama’s bid for an immigration overhaul in 2013. Sweeping legislation that included a path to citizenship for millions of people illegally in the U.S. passed the Senate that year, but Republican leaders in the House refused to put the measure up for a vote.
Advocacy groups have discussed with Clinton aides the prospect of pushing the House to act on immigration first this time around, testing the will of a chamber that is expected to stay in Republican hands.
Writing at New York Magazine, Eric Levitz has more on planned Clinton policy:
To the extent that there’s been GOP buy-in for these proposals, however, that support has been contingent on lacing the bills with provisions that might make liberal Democrats squirm. Clinton has not proposed financing her infrastructure package through new debt, as former Treasury secretary Larry Summers has suggested, but rather via corporate tax reform. The specific reform that has the most bipartisan traction at the moment is a deal to give American corporations a giant tax cut on their overseas earnings, in exchange for those companies repatriating the $2.5 trillion in profits they’ve been hoarding offshore. Which is to say: The United States would pay a multi-trillion-dollar ransom to these corporations to get them to release the taxable profits they’ve been holding hostage abroad. This would amount to a huge win for the tax evaders, but would likely generate enough revenue to pass a deficit-neutral infrastructure package (even if the tax rate on overseas earnings was slashed to 10 percent, one-tenth of $2.5 trillion can build a decent number of roads and bridges).
Clinton does plan to hold the threat of executive action over the GOP lawmakers’ heads, suggesting that, if they refuse to cooperate, she will continue to liberalize immigration enforcement via fiat (after appointing a fifth liberal justice to the Court who would, presumably, give her the green light to do so). But most Republicans will prefer to cast Clinton as an unconstitutional tyrant rather than cast themselves as lovers of “amnesty” in some future primary opponents’ attack ad.
Ultimately, a similar political calculus will likely prevent Republican cooperation with even the most reactionary-friendly version of Clinton’s other policy priorities. At the end of the day, denying a Democratic president any political victories is a higher priority for the GOP than advancing their own policy goals. After all, Barack Obama embraced the Heritage Foundation’s vision of health-care reform — and was promptly declared a treasonous socialist who refused to make any good-faith effort at Republican outreach.
Vogue and Glamour made their first ever residential endorsements this year. Here’s a really interesting piece of analysis about that from from Emma Bazilian at AdWeek, “Why More Women’s Magazines are Taking a Stand This Election”:
Vogue's endorsement may not come as a surprise, considering that Vogue has been actively covering Clinton for decades (she's been profiled in the magazine a total of six times) and its editor in chief Anna Wintour is a well-known Democratic fundraiser, but there's no question that its treatment of the current election cycle is more robust than ever before. Online, Vogue.com has dutifully followed the ups and downs of the political cycle with headlines like "Donald Trump Is Not an Aberration: Your Nightmare Election Recap" and "Hillary Clinton Awesomely Defended Abortion Rights at the Debate"—not what you might think of as standard Vogue fare—and teamed up with celebrities, models and designers on a series of videos encouraging readers to vote.
...Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive made her own first endorsement, also of Clinton, in the November editor's letter. "It never seemed at all appropriate before, but in this election cycle, I felt that the interests of young women were really clear," she said. "This is an election where, politics completely aside, one candidate has displayed respect for women and their interests and concerns, and the other has displayed a decades-long lack of respect for women. It felt like a very clear distinction to me, and as the election grew closer, I could see that our audience, for the most part, were with us."
...One of the more politically outspoken voices in the women's magazine world, Hearst chief content officer and former Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles, welcomes the industry's political activism. "I don't find it surprising that other women's magazines have endorsed Hillary, and it's not because she's a woman; it's because she's clearly the most suitable, experienced candidate for the job, and it's also clear that despite what he says, the Republican nominee has a frightening lack of respect for women," she said, adding, "We don't want a groper-in-chief."
There’s much more at the link. Eleanor Roosevelt, as you may know, provided a real boost to women’s political journalism when she held women-only press conferences as First Lady. It will be interesting to see if Clinton’s presidency also proves groundbreaking, strengthening and deepening the political engagement of women’s magazines.
At ShareBlue, Peter Daou muses on the importance of Clinton’s strength:
With every bizarre twist in the 2016 election, every new anti-Hillary tempest, every dire warning of her campaign’s imminent demise, I remember Hillary Clinton telling a small group of 2008 aides that she viewed herself as the “tip of the spear” for women and girls.
That phrase has stayed with me, four words that sum up a philosophy of life, a willingness to test limits and smash barriers, an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an acceptance of the inscrutable unfolding of each moment.
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign embodies that philosophy. In her final quest to end a 227-year shutout of women at the pinnacle of government, she has been the tip of the spear, piercing through fierce resistance to reach a destination that is now only days away. She does so without fear in her eyes, only determination and joy.
At Huffington Post, Petra Perkins muses on A Day in the Life of Hillary Clinton:
...Whereas the second time’s a charm, so is Hillary. She is more charming, engaged, encouraging, and real this time around. She has more depth, warmth, humor and dimension than in the first run. I know her better. I analyze her every move. She inspires my confidence by risking more than before. I like this mover and shaker, this cultural warrior woman. Her courage, stamina, guts and bottomless brass grow wider/taller/thicker each day. Madame Secretary is my go-to action figure, one I think about when I need to get fired up to write 600 words.
Most of the world is rooting for Hillary, not just slightly more than half of America. But then there are the haters. Unlike me and most people I know, Hillary has to deal with haters every single day. My Facebook friend, author Pam L. Houston, writes: “The haters on both sides seem to completely disregard the fact that she’s a human being.” Not just an action figure, or avatar, but a real human being….
I agree with Pam: Hillary deserves a hand. Thousands of supportive hands. Anyone can lend a hand on any Day in the Life of Hillary Clinton in the form of words - a relentless barrage of words from kindred spirits. Words are a form of action. (Become your own action figure!) At the very least, we can say just one word: ENOUGH. We can say it once, or 600 times a day. Now that would add up! If we all say ENOUGH enough, it will be loud enough.
And now, because I like to end with something fun, how about some extremely cute kids dressed as Hillary for Halloween?
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States. If you would like to support @Scan and his work there, visit GoFundMe and make a donation.
Header image by Barbara Kinney for Hillary For America. Used under Creative Common license.