MANCHESTER, NH -- On primary day here in the Granite State, please consider the current state of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign: (1) She is about to get beaten handily by a disheveled Socialist in a state she carried over Barack Obama in 2008, on the heels of a virtual tie in Iowa. According to recent polling, she trails Marco Rubio in New Hampshire, and is underperforming Sanders by double-digits against Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. She's trailing Sanders among all Democratic age cohorts aside from her own -- senior citizens -- and getting absolutely blown out with voters under 40:
These numbers. Just wow. #FeelTheBern pic.twitter.com/jw9C4WGO3J
— Justin Wedes (@justinwedes) February 8, 2016
(2) After days of mendaciously portraying the FBI's serious, expanded, multi-pronged criminal investigation into her national security-compromising emails and related conduct as a "security review," the Bureau has now publicly repudiated her spin. It's real, and it's spectacular.
(3) In an effort to signal that the contents of the dozens of (non-deleted) top-secret-and-above emails found on her unsecure server were "innocuous" (false), Hillary's campaign is asking that the emails be released publicly -- knowing full well that isn't possible, for national security reasons. It's her own former agency that has deemed those messages so sensitive that they cannot even be disclosed in redacted form.
(4) Meanwhile, while cynically urging the release of national security-endangering emails, Team Clinton is resisting publishing the transcripts of her six-figure speeches to Wall Street firms. She claims she used those addresses to speak truth to power, warning bankers about mortgage crisis before the 2008 crash. Really? Let's see the proof of that self-serving tale. She also says she accepted the financials firms' high speaking fees because "that's what they offered." No, it's what she charged. By the way, how do we know these withheld transcripts even exist? Because she herself required them, along with other elaborate speaking demands. We know she was reckless in her handling of national security secrets, but she's assiduously protective of whatever she said in those speeches. Why?
(5) Relatedly, Clinton insists she can't be bought, yet serious unanswered questions remain about the dodgy and unreported donations to the Clinton Foundation "slush fund" (and lucrative speaking fees) from people and entities that were actively lobbying her State Department. Also, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has raised the issue of Hillary's 2001 switched vote in the Senate, for which Hillary has an incoherent explanation.
(6) Frustrated by Bernie Sanders' insolent refusal to instantly bow to her coronation, Hillary Clinton and her allies have ratcheted up their cries of "sexism." Gloria Steinem suggested that young women supporting Sanders were only doing so to chase boys (hooray, feminism), Madeline Albright said there's a "special place in hell" for women who don't help other women (she must've strongly supported Sarah Palin, right?), and accused rapist and serial harasser Bill Clinton scorched Sanders' supporters with charges of misogyny. The Clintons no doubt expected they'd be able to hold off on playing this card promiscuously and shamelessly until the general election, but desperate times call for desperate measures. When Hillary finally wheezes across the nomination finish line and begins turning this garbage against the Republican ticket, the GOP would be wise to remind voters over and over again that she used the same divisive tactics against a far-left member of her own party...and his supporters, many of them women.
(7) And it wouldn't be a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign without rumors and reports of a staff shake-up in the face of underwhelming results. Your thoughts, David Axelrod?
When the exact same problems crop up in separate campaigns, with different staff, at what point do the principals say, "Hey, maybe it's US?"
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 8, 2016
No worries, Clinton supporters. She'll eventually steal America's hearts with her breezy relatability and remarkably lifelike spontaneity: