Hillary Clinton brought up just about every one of her opponent's controversies from the past year at her rally in Dade City, Florida on Monday. Instead of focusing largely on her own policies and plans for the nation, the Democratic nominee reminded her supporters (via a lot of screaming into the microphone) of all the times Donald Trump has disrespected women.
"He sure has spent a lot of time demeaning, degrading and assaulting women. ... I would rather be here talking about nearly anything else," Clinton said at a rally in Dade City, Florida. "A lot of his supporters don't like to hear this. I don't blame them. If I were supporting him, I wouldn't want to hear it either."
So much for exercising Michelle Obama's "they go low, we go high" mantra.
To really drive the point home, Clinton had former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado introduce her at the event. Machado and Trump got into a very public fight in September when she accused him of calling her "Miss Piggy" after she gained weight after winning the pageant crown. Trump felt the need to respond by unleashing a torrent of nasty tweets against her. The optics of that decision, as you can imagine, were not great.
Yet, Clinton's decision to bring Machado back into the spotlight four weeks after her public feud with Trump suggests one thing: desperation. Clinton is clearly doing all she can to deflect attention from the FBI's renewed investigation into her emails.
That's not just my opinion.
.@hillaryclinton is shouting again at her campaign rallies. Just listen. Confident people don't yell.
— Tim Wenger (@TimWBEN) November 2, 2016
Hillary sounds very nervous and desperate right now. I think she's panicking.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) November 1, 2016
Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer noted that Clinton has "nothing left in the tank." She's "drowning."
To the relief of Trump's supporters, he has not taken the bait. Instead of lashing out at Clinton and getting into another unnecessary tussle with Machado, he has practiced restraint and stayed on message regarding his hopes for the country - such as his plan to scrap and replace Obamacare.
Clinton's attacks do not appear to be working. A new ABC News poll reveals that Clinton has lost her commanding lead in the days following the shocking FBI announcement. Trump is now ahead by one point.
As for his standing with women, he has managed to narrow the (still major) gap, improving with women by 5 points in the past week.