Armageddon (3 page)

This book is a manual on how the Republicans can resoundingly beat Hillary Clinton and win the 2016 election. It's a radical blueprint for winning that battle in an effective but unorthodox way. We have to stop playing by the old ground rules. We can't rely on tired strategies that worked in the past. They're obsolete and won't work anymore.

Barack Obama has changed America in such fundamental ways that we now need to revise our game plan and adapt to those elemental alterations in our body politic. We used to be one united country whose politics were dominated by an overriding consensus, but Obama has divided us into two armed camps glaring at each other across a no-man's land. Obama has all but eliminated the swing voter. You are either part of Obama's coalition—at its core a demographic grouping—or you are against him. If you are born black or Latino, if you are a single mother, LGBT, or under 35, you are part of the Obama Party. And now he seeks to make it the Hillary Party.

For 20 years, our politics have revolved around the pursuit of the swing voters. But it won't work today. There aren't enough of them. They've become an endangered species. Once our GOP candidates obsessively pursued moderate Republicans and conservative
Democrats, chasing down every last one and tempering their views to appeal to the center, but we cannot do that anymore. Instead, we have to win the same way Obama won: by drawing clear distinctions between the candidates and the issues, embracing what Reagan called “bold colors, not pale pastels.”

In this election, the bold colors are the urgent issues that are important to voters from both ends of the spectrum—the Progressives on the Left and the Conservatives on the Right. Surprisingly, they have a lot in common. After all, they both live in the same country. Anyone who looks around will inevitably come to the conclusion that our economy is broken and that we are in trouble. The Left and the Right both see the rapacious Wall Street bonus boys draining our wealth. They both decry trade deals that close our factories and throw our people out of work. The Left and the Right are worried about the government's intrusive surveillance. Both ends of the political spectrum agree that our schools are failing. So some of the highest priority issues for both the Left and the Right are the same.

Ralph Nader made the case for this potential affinity between the emerging political insurgencies from the Left and the Right in his most recent book,
Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.
Although Ralph Nader may be an unexpected source for conservative political strategy, his prescient point is that the real enemy of those on the Left and the Right who want dramatic change are not each other but the political and corporate establishment. As the change agents on the Left and the Right realize the potential of uniting against their common enemy, in what Nader calls “converging,” the potential for new voters expands.

So how do we beat Hillary? First, the tactics: The heavy stakes in this election require us to fight like a boxer, using both hands to deliver powerful jabs that cripple our opponent and, at the same time, provide a strong defense. So we need to develop a right jab and a left hook.

We need to use the right jab to deliver powerful jabs that rock Hillary and resonate with our party base. But we also need the left hook
to come around alongside the right jab to appeal to the Sanders voters and knock Hillary out. The right jab will pound out our core issues: the fight against terrorism, the need to restrict immigration, the importance of freeing our economy of taxes and regulations that stymie economic growth, and the urgent need to preserve private health care. Those are the issues that will drive our base to the polls. And Donald Trump is the one who will be able to bring back those who have stayed home in the past, numbed by cynicism into apathy.

But we need to battle with our left hook, too, to enlist our friends who supported Bernie Sanders in a common struggle to hold Wall Street accountable, end crony capitalism and corporate welfare, revise and junk one-sided trade deals that throw workers out of their jobs, and limit intrusive government surveillance of honest, good people. Most of the Sanders vote shares more than just ideology in common. They detest Hillary. These voters distrust her and see her as an essentially dishonest and as an opportunistic liar who will say anything to get elected and then do as she pleases. And Donald Trump will repeatedly reiterate the reasons for the rampant distrust of Hillary that she cannot conceivably overcome.

In an April 6, 2016, McClatchy/Marist survey, one-quarter of the respondents said they would never vote for Hillary in November. That's a lot of potential voters to join our cause. Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump offered a critique of the multiple trade agreements that Hillary has supported that fits perfectly into Sanders's criticism of income inequality. It is these deals, the Left and the Right know, that are driving down the middle class. We can unite with the Left in explaining how trade agreements that benefit the business establishments of both parties simultaneously impoverish American workers.

We also need to appeal to workers to split with their party dogma in favor of amnesty for illegal immigrants. In the elite Manhattan living rooms, the wealthy and those who Peggy Noonan calls the “protected” can talk about how we are a nation of immigrants, but the blue-collar mechanic who struggles with stagnant wages knows
that it is competition from illegal immigrants who are willing to work for almost nothing that binds him to a third-world level of compensation.

Those establishment liberals who dwell in the “bicoastal” global economy may rail against the old “trickle down” theory, but the insurgents on the Left and the Right grasp that quantitative easing (QE), flooding Wall Street banks with cash, is the ultimate in trickle-down economics. The Trump and Sanders voters all realized that when the Federal Reserve showered Wall Street banks with $3.7 trillion in cash, they were simply paying off their friends and feathering the nests to which they would flock when their government service ends. There was never a real chance that the money would filter down to small businesses struggling to stay afloat.

The Left insurgents also know that there are only two candidates who rejected Wall Street money because they did not want to be beholden to them: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Sanders will be gone, but his message about Hillary Clinton remains: Hillary is the darling of Wall Street, and those huge contributions come with a very long string attached. Donald Trump will continue that line of attack, pounding the message every day. And it will work. Because voters know that the candidate who has received the most direct campaign contributions from Wall Street folks is Hillary Clinton—in addition to more than $15 million they gave to her PACs.
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They get it that these donations were on top of the $3 million in Wall Street speaking fees in the first two years since she left office. And then there's Bill's $8 million from the big Wall Street banks.
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So there's lots of room for common ground. Let's find it and make it work to our advantage.

It's important to remember that Hillary Clinton is a deeply flawed candidate. And no one recognizes that like Donald Trump. Scandal follows her everywhere because she is corrupt and dishonest, and she believes, understandably, that she can get away with anything. After all, up until now, she has done just that. Like political acrobats, Hillary and Bill have successfully dodged scandal after scandal
ever since they entered public life. Not because they were innocent, but because a variety of circumstances made it impossible to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt
that they were guilty. After all, sometimes guilt or innocence hangs on what the definition of “is” is.

But we forget that almost every single scandal in the Bill Clinton White House was caused by Hillary: Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate, her amazing windfall in the commodities futures market, the Health Care Task Force's illegal secrecy, the household furniture and gifts taken from the White House to Chappaqua, Vince Foster's suicide, Webb Hubbell's disgrace—all Hillary scandals. Even many of the problems with Bill's women were seriously exacerbated by Hillary. When Paula Jones, who accused him of making sexual overtures, offered to settle her suit for no money, no apology, and no admission by Bill, Hillary wouldn't let him take the deal. Why not? Because Paula wanted Bill to say that he sent a trooper to invite her to his room. Even though the invitation could have been innocuous, Hillary was determined not to give credibility to an article in the right-wing
Spectator Magazine
that accused Bill of using troopers to arrange his illicit dates.

Bill, cowed, followed Hillary dictates, and the Jones suit went on and on. Ultimately, it led to his perjury, the revelation of the Lewinsky affair, his impeachment, his criminal misdemeanor conviction, his disbarment, and his disgrace. It also cost the Clintons almost $1 million. But Hillary was spared the embarrassment of an implication that Bill had cheated on her. The Clinton White House pardon scandal was largely Bill's doing, but Hillary played a role there too. The FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist group that bombed the Capital and Fraunces Tavern, killing four civilians, never even asked for a pardon of any sort and suddenly saw their sentences commuted.

Why? Because Hillary needed the Latino support for her New York senate race. Likewise, a Hasidic group successfully lobbied Hillary to get her husband to pardon key leaders in their community. He did—after she arranged a meeting with President Clinton for their supporters. And then, of course, her brothers were paid huge sums of
money to lobby the president to pardon their jailed clients, including one of the biggest crack dealers in the country. Again, Bill bowed to Hillary's wishes. Just as once all roads led to Rome, so all scandals lead to Hillary. And after the White House years, the scandals continued. Hillary's and Bill's speaking fees, the Benghazi cover-up, and her use of a private e-mail server all riveted our attention.

For decades, people have wondered about the Clinton marriage. Dick believes that it was a real romance that gradually became a marriage of convenience by two business partners. But who knew that it would become a RICO, a virtual racketeering organization? Bill ran around like a bag man collecting a staggering $221,139,516 in speaking and consulting fees that he deposited in his joint bank account with Hillary, while his wife, the secretary of state, reciprocated by doing favors for foreign governments. Do the Russians want to own 20% of the US uranium supply? Does the dictator of Kazakhstan want international approval? Does Dubai want to attract foreign investment? No problem. Just invite Bill to give a speech and, presto, you have Hillary's State Department working 24/7 for you—and even organizing an event at the State Department for the top 100 CEOs in America to meet the business community in the U.A.E.

What are friends for?

Bill and Hillary seem to have gotten away with it all. But did they? The constant drumbeat of scandal, caused by their addiction to skating right up to the line, has left a deep legacy of distrust and dislike by American voters. Hillary trumpets the fact that after all of the investigations, she has never actually been convicted of anything, or even indicted. But as Mark White, former governor of Texas, once told Dick about his predecessor John Connally, he “taught us all the difference between not guilty and innocent.” So have Bill and Hillary. If Hillary escapes indictment after the FBI investigation of her misuse of her e-mail at the State Department, will she learn her lesson, draw in her horns, and walk the straight and narrow? If you ask, you don't know Hillary.

The threat and fear of punishment is intended to deter the offender from repeating the prohibited conduct. But in Hillary's case, evading the punishment, once again, will have the opposite effect—it will embolden her. It will be the final vindication of her lifelong certainty that the rules don't apply to her, that by having a thick skin and, perhaps, no superego, she can make it through anything. The famous quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, “Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” has nothing to do with Hillary. Hillary is animated by a deep sense of entitlement. She feels herself to be so superior in morality to mere mortals that rules and laws don't bother her. They're for other people.

When Dick called Hillary in 1997 to report that he had heard that Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr was near to indicting her, she responded, “He wouldn't dare!” And she believes that. She's different; she's special. Nobody would dare try to make her accountable for her conduct. If she dodges another bullet, she will definitively know that she can get away with anything. Meanwhile, her credibility has taken a big hit. A Quinnipiac poll in the summer of 2015 found that 61% of the respondents felt that Hillary was not “honest and trustworthy,” while only 34% felt she was.

Hillary even lied about lying! Asked by CBS reporter Scott Pelley whether she always tells the truth to the American people, she pondered the question. “Mmmhmmm.” Finally she offered a strange response. It was not a yes or no. Instead, she said that she “does her best to level with the American people.” What the heck does that mean? You are either honest with people or not. There's no such thing as doing your best to be honest. It was vintage Hillary. You could almost see her brain whirling and her paranoia overtaking her. Does he have something on me? Is he going to trick me and get me to say yes, when he has proof of a lie? Time to play it safe and block any opportunity, so she left it with doing her best to be honest.

Message for Hillary: Your best isn't good enough.

When asked to explain why nearly two-thirds of Americans find her to be dishonest and untrustworthy, Hillary says it has nothing to do
with her and routinely blames it on the Republicans. Her rationale is that the Republicans have told such horrible lies about her for so long, that voters believe them. Let's hope so. But despite her decades of scandal, she is not in jail or even on her way. So will these attacks matter? Damn right they will. Each hit has taken a chunk out of her armor and made her more vulnerable and less believable. “Mmmhmmm.”