By reaching out to Republicans – as the campaign did at the Democratic National Convention this week and will do in the coming days – Clinton’s team are also looking to shore up support with Democrats.
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Clinton is targeting areas like western Pennsylvania and eastern and central OH in particular, which Trump thinks will pave his path to victory even though no Republican presidential candidate has won Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988. “Now we’ve got to figure out: What do we do next?”
“We all should feel the Bern, and we should not get burned by the other guy”, Kaine said.
In Philadelphia, Clinton and Kaine, who were joined by their spouses, painted Trump as an economic danger to the nation. The duo vowed that their policies would would create jobs and raise wages as they cast Trump as a “You’re Fired” president.
Clinton is calling for the biggest investment in infrastructure jobs since President Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System, more green energy jobs and small business tax advantages.
“I am not satisfied with the status quo”. “It was so exciting but I have to tell you it was also kind of overwhelming”.
“I never expected to be here”, Kaine said before laying out the timeline of his political career. But Kaine recently told the Weekly Standard that he had not been informed of that change. “You know what, I don’t have to be so nice anymore”.
Kaine said “there’s still an bad lot of fix work” to be done on the economy, particularly with regard to job creation. He guffawed about his lack of sophistication and basically erupted into fits about about his love of America: “We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line!”
Over the nest 48 hours, Clinton and Kaine will continue on to cities like Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio, cramming in multiple rallies and retail stops each day. They pointed to K’NEX as a model company that honors the “Made in America” motto.
But it’s this number that has Clinton’s strategist seeing inroads with Republicans: 17% of Republican registered voters in CNN’s latest poll had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump and 23% of registered voters who identify as conservative said the same. And for the first time he encouraged his crowd’s anti-Clinton chants of “lock her up”. “I find it highly amusing that Donald Trump talks about ‘Make America Great Again.’ He doesn’t make a thing in America except bankruptcies”, Clinton said. Kaine voted to allow government funding of abortion providers, and he voted against legislation to require an abortionist to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state. The decision to campaign through this region right out of the Democratic convention sets up the Rust Belt to be one of the epicenters of the general election.
On Saturday, Clinton and Kaine will visit Johnstown Wire Technologies in Cambria county, Pennsylvania, before holding public rallies in Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio.
“It’s not so much that I’m on the ticket, it’s because of the stark choice that’s posed to Americans in this election”, she said.
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The convention speeches of Bill and Chelsea Clinton, and of Hillary Clinton herself, helped show her in a new light – as more personable, more relatable, Wolfe said.
