Hillary ad: GOP ‘backward’, ‘dangerous’

By Dan Merica

CNN

Hillary Clinton is taking the message she brought to New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada last week — that she is the only candidate standing between Republicans and the White House — to the airwaves in the early primary states.

“They’re backward. Even dangerous,” a narrator says after several candidates, including GOP front-runner and Clinton rival Donald Trump, make comments about bombing ISIS and repealing Obamacare. “So ask yourself: Who’s the one cannot who can stop them?”

The ad then cuts to video of Clinton at her 11-hour Benghazi testimony and on the campaign trail.

“Hillary Clinton: tested and tough,” says the narrator. “To stop them, stand with her.”

The Republican National Committee quickly criticized Clinton over the ad.

“Under President Obama, we’ve become less prosperous, less safe, and less free, but incredibly, Hillary Clinton wants to not only double down but expand on this legacy of failure,” RNC spokesman Michael Short told CNN.

The ad, which Clinton aides say will become part of the campaign’s rotation of spots airing in Iowa and New Hampshire, fits with the Clinton campaign new preferred message: Hillary Clinton is the most electable Democrat.

“Let me ask you all to think hard about this job that you’re interviewing for,” Clinton told an audience in Council Bluffs, Iowa on Tuesday. “Think hard about the people who are presenting themselves to you, their experience, their qualifications, their positions. And particularly for those of us who are Democrats, their electability. And how we make sure we have a Democrat going back into that White House on January 20, 2017.”

The new line of attack is double-sided for the Clinton campaign: While hitting Republicans, they are also casting Bernie Sanders, her main Democratic opponent, as unelectable.

The Sanders campaign has been fighting against this narrative, blasting reporters daily with polls that show Sanders faring better than Clinton in a general election against Trump.