This week, Hiliary Clinton made history in the United States of America. She became the first woman to secure the nomination for a major political party to run for the post of President in that country.
Clinton’s success did not come easy and came after a long fight with her party comrade Bernie Sanders at the level of the primaries.
Her triumph also came against the backdrop of an unprecedented wave of attacks on her integrity, trustworthiness and overall political background.
Before clinching the Democratic nomination, Clinton also had to deal with reoccurring scandals associated with her husband’s Presidency and discontent in part with some policy positions she articulated while serving as US Secretary of State and President Barack Obama’s Chief Advisor.
In short, Clinton faced attacks from many organisations and politicians because she was a woman and viewed as weak and subordinate to her male political counterparts, and because of her past perceived transgressions while serving at various levels of Government.
In the end, she emerged victorious and appeared to put all of those criticisms aside for the time being to turn her attention to becoming the US’ first Woman President.
It must be noted that while President Obama’s endorsement of Clinton’s bid to become President is solid, it will not help her secure the votes she needs to block a highly popular Donald Trump from outperforming her in the States that matter in November.
Clinton needs to do more at this point to reach out to Sanders as his full endorsement of her will fully unite the Democrats and keep them in the White House. Sanders has the critical support that Clinton needs and should be made her running mate.
Also, Clinton needs to strengthen her political rhetoric and focus more on explaining her policy positions on key issues that are of concern to the American electorate. These include revamping and expanding key health laws, improving social security, reducing unemployment, strengthening Immigration laws, dealing with measures to boost the country’s sluggish economy and reforming Obamas foreign policy agenda while addressing the interests of America’s private Sector.
So far Clinton has been soft on Trump and her campaign has been weak at painting him as incompetent, and unfit for the Presidency. The current spate of ads need to be reworked to expose the craziness behind Trumpism while constantly reminding Americans that Trump is power drunk and no different from Adolph Hilter in some respects because he believes that Americans especially pure Whites are superior to other races and creeds of people.
She also needs quickly to become more open and transparent with the media making more time to hold press conferences and engagements with the hope of setting their agenda and the public’s agenda by extension.
Clinton has to demonstrate that she has the testicular ability to ramp with Trump and must take some hard shots at him using his own unconventional political dialogue with fully descending into the proverbial trenches.
If she wants to win over the millions of Republicans who are dissatisfied with Trumps nomination then Clinton must also campaign not only as a Democrat but a person who will respect Republicanism and their viewpoint on important issues.
The next few months will prove intriguing and Clinton may burn out if she does not focus herself on image management and appearing more grassroots oriented. She needs to define how her Presidency will differ from Obama and what aspects of his legacy will be happy to continue while going after the youth votes.
These elections this time round while impact the world agenda and the health of US and Middle East Relations, Us and Latin American relations and US and Asian relations.
It will also send a signal to developing and under developed countries about the pysche of the American people and their outlook on domestic as well as international affairs.
For Guyana, these elections are also important because while ruling democrat Governments have been more sympathetic to our needs and challenges, history would show the opposite for many Republican Governments.
We also a large number of Guyanese residing illegally and legally abroad and if Trump wins…his immigration laws could lead to increased levels of deportation and a further decline in remittances and foreign direct investments from the US.
Trump cannot and must not become the next US President. Hiliary must do all that is possible to ensure that his success and winning streak ends in November.
