Now that Donald Trump has nailed his manifesto to the door and defined the election in stark and certain terms, Hillary Clinton gets her chance. But unless she suddenly finds a backbone, look for her to deliver a muddled list of Democratic nostrums that satisfies no one.
To compensate for her wishy-washy, flippy-floppy untruthiness, Clinton has loaded her lineup of convention speakers with political sluggers. As such, she seems determined to test the proposition that you can never have too much of a good thing.
But you can, if it means the star of the show gets lost in the crowd and her message looks like a puréed compromise of others’ convictions.
That’s the risk Clinton takes by featuring President Obama and Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Her husband’s star power is diminishing and the others resemble a reunion of rivals rather than a supporting cast.
A test will come in her acceptance speech Thursday night. She must finally articulate a rationale for why she should be president and demonstrate that she is leading the party, and not the other way around.
It’s weird enough to make you feel sorry for poor Hillary. Well, almost.
She earned her predicament. Having failed to establish a rationale for her campaign beyond a sense of entitlement and inevitability, she is acting like a European-style parliamentary candidate hoping to be selected prime minister by her party instead of an American presidential candidate appealing directly to voters.
To continue reading Michael Goodwin's column in the New York Post, click here.
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