HILLARY CLINTON used flag-waving speeches in Florida and North Carolina this week, and a military-themed television forum in New York, to accuse her Republican rival, Donald Trump, of talking down the armed forces and failing to cherish the military alliances that underpin America’s global standing. Mrs Clinton’s hawkish instincts are sincere: several times as Secretary of State from 2009-13, she was readier to use force as a tool of geopolitics than was her boss, Barack Obama.
But politics also explains her focus on whether Mr Trump has the temperament to be commander-in-chief. Recent opinion poll averages have tightened, suggesting that Mrs Clinton has lost as much as half of the roughly eight-point lead that she opened up after the national conventions in July, and that a fifth of voters are undecided, essentially because they dislike both candidates. With millions of Republicans, notably those with college educations, expressing distaste for Mr Trump, the Democrats have much to gain from casting the property developer as a menace to America and the world.
A speech in Tampa was billed by the Clinton campaign as making a case that their nominee knows how to...Continue reading
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