During an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Washington Post reporter Ed O’Keefe argued that Hillary Clinton’s decision to compare Republicans with terrorists on the issue of women’s issues was a sign of weakness coming from her presidential campaign.
O’Keefe suggested that Clinton’s comments were meant to “solidify the Democratic base and sort of remind that she's willing to be that partisan warrior that they're seeking...But I saw that sort of as a sign of desperation or at least an attempt to sort of tamper down the idea that others are surging or that they're going to get in.”
The Post reporter noted that Republicans saw a double standard “about the way she was talking about them versus some of the things that they’ve said about her in the past” and the lack of outrage over Clinton's comments before he expressed dismay at Hillary's newest campaign strategy:
This idea that she's focused on superdelegates, remember this from eight years ago, it just sort of reminds me of a student council race because idea that a certain percentage of superdelegates are telling her yeah, we're with you. Well, that’s like you telling your classmate you're going to vote for him when really you're going to go vote for the cute girl down the hall. It's just silly--
Earlier in the segment, Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, described Hillary’s efforts to repackage her campaign as going “slowly” and how there is a stark contrast between her hidden candidacy and Donald Trump's very public campaign:
If this in fact is the summer of Trump I think what we're seeing is a juxtaposition between someone who is hyper accessible, who is using the media, belittling the media at the same time, Donald Trump, and someone who is still perceived to be and still actually hiding in a really, really sustained way which is Hillary Clinton.
See relevant transcript below.
CBS’s Face the Nation
August 31, 2015
JOHN DICKERSON: Mark, the Washington Post has a headline that says “Summer of Clinton stumbles gives way to an uncertain fall for Democrats.” The last time you were here you had written about Hillary Clinton's attempt to resell herself, introduce herself again. It’s now been couple of weeks since that’s happened. How is the repackaging going for her?
MARK LEIBOVICH: I'd say slowly, I mean absolutely. If this in fact is the summer of Trump I think what we're seeing is a juxtaposition between someone who is hyper accessible, who is using the media, belittling the media at the same time, Donald Trump, and someone who is still perceived to be and still actually hiding in a really, really sustained way which is Hillary Clinton.
DICKERSON: Ed, she is coming out of that hiding a little bit in taking on some of the Republicans, she’s gone after Jeb Bush, who you spent a lot of time with. A few times she even made a comparison between terrorists and the way they treat women with the way Republicans did. What do you think she's up to there?
ED O’KEEFE: I think she's trying solidify the Democratic base and sort of remind that she's willing to be that partisan warrior that they're seeking. It certainly rattled Republicans, and I think they're a little concerned that there was perhaps a double standard this week about the way she was talking about them versus some of the things that they’ve said about her in the past.
But I saw that sort of as a sign of desperation or at least an attempt to sort of tamper down the idea that others are surging or that they're going to get in. This idea that she's focused on superdelegates, remember this from eight years ago, it just sort of reminds me of a student council race because idea that a certain percentage of superdelegates are telling her yeah, we're with you. Well, that’s like you telling your classmate you're going to vote for him when really you're going to go vote for the cute girl down the hall. It's just silly when it seems --
