Clinton piles on...

Clinton piles on Trump

The effort to define the presumptive GOP nominee is in overdrive.

By Gabriel Debenedetti

In presidential politics, the spoils go to the candidates who define their opponents first. That’s why Hillary Clinton's effort to define Donald Trump is now in overdrive.

Taking dead aim at her Republican rival for the second time this month in a policy speech, the presumptive Democratic nominee swung hard at Trump’s economic record on Tuesday afternoon while some of her highest-profile surrogates ratcheted up their own attacks in stereo.

The timing was as notable as the forcefulness of her criticism: It came while Trump was plainly reeling from a series of self-imposed campaign mishaps.

Clinton’s assault came just hours after Trump disclosed that he had far less cash on hand than any other modern presidential campaign to this point, and one day after he fired his controversial campaign manager. It will be capped by an even broader attempt to lock in her advantage: a still-growing series of ad buys adding up to at least $50 million from the campaign and super PAC, designed to blanket battleground state airwaves for weeks before Trump can afford a response.

“There’s a natural window to communicate in late spring before people tune out for the summer, and presidential [campaigns] have to lay their message groundwork in that limited time,” said David Cohen, a leading member of Barack Obama’s field team in 2008. “But there’s a confluence of events that heighten the opportunity for the Clinton camp: Trump squandered his moment right after he clinched [the GOP nomination], the party is in turmoil so he’s seriously lacking allies, he’s got no general election message and can’t seem to even do message basics, organizationally he’s months behind in building battleground state infrastructure, and the latest finance reports are devastating.”

“Meanwhile,” Cohen noted, “the Clinton team has spent a year building infrastructure to capture every opportunity. They were already going to start pushing their general election message at this point, but now they’re able to really press their advantage aggressively."

Flanked on Tuesday by blue banners trumpeting her new "Stronger Together" campaign slogan, Clinton drew a direct parallel to the early June address in San Diego when she ripped into Trump’s fitness to be commander in chief.

“A few weeks ago, I said his foreign policy proposals and reckless statements represent a danger to our national security. But you might think that because he has spent his life as a businessman he would be better prepared to handle the economy,” she said.

“Well, it turns out he’s dangerous there, too,” she continued, insisting that her Trump critique went beyond typical partisan concerns with Republicans’ economics. “Just like he shouldn’t have his finger on the button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy."

Clinton later alluded to a Monday report from Moody’s Analytics that predicted a recession if Trump’s economic proposals were enacted while laying into his own business record: “He’s written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at Chapter 11. Go figure."

Deep into the speech, she dove into Trump’s refusal to disclose his tax returns, speculating that he’s either not as wealthy as he says he is, that he's giving less to charity than he says, or that he’s not paying any taxes at all — a line of reasoning that directly echoed a video published by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the liberal hero and newly minted Clinton endorser, for MoveOn.org just hours earlier.

“It is hard to talk about Donald Trump,” Warren said in the video, shortly before sending her first fundraising email for Clinton’s camp. “Between his ignorance, his racism, his sexism, his lies, it is actually hard to know where to start."

The Wall Street antagonist, frequently mentioned as a vice presidential contender, represented just one plank of the Clinton surrogates’ attacks on Trump’s economic platform. Helping introduce Clinton on Tuesday in Columbus, former Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, currently a Senate candidate, said Trump “is not qualified to lead a parade."

Back in Washington another Ohioan — Sen. Sherrod Brown, also on the vice presidential watchlist — unleashed an unexpected Trump broadside of his own, inveighing against him at a Federal Reserve hearing as a “factory of bad ideas.”

“If your own very good brain is your top consultant, I suppose the unanimous opinion of a diverse group of economists does not count for much,” Brown said of Trump’s wish to return to the gold standard. “For those of us in the evidence-based world, the prospect of this nominee trading imagined for real authority gives added significance to what we do in Congress."

The partywide anti-Trump barrage, coming after a weekend-long show of organizing force as the Clinton campaign sought to register and mobilize voters in the swing states — contrasting with Trump’s much smaller field program — was met with an uncharacteristically regimented response from Trump.

The Republican not only sent out his first wide-circulation small-dollar fundraising email and rescheduled a long-anticipated anti-Clinton speech for Wednesday, but he also inaugurated his campaign’s rapid-response operation, unleashing a flurry of emails and coordinated tweets during Clinton’s speech like he never has before.

For Trump, the fight was on friendly terrain — on the economic issue, he frequently leads or ties Clinton in nationwide polling. But for the Clinton campaign, it was an opportunity to try to push his negative ratings as high as possible before he fully professionalizes his communications team, as some expect him to do now under a new campaign leader.

Sentiment “is definitely shifting, and it’s going to take time, it’s going to take the commercials, her doing the grass-top messaging, and the surrogates going out into labor union halls and other places to really try to get the message out at different levels,” said Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a Clinton supporter who’s campaigned with her in the swing state. "When you peel the onion back, he’s not for them, and that’s what’s getting out. He’s going to have a rough time wiggling out of that."