Saturday, October 22, 2016
YOUNGSTOWN
Voters are attracted to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump because he makes “over-the-top promises,” but are learning he can’t deliver on them, said Jake Sullivan, senior policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
“The big part of the dynamic that’s been played out is people were attracted to Trump because of the big promises he was making, and people have become turned off by Trump as they come to realize that he’s got a poor track record where he comes out OK and everyone else basically gets stiffed,” Sullivan said Friday in an exclusive interview with The Vindicator.
Trump has “a simple message, but that message is basically built on quicksand,” he said. “Hillary Clinton has a message that is much more based on substance, which isn’t always the easiest thing to convey in a presidential campaign. But people have actually started really tuning in and recognizing the policies she’s putting forward are policies that will make a difference in their lives.
“That’s why I’m confident sitting here today that we stand a very good chance of carrying Ohio.”
When asked if Clinton can win the presidency without Ohio, Sullivan said there are paths to victory without the state, but she is campaigning hard here to win, including a Friday stop in Cleveland.
Several of Sullivan’s emails are part of the hacked emails of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, published on WikiLeaks’ website.
“My human response to that from someone who’s had many, many emails put out in public is [similar to] anyone who has [had] their private emails dumped publicly,” he said. “There is no other way to put it other than it stinks, not because of the substance; it’s just [that] any of us would not want that to happen.”
But, he said, from the campaign end, “a fair-minded person looking at the totality of those emails would have to say, ‘Yup, that’s Hillary Clinton. That’s what we expected.’ She has a team of people who think through issues, work through things.
“There’s nothing untoward. There’s no smoking gun. There’s nothing like that, so I think the body of the emails actually reflect pretty well on her.”
Despite the intelligence community’s concluding Russia is behind the hacking, “... Donald Trump continues to say, ‘I don’t know who did this,’” Sullivan said.
“Of all the things about Trump, this is one of the most alarming,” he added.