Hillary Springs a Diversion

Hillary Clinton was playing distraction politics when she likened Republican presidential candidates to terrorists, Democratic pollster Pat Caddell said Friday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

Speaking to guest host Raymond Arroyo, Caddell said Clinton is eager to throw attention off of the criminal investigation into her use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. That explains why she told an audience in Cleveland on Thursday that — regarding abortion — “extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups,” Caddell said.

“She’s trying to do anything she can to distract,” he said. “It worked yesterday, I guess, if you think that’s a positive strategy.”

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Caddell dismissed notions that it is too late in the campaign season for Vice President Joe Biden to mount a credible challenge to Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. He called Clinton’s difficulties a “metastasizing cancer,” and pointed to the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as a sign of the front-runner’s problems.

“The problem is, he’s a socialist. He’s not even a Democrat,” he said. “They’re not going to nominate him. So they got to have somebody.”

Despite low ratings from voters on honesty and trustworthiness, Clinton remains popular among likely Democratic primary voters. That will change, Caddell predicted.

“It will begin to . . . affect more and more Democrats,” he said.

The Beltway consultants do not have a clue, he added. “They don’t understand … the ‘stupid people,’ as they call them.”

On the phenomenon of Donald Trump — who has led nearly every public opinion poll in the Republican primary for almost two months — Caddell said the last time he saw something similar in American politics was in the spring of 1992, when Texas billionaire Ross Perot dominated the political debate for a time.

Perot led some polls as an independent candidate for president that year. He dropped out and then re-entered the race, finishing with 19 percent of the vote.

“That was another time of discontent, but nothing like this one,” Caddell said.

Caddell said Trump’s standing is a sign of how disillusioned the American public is. And the Beltway consultants do not have a clue, he added.

“They don’t understand, out there, the (average) people they really despise — the ‘stupid people,’ as they call them,” he said.